A Mom's Life

Easter Weekend 2026

2026-04-07T06:22:00.001-04:00

The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!

Sarah came home for Easter on Thursday evening. Dan was still in Ireland so the two of us enjoyed dinner and Love on the Spectrum and got caught up on all the things. And on Friday, she and Brad joined me and Mom on our weekly shopping and lunch at Village Tavern.

Sarah left to spend the evening with Joe and his family and then Peter and Dan both made it home. I fixed some pasta and we got caught up on Survivor.

On Saturday after errands and yardwork and baking, we had dinner at Quanto Basto and then came home and watched tv (I don't even remember what we watched, I just enjoyed having all of my people in the same room together.)

On Sunday we attended Easter Mass and then had lunch at mom's house. It was a delicious steak dinner and I made my famous carrot cake. Well, maybe not famous, but it's certainly delicious!

On Sunday afternoon, we headed downtown to visit a couple of breweries and to watch the Canes game. When we got home, I made a batch of my famous pepperjack pimento cheese toasts. Well, maybe not famous, but they are certainly delicious! And then, just like that, our Easter weekend was over.

I said my goodbyes to everyone on Monday morning before I headed off to work. Dan was working from home in the morning before heading back to the airport. Peter was working from home before heading back to Raleigh and Sarah was heading back to Charlotte for a night class.

Imagine my excitement and surprise when I got a text at work asking if I wanted to join them all for lunch at Dario! My yes was immediate and they picked me up shortly after that and we spent another hour together before we all official went our separate ways.

It was such a nice laid-back weekend with my favorite people. I enjoyed every single minute. And why is it that I sleep so much better when everyone is home under one roof?

I typically try to get family photos on mom's front porch on Easter Sunday after lunch but it was chilly and rainy and I totally forgot. That's my one and only regret of the weekend. Here are the only pictures I took this weekend...

The Easter Bunny came!

Posing with mom's two new kittens who are more like teenagers now.

Grandma makes the best Easter baskets!

A drink with my girl.

Trying out the zoom lens on my phone.

Peter is a notary now and was notarizing some documents for Brad.

The sunset was beautiful on Easter.

We won't all be together again until next month when we are celebrating Sarah's college graduation. Where oh where has the time gone?

Super Bowl Sunday Weekend!

2026-02-24T07:03:00.004-05:00

On Saturday, February 7th,, the local brewery that Dan and I frequent on our date nights, was having an IPA fest on Saturday. As soon as we found out, Dan immediately texted Peter and he said he wanted to come home to attend with us. Unbeknownst to us, until Friday night, they were also having a Jerry Garcia cover band playing all afternoon. When I told Peter that, he was elated. He's a huge Grateful Dead fan so this was icing on the beer cake!

The band was playing from 2:00 to 5:00 so we decided to get there right at 2 to make sure we got a spot. HA! It was already standing room only. The bar had 13 of their own IPAs on tap and they had 14 guest taps with other IPAs from all over the country so a lot of people were there for the beer but I'd say more people were there for the band. They were fabulous and I'm not even a big Grateful Dead fan.

The band's name is Jerry's Dead and they are out of Asheville. They sounded great and they just rolled from one song right into another. They didn't stop to talk between songs they just played. And at the end of their set, they said they were going to play another so we ended up staying there until after 6:00. It was such a great day!

And Sunday, our sweet Sarah came home to join us for Sunday lunch and to watch the Super Bowl with us. Even though the Patriots lost, it was still awesome to watch the game with the family. I made my Pepper Jack Pimento Cheese toasts, a giant pretzel, candied kielbasa, and a fried pickle dip. Here's the only picture we took:

Dan and Peter are wearing the Patriots sweatshirts they got from Dan's brother's family, for Christmas. We were hoping the sweatshirts would bring the Patriots good luck. Oh well, there's always next season

and itt was such a great evening hanging out with my favorite people, watching football, and eating!

And on a side note - my mom rescued two adorable kittens, and we cannot get enough of them. They are so cute! They were a mess when she got them but they are looking better and better every day.

Rest In Peace, Kitten

2026-01-25T18:11:00.001-05:00

Our sweet Kitten, passed away on Wednesday.

