My parents were here for the holidays (which I plan to recap later this week), and they took Amelia back with them on Friday. For the first 48 hours or so after they left, Darryl and I basically rested on the couch, napped, read, watched TV, napped some more, went out for a bit only to return shortly to rest some more -- in other words, we were SPENT.
(Quick note: On one of our brief excursions out of the house, we saw Saving Mr. Banks. Excellent movie. See it.)
I told Darryl that the past few weeks had been exhausting and that I just needed to catch up on some rest. Darryl responded with, "Really, this whole year has been exhausting."
And he was right. This year HAS been exhausting.
2013 has not been a "bad" year by any means, but we do feel as though it has been a bit of a roller coaster. A non-stop roller coaster.
--Darryl traveled A LOT for work this year, more than he ever has before. That in itself has been tiring for him, but it has been tiring for me as well as I juggled a few more responsibilities at home while he was gone.
--We began the year believing we were making a move back to Atlanta - so much so that I turned in a resignation letter (that was able to retract, thank goodness) and even went to a job interview in Atlanta - only to have things not work out as planned. We STILL had to move to another rental house here. The whole process was exhausting physically and emotionally.
--This last semester was more challenging than any I remember in recent history. I taught freshmen for the first time in oh, twelve years or so, and they needed a lot of attention as they were adjusting from life at home to life at school. Our holidays were out of whack as well, with a really late Fall Break and a later-than-usual finish to the semester. Good times!
--We have been going nonstop since late October. Between Halloween festivities, all of our birthdays, the New York trip, and then the holidays...it has been a wild ride!
There were many fun moments this past year spent with friends and family, and we DO realize we are blessed in many ways, but yes, 2013 was definitely a tiring year. Not bad, just tiring.
So...on to 2014. I hope it holds many good things for everyone!
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
A Look Back: Amelia Turned 6!
One more event I wanted to blog about before the "fresh blog start" of 2014 is Amelia's 6th Birthday.
Seriously, how is she 6?
Like her mom, Amelia enjoyed celebrating her birthday all week.
The day after Darryl and I returned from New York, my parents, Amelia, and I celebrated by having dinner at Chuck E. Cheese...her request, of course.
The next day was her actual birthday. She had requested that I bring "rainbow cupcakes" for her classmates, and I had lunch with her before the partaking of the cupcakes. She was SO excited to celebrate her birthday at school because she was going to get a visor, a pencil, a bookmark, and a couple of other treats.
Good grief, I love that girl.
On Sunday, we had her actual birthday party. She wanted to have her party at a painting place called Mud Pies and Masterpieces because she had gone to a friend's party there months ago and really enjoyed it. She wanted it to be a princess party as well, and we invited the girls from her class. Only four girls were able to come (one of her friends was out of town, another had committed to another birthday party, and so on), but it ended up being a perfect-sized group for this painting endeavor. :-)
(On a side note: I cannot recommend Mud Pies & Masterpieces strongly enough. The women who run it are not only great with kids, but they were also SUPER helpful in assisting me with setting up for the party. They made it so, so fun!)
Here are some different photos of her big day...
It was such a fun little party, and Amelia LOVED it. And isn't that what birthday parties are all about?
Seriously, how is she 6?
Like her mom, Amelia enjoyed celebrating her birthday all week.
The day after Darryl and I returned from New York, my parents, Amelia, and I celebrated by having dinner at Chuck E. Cheese...her request, of course.
The next day was her actual birthday. She had requested that I bring "rainbow cupcakes" for her classmates, and I had lunch with her before the partaking of the cupcakes. She was SO excited to celebrate her birthday at school because she was going to get a visor, a pencil, a bookmark, and a couple of other treats.
Good grief, I love that girl.
On Sunday, we had her actual birthday party. She wanted to have her party at a painting place called Mud Pies and Masterpieces because she had gone to a friend's party there months ago and really enjoyed it. She wanted it to be a princess party as well, and we invited the girls from her class. Only four girls were able to come (one of her friends was out of town, another had committed to another birthday party, and so on), but it ended up being a perfect-sized group for this painting endeavor. :-)
(On a side note: I cannot recommend Mud Pies & Masterpieces strongly enough. The women who run it are not only great with kids, but they were also SUPER helpful in assisting me with setting up for the party. They made it so, so fun!)
Here are some different photos of her big day...
It was such a fun little party, and Amelia LOVED it. And isn't that what birthday parties are all about?
