Goodbye Inez

After a weekend of severe declining health, we had to say goodbye to Inez this morning. She was in pain and it was the right thing to do, but I have still cried all morning. Normally, she is anti-social and terrified of anyone other than family--but she purred throughout the entire vet visit.  Will said it was because she was ready and she was thanking me for 13 years of love and spoiling.
I am thankful that I had my fur baby for so long and appreciate how she made our family happier.

After she passed on, a rainbow came out--made us cry even harder-- but a lovely way to remember the day.

Thanksgiving 2011

We are very fortunate that our immediate families live close together.  We were able to have Thanksgiving lunch with the Linthicum side of the family and then have dinner with the Wright side.

Spencer's Pumpkin Pie was a  highlight of this year's dinner. I gave him a recipe and laid all his tools and ingredients on the counter and he had follow the directions and make the entire pie by himself.  He did, and it was very yummy!

The rest of the weekend was dedicated to decorating and shopping.Will camped out all night for a Black Friday deal on a new TV for our bedroom.
Not only do we have a big tree in our living room, but we also have a small tree upstairs in the hallway and a full sized tree in the game room full of "house divided" ornaments.  To give some neutral ornaments to the State/Carolina House Divided tree, we made Shrinky Dink ornaments together-- It was awesome!

Whine and Design

Tonight, Pam, Lesley and I went to a Wine and Design class.  It was supposed to "uncork our creativity"... yeah how about that.
The evening started out with a fantastic dinner at Southern Roots where I had the best roasted okra of my life.
Next, the painting class started and we enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine. Then we started painting blue skies and making Bob Ross jokes. Happy and having fun.
Then we had to paint in some clouds.  Sounds easy, right?  Uhhmmm...no.  We ended up with white turds messing up our pretty blue sky.  And painting in those waves? Fuggedabout it! It was all downhill from there.  We ended up laughing A LOT and lowering our expectations to the point where we actually walked out of  the place holding the pictures we had previously decided to bury in the backyard.

A weekend in Savannah

We got up early on Friday, 11-11-11, and headed to Savannah.  We had beautiful weather and even remembered to make a wish at 11:11 a.m.  We met up with Doug and Val at the Marriott Fairfield Inn then headed to the Riverfront for dinner.

 After a delicious dinner at Rocks at the Riverfront at the Bohemian Hotel, we walked along the River and enjoyed the sites, shopping and memorials.
Then we were ready for our Ghosts and Gravestones tour. I researched to find us the best tour and all I can say is people need to be ashamed for lying on the review sections of these websites. This tour was a colossal waste of money and the most boring thing we did all weekend.  Our tour guide had trouble delivering her "script" and even messed up a few stories. She sounded like a bad actress and in no way provided the thrill of storytelling we have experienced in the past with other tours. The trolley left the plastic blinds down the entire time--which were scratched and blurry.  We couldn't see anything!  When they would pull up to a house to tell a story-- 99% of the time there was ANOTHER trolley or bus in front of the building obstructing our view.  I have never been so pissed at spending $60!

Later that evening, we returned to the hotel and had some nightcaps. Somewhere around midnight, we finally pulled down the covers and there was a huge turd in our bed. Yeah, you read that right-- a freaking piece of doodie.  We were both grossed out and gagging.  Will (bless his heart) inspected it to see if it was a melted chocolate bar.
It.  Was.  Not.
He used tissues and picked up the nasty steamer and flushed it, leaving a big ol' Shitler's Mustache on the sheets.  I called down to the front desk--and guess what--- they didn't have ANYONE from housekeeping there that night.  I was instructed to take the sheets to the front desk and they would give us clean sheets.
Will took the sheets down as I wondered if we should have used our 11/11/11 at 11:11 wish on poop-free linens.  Will brought up clean linens and said the front desk said to talk to the manager the next morning.  So we made our bed and laughed about the "lin-cident." And we made "crappy" jokes about making a "stink" with the manager about the "sheety" service a soon as he was on "duty" ...  If you can't laugh about things like this, then it will ruin your vacation...

The manager apologized and comped one night. I was going to be very mature about talking with him, then he walked up and introduced himself as the "manager on duty"....sigh.