She showed up at our door in July 0f 2010 as a tiny little kitten and has been with us ever since. For the last 15 and a half years, she was at my feet the minute they hit the floor in the morning to make sure I feed her immediately. And when I would walk through door after being gone, she would be there to greet me like the good and faithful friend that she was. And every evening, I could count on her sitting on my lap while I was watching tv. And every night in bed, she was at my feet so that she could be right there in the morning to remind me it was breakfast time.

Knowing when to let a suffering pet go is never easy. I am very thankful that Sarah was able to come home and go with me. She loved Kitten as much as I did and I'm glad she got to say goodbye.

She was the sweetest cat and we will miss her dearly.

Rest easy, sweet girl.

Special thanks to Jennifer and Quinn for being so good to my sweet girl.

Christmas 2025

2026-01-19T07:05:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy MLK Day!

Every post seems to start with me apologizing for the untimeliness of a blog post. But it's a new year and I'm not going to apologize. I'm busy with work and my kids aren't here in the house with me for daily content so my life is (thankfully) pretty dull. This blog where I happily used to update several times a week, has sadly become just a spot for a quick update here and there and pictures of major holidays and family life events. And I'm okay with that.

So without further ado...I present to you... Christmas 2025.

December was pretty busy for me. Even though it is my slow time at work, I had plenty to do. Which is nice because Dan has been travelling a lot. I managed to work and get all the Christmas shopping done and I even decorated the tree by myself as you will recall from my last post.

As Christmas approached, I realized that other than shopping for everyone on my list, I hadn't done anything "Christmasy". I had done nothing fun or festive ahead of Christmas day, so I made a mental note to fix that next year. A show, a party, a festival, a weekend trip somewhere special. Something...anything so that I can enjoy the time prior to the actual day itself. Now if someone would just remind me of this in early November so I can make a plan, that would be great!

Sarah is in her Senior year of college, so she basically had a month off for winter break. She came home for a day or two and then headed out to California with Joe and Noah to spend some time with Joe's cousin and aunt and uncle who live in Belgium but were visiting for Christmas. Sarah had met all of them before and was excited to see them again as she really hit it off with them. Here are a few pictures that she graciously texted the family chat during her trip...

The spent a little time in San Francisco and a little time in Lake Taho but most of the ten day trip was spent in Healdsburg. She had a lovely time!

Peter and his friends visited the Governor's Mansion one evening when it was open to the public and decorated for Christmas...

And he and his roommates hosted a Christmas party at their house. Peter's a huge Grateful Dead fan, if you didn't know.

Now that he's a working man, he only got a little time off for Christmas so he didn't make it home until the evening of Christmas Eve. Dan got home on the 23rd and Sarah got home from her travels on the 19th so it was very, very, very nice to have everyone home for a few days.

On Christmas Eve, we attended the Christmas Eve Lovefeast service at the church I attended while I was growing up and afterwards came back to our house where we hosted our annual Christmas Eve Party. Jennifer's family (minus Cheyanne who was in the Bahamas, lucky girl!), and my mom and brother, and Joe were all in attendance and we had the best time. And you know the drill...I didn't get any photos because I'm the worst. Maybe next year I should designate someone as the photographer and have them go around all evening snapping photos.

We were all slow to get up on Christmas morning. Having older kids is nice.

Santa was very kind this year and left a bounty of good things.

I love and appreciate how the family puts on these Christmas pjs to humor me. We first wore them in 2021. We only wear them on Christmas Eve/Morning. Who needs new Christmas pjs when you only wear them once a year? Not us!

After we opened presents and enjoyed our morning coffee and a raspberry kringle from Trader Joe's, we speedily got ready and raced to Mass where we met Cathy. After mass we came home and enjoyed lunch at Mom's with my brother, Cathy, Eric and our four. It was a nice time and mom outdid herself on lunch as normal. She had cataract surgery on both her eyes in December and wasn't feeling her best but she didn't let that show. Her vision is much improved and she's thankfully, finally feeling back to her old self!

After lunch, we went home to relax a bit. I cooked dinner and we watched Wake Up Dead Man which was the third movie in the Knives Out series. It was really good and might be my favorite one yet.