Monday, December 30, 2013
New York, Baby!!
Hello there.
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get back to blogging more regularly. I want to start 2014 with a "fresh start" with blogging, but before I begin anew, I want to talk about one thing that happened last month...
A trip to New York City.
For whatever reason, I had NEVER been to NYC, but I had always wanted to go. As "the big 4-0" was looming in the horizon, I was telling Darryl that I wanted to do something really monumental and fun to mark this milestone birthday, and I hinted VERY strongly that I thought it might be a good time to take this trip. So we did!
My parents were sweet enough to come stay with Amelia for a few days and keep up her routine (school, mainly) while we were gone. We were/are very grateful to them for that.
Darryl and I left EARLY Thursday morning. Here we are as we were taking off on our adventure:
Once we arrived in the big city, we got situated at our hotel and set off to find the nearest Shake Shack (which for us turned out to be the new one at Grand Central Station). Shake Shack did NOT disappoint.
We were extremely tired, so we went to our hotel to take a nap. We had a show to see that night, and I knew that if I didn't get a nap in, I would never make it through the show.
Before our show, though, we met up with Darryl's cousin Malorie and her roommate, Ashley. We were so happy to get to meet up with them! We ate at the famous Junior's, and while my meal was just okay, the cheesecake was delicious!!
Our show, Pippin, was literally across the street. Malorie snapped this pic of us before Darryl and I headed over to see it.
And here I am, so excited to see Pippin. Our seats were phenomenal!
Y'all. This show was SO GOOD. I was somewhat familiar with the story, but after seeing the cast perform on the Tony Awards, I really wanted to see this production. (A huge selling point, too, is that the original cast is still performing.) Here's the Tony performance, if you are interested:
Friday morning, we were up bright and early so that we could hang out at GMA. If you know me at all, you know I LOVE the cast of GMA (especially Robin Roberts). I didn't care anything about getting on camera; I just wanted to hang out and watch. Malorie was sweet enough to hang out with us for the morning, too. I didn't get a glimpse of Robin, unfortunately, but we did see Sam Champion and Lara Spencer. And it was COLD.
After freezing our rear ends off at the GMA set, we looked in some of the touristy stores, like the M&M store and such.
We tried to get some good photos in Time Square, but the camera / lighting / whatever wasn't cooperating very well. We had fun trying, though!
We strolled over to the Museum of Modern Art. It was pretty cool -- I would have liked to stay longer, but we had tickets for the 9/11 Memorial AND we wanted to eat lunch (we can't skip lunch, y'all), so the trip to MoMA was quick. After lunch, Malorie had to leave for her own out-of-town trip, but we were glad to get to spend some time with her!
The 9/11 Memorial was, as expected, overwhelming...but it is definitely a must-see if you go to New York. Such a peaceful and beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives on that day.
We rested again at the hotel (NYC involves A LOT of walking) before dinner at a place my friend Tim recommended, Blue Smoke. This was probably one of my favorite meals. So good!!
After dinner, we strolled over to Top of the Rock for a view of the city at night. I know some people are not "big city" people and all that, but is this not beautiful? It looks as though the city is sprinkled in glitter...
Saturday, we decided just to walk around and look in some of the stores -- Bloomingdales, Saks 5th Avenue, and so on. (Before hitting the stores, we found a delicious bagel place.) It was just a low-key day with no agenda. We had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban place that we found via Yelp!, and the food was tasty.
That evening, we saw our second show, Newsies. I had several friends who had recommended it to me, and it did not disappoint. I can't really say that I liked one show better than the other because they are completely different shows, but Newsies was really, really good.
Sunday was our last day. We had decided to spend the morning in Central Park. If I had known how much I would have loved the park, I would have set aside more time to spend there. The leaves were AMAZING; and I'm pretty sure I could have sat on a bench and read a book and people-watched for hours. Here are a few shots:
After our time at the park, we had lunch at an Italian place Darryl had eaten at before, stopped by a couple of shops on our way back to the hotel, and then packed up our stuff to come home.
We really had an amazing time; as much as we might see NYC in movies, TV shows, the news, etc., I think it is something that needs to be experienced in real life. Our plan is to take Amelia when she is just a little older, so that is why we didn't do things this time around like the Statue of Liberty, the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular, and so on.
And while I don't really have a desire to LIVE in NYC, if anyone would like to buy me a little apartment so I could visit a few times a year, I would be okay with that...