We spent Saturday morning with a fantastic tour of downtown Savannah and then stopped at the Riverfront for lunch at Spanky's.

 We spent the rest of the day/evening at the City Market shopping, touring and had apps/drinks while watching the Alabama football game and listening to a decent cover band. It was a wonderfully relaxing night out!

We returned to the hotel late Saturday night and luckily, we had clean linens. Sunday morning, we left for Tybee Island.  Our first stop was the lighthouse. This lighthouse was not as impressive as the NC Lighthouses and we decided not to do the tour because of the mean and nasty woman working there yelling at everyone.  I bet as soon as we left she amused herself by tripping blind kids or something.  We are glad we can check this off as "been there seen that" but we will never go back.

After we left the witches lair lighthouse, we went to Fort Pulaski and enjoyed seeing the history, memorials and beautiful landscaping.

We closed out our vacation with a big lunch at Uncle Bubba's (Paula Deen's brother).  We nearly wobbled out swearing we won't eat again for 2 months. We hugged goodbye and made our way back through the city to begin our trip home.

Reading this post, I feel like did too much bitchin about the Ghost Tour, the Dirty Sanchez sheets and the heifer at the lighthouse. That was only three mehs in a weekend of wows.  It was a FANTASTIC vacation filled with fun, awesome weather, so many laughs my sides were sore, good drinks, shopping and hanging out with wonderful friends. We can't wait to plan our next adventure together.

P.S  OOH!! check out our souvenirs and goodies!

Spencer's Wild Ride

Before I give a blog update about our WONDERFUL vacation in Savannah with Val and Doug, let me first update what happened when we came home Sunday night.
We got home and put Spencer to bed--a few hours later Spencer woke up SCREAMING in pain.  He could not be calmed down.  We immediately went to High Point Regional Hospital and he was evaluated, pumped full of morphine and nausea medications--then sent for a CT scan.  The scan showed infection and an enlarged appendix.  The physician there arranged for a transfer to Brenner's Children Hospital at Baptist in Winston Salem and prep for surgery.
With all pediatric surgery referrals, a second opinion is required.  The second opinion said his scans and labs were not 100% conclusive so a third opinion--a head honcho whom everyone there was very impressed with-- was called in.  This "God of Surgeons" said it was NOT an enlarged and infected appendix but an intestinal disorder.  Intestinal infection and spasms can be treated and do NOT require a surgical intervention.  We are Very Happy about that---but I was pissed to be told at one ER that he had appendicitis and be transferred for surgery only to be told it was a more "vague" diagnosis.
The important end result is that Spencer isn't in pain anymore and is no longer so sick he can't stand up.
As I write this, he is snacking on a pomegranate and considering a little XBOX playtime-- so yeah, he is better :-)
He will follow up with his pediatrician in a few days and they will decide how to manage his current medications/antibiotic changes.  He should be back to normal in a day!

Halloween Weekend

We started our Halloween weekend with dinner at Carraba's with Jimmy, Melissa, Dana, Jason and the kids. We celebrated Jordan's birthday and then went to Proehlific Park for his big party. The kids had a blast!

Saturday we had soccer and then decorated the house for our Tastefully Simple Halloween party on Sunday.

The party was fun-- it might be a new tradition for us.  Well that was the TREAT portion of the weekend.  Now for the TRICK.  As soon as the party was over, we both crashed-- thinking we were just tired from all the cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc.  But in the wee hours of Monday morning....the stomach flu hit.
IT.  WAS.  HORRIBLE.  Nothing says "the honeymoon is over" quite like sharing a stomach flu...

But how sweet is it that my NC State guy is all curled up with a UNC blanket??? haha  Yep-- this will be my desktop background throughout basketball season AND next week's State/Carolina football game!

The stomach flu was so bad that we TOTALLY missed Halloween.  Luckily my Dad took Spencer to Fall Festival/Trick or Treating-- but it broke my heart to miss this with him.  I couldn't even finish his costume.  He was going as a beat up Soccer Referee--wanted a black eye and a fake cut on his cheek---but I couldn't do his face paint.  He still looked adorable though.

So..... hello November---and as I flipped the calendar over it dawned on me we have 54 days until Christmas!