On Friday, we headed to Seagrove, NC to visit some of the many pottery shops in the area. We saw a lot of beautiful pottery and even made a couple of purchases. On our way home, we stopped at the Town Creek Indian Mound. The visitor's center was closed but we visited the mound any way. It wasn't locked so we just had a look around. Technically we probably shouldn't have been there but we didn't get caught so it's all good! We had a bon fire after dinner. The weather was perfect and it was a nice end to a nice day!

On Saturday we slept in as we were all tired. Later that afternoon, we headed towards Charlotte. We stopped in Kannopolis for Mass and drove through the town. We got a picture of the kids in front of the Dale Earnhardt statue:

Then we had dinner in Concord and headed to the Charlotte Motor Speedway to see the Christmas lights. It was really a neat show. You drive through the displays and at one point you are driving on bank of the race track. That was really neat. A large portion of the lights are synchronized to music on a certain radio station and that was very cool to see the lights coordinated with the music. Then you park and there's a Christmas market with food and vendors and quite a few light displays to walk through. Then you get back in your car and you head out through the concourse. We parked and got a whole view of the speedway from the top of the concourse. It was really a neat thing to do. And because Sarah just finished her fellowship at the Speedway, she was able to get us free passes! That was nice!!

After the lights, we headed to the ice cream shop that Sarah worked at before her fellowship (and I think she's planning on picking up shifts there this semester) and had ice cream. Her manager was working and gave us a huge discount on our ice cream. And gushed about how much he loved Sarah and how great of a worker she was. So that was nice! And their ice cream is delicious!!!!

My pictures don't do it justice and of course I didn't even try to take pictures as we were driving through the displays. I was just enjoying it all!

We got home pretty late and everyone went straight to bed. But we were up early the next morning because Cathy and Eric were heading back to DC. I had an MRI at 8:30 and Dan and Peter were headed to the Panthers game. When I got back from my MRI, only Sarah was left at home. But we didn't feel too bad that we didn't get to go to the game because we had tickets for a candle making workshop!

So while the boys were doing this:

It was so foggy during the game they couldn't even see the city in the background!

Sarah and I were doing this:

Why the weird face?

We had so much fun. We both made two candles. We got to select our scents and we added colors and also botanicals at the end. And of course, we got to enjoy an adult beverage while we were doing it. It was so much fun and now we each have candles to burn. I'm burning mine even as I'm typing this and it smells so good. Word of warning though...the botanicals will flame up if you get too many of them in there.

The next day was Monday and I had to work but on Tuesday, the four of us headed to Shelton Vineyards

in Dobson, NC. What a treat that was! We stopped for lunch in Winston-Salem at Xcaret which is a tasty Mexican restaurant before we headed to Dobson.

The grounds were lovely even in the middle of winter. I'm sure in the spring and summer it would be even more beautiful. There were a lot of people there, which was a good sign. We perused the menu and each got a flight of wine. The flights consisted of 4 half pours and we got to choose what we wanted from the reds and whites. I'm not a wine aficionado but I thought their wines were delicious. Their reserve Riesling was my favorite!

It was nice to go to a winery (and there are quite a few of them to choose from here in the Yadkin Valley) for a change of pace. We go to a lot of breweries and drag Sarah along. She's always a good sport so it was nice to do something that she definitely enjoyed!

And then I had to work the rest of the week because it was end of year and we always do inventory at the store. Peter headed back to Raleigh on New Year's Eve and Sarah hung out with friends. I had to work until 7:00 on New Year's Eve so Dan and I stayed home (I had to go to work the next day too) and had one fancy drink (It was a caramel drop martini!) and I was in bed before 10:30.

And just like that, Christmas was over and it was back to ordinary life. The kids are all back to their respective towns and lives and Dan and I are back to work.

It was a great little holiday and once again, my favorite thing is spending time with my family. We only had a week together, but I think we made the most of it!

Thanks for reading this little blog and following along with my long and sporadic posts!

Happy MLK Day!

Thanksgiving 2025 and the Christmas Tree saga.