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get back to blogging more regularly. I want to start 2014 with a "fresh start" with blogging, but before I begin anew, I want to talk about one thing that happened last month...
A trip to New York City.
For whatever reason, I had NEVER been to NYC, but I had always wanted to go. As "the big 4-0" was looming in the horizon, I was telling Darryl that I wanted to do something really monumental and fun to mark this milestone birthday, and I hinted VERY strongly that I thought it might be a good time to take this trip. So we did!
My parents were sweet enough to come stay with Amelia for a few days and keep up her routine (school, mainly) while we were gone. We were/are very grateful to them for that.
Darryl and I left EARLY Thursday morning. Here we are as we were taking off on our adventure:
Once we arrived in the big city, we got situated at our hotel and set off to find the nearest Shake Shack (which for us turned out to be the new one at Grand Central Station). Shake Shack did NOT disappoint.
We were extremely tired, so we went to our hotel to take a nap. We had a show to see that night, and I knew that if I didn't get a nap in, I would never make it through the show.
Before our show, though, we met up with Darryl's cousin Malorie and her roommate, Ashley. We were so happy to get to meet up with them! We ate at the famous Junior's, and while my meal was just okay, the cheesecake was delicious!!
Our show, Pippin, was literally across the street. Malorie snapped this pic of us before Darryl and I headed over to see it.
And here I am, so excited to see Pippin. Our seats were phenomenal!
Y'all. This show was SO GOOD. I was somewhat familiar with the story, but after seeing the cast perform on the Tony Awards, I really wanted to see this production. (A huge selling point, too, is that the original cast is still performing.) Here's the Tony performance, if you are interested:
Friday morning, we were up bright and early so that we could hang out at GMA. If you know me at all, you know I LOVE the cast of GMA (especially Robin Roberts). I didn't care anything about getting on camera; I just wanted to hang out and watch. Malorie was sweet enough to hang out with us for the morning, too. I didn't get a glimpse of Robin, unfortunately, but we did see Sam Champion and Lara Spencer. And it was COLD.
After freezing our rear ends off at the GMA set, we looked in some of the touristy stores, like the M&M store and such.
We tried to get some good photos in Time Square, but the camera / lighting / whatever wasn't cooperating very well. We had fun trying, though!
We strolled over to the Museum of Modern Art. It was pretty cool -- I would have liked to stay longer, but we had tickets for the 9/11 Memorial AND we wanted to eat lunch (we can't skip lunch, y'all), so the trip to MoMA was quick. After lunch, Malorie had to leave for her own out-of-town trip, but we were glad to get to spend some time with her!
The 9/11 Memorial was, as expected, overwhelming...but it is definitely a must-see if you go to New York. Such a peaceful and beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives on that day.
We rested again at the hotel (NYC involves A LOT of walking) before dinner at a place my friend Tim recommended, Blue Smoke. This was probably one of my favorite meals. So good!!
After dinner, we strolled over to Top of the Rock for a view of the city at night. I know some people are not "big city" people and all that, but is this not beautiful? It looks as though the city is sprinkled in glitter...
Saturday, we decided just to walk around and look in some of the stores -- Bloomingdales, Saks 5th Avenue, and so on. (Before hitting the stores, we found a delicious bagel place.) It was just a low-key day with no agenda. We had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban place that we found via Yelp!, and the food was tasty.
That evening, we saw our second show, Newsies. I had several friends who had recommended it to me, and it did not disappoint. I can't really say that I liked one show better than the other because they are completely different shows, but Newsies was really, really good.
Sunday was our last day. We had decided to spend the morning in Central Park. If I had known how much I would have loved the park, I would have set aside more time to spend there. The leaves were AMAZING; and I'm pretty sure I could have sat on a bench and read a book and people-watched for hours. Here are a few shots:
After our time at the park, we had lunch at an Italian place Darryl had eaten at before, stopped by a couple of shops on our way back to the hotel, and then packed up our stuff to come home.
We really had an amazing time; as much as we might see NYC in movies, TV shows, the news, etc., I think it is something that needs to be experienced in real life. Our plan is to take Amelia when she is just a little older, so that is why we didn't do things this time around like the Statue of Liberty, the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular, and so on.
And while I don't really have a desire to LIVE in NYC, if anyone would like to buy me a little apartment so I could visit a few times a year, I would be okay with that...
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