Signs of Spring - Airport Parking Edition

Spring has sprung in Nashville and the trees are just beautiful!

Best Bumper Sticker

Spotted on the way back to Liz's from dropping off Erin at the airport.

Girl's Weekend

Last year began our yearly tradition of Erin, Liz and I trying to spend some girl time together since we all live so far apart.  Year 1 was San Diego last March.  We even let Rachel come last year but this year it was just Erin, Liz and me.  We had to find our perfect shirts for picture day per Erin's request.  I think we got some great pictures and had a great lazy weekend just catching up! Where will year 3 take us? 

Can I borrow your bundt... pan?

Last week, Jon requested the use of my bundt pan to bake a birthday cake for a friend.  I requested a mini cake of my own.  We used my ramekins and made our own desserts with the same recipe we used for Emily's birthday cake.

 

Music City's Finest Nights

We go out quite frequently.  And more time than not, when we go out the camera comes out with us.  Just a few random shots from a few random nights.  I'm really not happy with this page and might tweek it or put some back grounds on a couple pictures because it seems a little bland to me.  We'll see.

A Lookback at Fall

I'm really loving spring time finally getting here but this layout celebrates what fall is like in my mind.  My parents and brother came in and we all went to LP Field for a Titans game.   Earlier and that month, Darren took me to witness the crazy rivalry of Michigan and Ohio State up in the Big House.  What an awesome experience.  So much difference from your typical Vandy game! :)

Halloween '09

Halloween 2009 was celebrated up in Ann Arbor.  Darren and I both decided to be pirates.  I'm really diggin' the black/orange/purple Halloween theme. :) Arghh Matey!

Genealogy

A couple years ago I became interested in my family's genealogy.  Maybe it was because there are getting to be fewer and fewer older people in my family who remember it, I felt the need to document things before that information is lost.  This weekend Grannie and I sat down with a few boxes of old pictures.  Here are some of the highlights of what I found.

Grannie and my grandfather, James Thurman Carroll, who died 55 years ago back around the time they got married.

This is Grannie's mother Hallie Freeman DeGeorge and her father Frank DeGeorge, so my great grandmother and grandfater.

 

And them together with Grannie and my grandfather while holding my aunt Kathy.

This is my great great grandmother Josephine Ferguson Freeman.

 This is Grannie right after she was born with her sister Francis Lucille.

This is my great grandmother with Hallie standing in front of the store owned by my great grandfather.  They actually met because she was his employee at the store.

This is my grandfather James Thurman Carroll with his mother Vernia Lillian Krantz Carroll.

These last two pictures we believe are from Italy.  The first is my great grandfather's brother Sam DeGeorge (DiGiorgio) and sister-in-law Rosa Tamburo DeGeorge (DiGiorgio).  The second is at the wedding of my great grandfather's brother John DeGeorge (DiGiorgio) to Clara St. Charles DeGeorge (DiGiorgio).

Lastly I found the bills from the hospital that Grannie kept when she had my mom, and aunts Kathy and Joy.  Just to show you how much medical bills have increased, it cost $60.95 at the hospital when my mom was born.  Isn't that insane!!

Family Reunion

Also this last weekend was the Cohoon family reunion. The Cohoon's are the family of my step-grandfather, my uncle Frank and aunt Alice.  Here are a few pics from the day.

Thomas and his girlfriend Sarah.

My cousins Meagan, Kristi, Whitnie, Lindsey with an unidentified little girl.

Me with David who refused to smile for all pictures.

Beth and Thomas.

Beth with Emily.

Mom, caught in a semi-blink, and Kathy.

Em's Birthday

On Friday night, we went out for Emily's birthday at Urban Flats.  The food was super tasty and the company couldn't have been better.  Here is the birthday girl (and her beer!) with Jon.

The whole group: Sarah, me, Jen, Emily, Jon and Joan.

Emily with her birthday cake.  I made the same one I made back in September for Jen's Birthday.  Such a good recipe!

 

And Jen's new Facebook profile picture. ;)

High in the Sky

This greeted me as I approached Cool Springs this morning.  It ended up flying almost right overhead.  One day I will get to ride on one!  Happy Friday, all.

Happy Birthday Foxy!

Foxy, I wish you the greatest 29th birthday any girl could ever ask for!  Can't wait for your birthday party tomorrow night!!

March Madness

I think mid-March is my favorite time of year.  Spring is starting to appear in Nashville and skirt weather is now here.  There is also this things called March Madness that gets my blood pumping!

I will be rooting hard for my 'Dores today, my Alma Mater, vs the Murray State Racers, my mom, aunt and uncle's Alma Mater.

 
I've made one of the obvious choices in picking Kentucky to win over Kansas but I really almost went with Kansas pulling it off in the final game.  The rest of my final four is Pittsburgh and Duke.  'Dores, you had better bring it today!!!

Coming Soon

These are my girls!!  I've known these two for almost as long as I can remember.  Liz joined me on my first day of all-day kindergarten in 1986 and Erin moved into our school at the beginning of 3rd in 1989.  I haven't seen Erin since New Years and Liz since last March and we are Phoenix bound for a girl's weekend at the end of the month!  Can't wait! ;) 

Anderson-Dockter Wedding

Last October, Darren and I went to Heidi Anderson's Wedding.  She is one of my oldest friends who I've know since we were Brownies in 2nd grade.  Here are the pages remember her beautiful wedding.

Viva - I'm missing Las Vegas

Remember my luck on the penny and nickel slots last time I was in Vegas?  I just hope next time I'm at a casino, I can rock it as much as I did this time.  That $221.85 win ticket is looking mighty nice!  Darren and I had a great first time in Vegas!

Baby sitting by Miss Stephanie

On Friday, my coworker Jayna was in desperate need of a baby sitter and fortunately for her I was in desperate need of some cookie baking.  She dropped her kids R, age 8 and L, age 6 off about 6pm.  After a dinner of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese we busted out the mixer.  R asked for cooking lessons for Christmas so I let her be in charge of reading the recipe and  directing.  They took turns measuring flour and sugar and vanilla.

About the time of this picture is when R turned on the mixer and a HUGE cloud of flour erupted.

Here L is adding the brown sugar.  She thought it was SO cool that the recipe had both white and brown sugar in it.  They both got a kick out of packing the sugar and L love how it maintained its shape that she could pick it up.

Silly L, thought it was fun to eat the flour!  Notice how much is on her clothes too!  She kept saying that her mommy and daddy would NEVER let them make such a mess in the kitchen.  It was a mess but it was totally worth it seeing how much fun they had!

We finally got the cookies mixed up and L, like any kid (who am I kidding, any adult too) was so excited to lick the beater!

The cookies were so sticky we kept having to put the dough in the freezer and then lots of flour so they wouldn't stick to the cookie cutters!  Here is R meticulously cutting out her cookies.

L was sometimes more interested in eating the dough, the flour and the icing instead of making cookies! ;)

R focusing on her icing trying to make her cookies look just perfect.

L focusing on icing her "Sherlock" which when translated out of 6 year old speak is a Shamrock!

All in all I had a lot of fun and I think the girls did too.  On Monday they had a day off and requested to go to Miss Stephanie's house again!