2025-12-06T09:39:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. You get all of the delicious food of Christmas without the stress of gift-giving and decorating and to-do lists a mile long. And the best part - you get to spend the day (or the long weekend!) with your favorite people!

Dan has been travelling nonstop for work, but he made it home from Seattle on Wednesday evening wit no issues. He was flying through Detroit so we worried about weather delays. Peter thankfully only had to work a half day and made it home from Raliegh about the same time Dan did. And Sarah came home from Charlotte earlier that morning so I had all of my people in the house!!

I always say that a full table equals a full heart! Sorry for the big face but this is the only way I can document the full table. :)

After lunch, we headed to Old Salem to try to get some family pictures for the Christmas card. We forced my brother to play photographer and thought we had some good ones until I got home and downloaded them and....yikes...Here are some of the out takes...

Blurry, out of focus, why does Dan always look like he's in pain? Also, we are in the bottom half of the photo.

This was taken after just realizing that Sarah was giving me and Peter rabbit ears. (Which also happens to be the best picture and just might be going on Christmas card.)

I'm annoyed but look how please she is with herself!

So dark and the sun was in our eyes and Sarah is making quite the face.

Would have been a good picture except that Dan is wearing his sunglasses! WHY!!!???

We didn't get any good shots, but we still had fun!

Since 2014, we've headed to the mountains the day after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree. But Dan and I made a last-minute decision to get a fake one. Dan was heading back to Seattle on Sunday after Thanksgiving,, the drive to the mountains is a long one and takes up much of the day and we had a lot to do.

I've been wanting a fake tree for several years now and as soon as Dan mentioned it, I jumped at the chance. We went the week before when he was home for a few days and got one from Costco. It was prelit with dual-colored lights, was nice and full, and had a small profile. (The room we put it in is small and every year I feel like I'm being suffocated by the tree.) I had suggested we go ahead and put it together before he went to Seattle but we did not.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving after we had dinner, we decided to put the tree together so it would be one less thing to do on Friday. And of course, the lights didn't work. It was 7:0 pm so we quickly disassembled it and hauled ass (pardon my French) to Costco to return it before they closed at 8:30. We knew we didn't want to be anywhere near Costco on Black Friday and we had a lot to do before Dan left to go back to Seattle and returning this tree was not a one-woman job so we needed to get it back. The return was easy but unfortunately, they were out of trees. The floor model was still up and they were going to sell us that one at a discount. But then I noticed that one strand at the bottom of the tree was out. That made me change my mind. Even with a discount, I didn't want to come home with a tree that already had lighting issues. I was beginning to regret our hasty decision to not go to the mountains.

I started searching for trees online in the car on the way home. Of course, I wanted Balsam Hill tree but their trees are so expensive that I couldn't justify it. I searched and searched until I was becoming anxious. You know how you get when we are looking online and you find something that looks nice, has a decent price, meets all your criteria and then you read the comments? And even though most of the comments are glowing you read a couple that aren't, and you decide you have to start the search over? Well, that was me. After searching for a few hours, I finally just threw caution to the wind and ordered one.

Before we decided to ditch the mountain trip in favor of a fake tree, we asked the kids if that was okay with them. They both said it was as long as we still spent the day together on Friday. And that made this mama's heart happy. For them, it wasn't so much about the tree, but the fact that we would spend the whole day Friday together in the car, going to the mountains, eating lunch, decorating the tree, etc. The family time was important to them, not the tree.

So I planned a trip to Olde Mecklenburg Brewing Company in Charlotte. It only took an hour to get there which was perfect. They have a German restaurant there which was also perfect. My people love pretzels and sausages. We had delicious beer, a tasty pretzel, and we all had good food. I think I was the only one that didn't order a sausage. After lunch, we headed to the beer garden grounds (with a tasty brew in hand) and perused the Christmas Market that was set up. There were over 30 vendors there selling their wares. The day was a little windy but it was sunny and not too cold. They had a couple of big fire kettles set up, hot chocolate, music, etc. It was just a great vibe all the way around and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The older I get, the more I just really appreciate being all together.

Saturday was chores around the house, Mass together as a family, chicken pot pie soup for dinner, and then more football. It's always great to see NC State beat UNC!

On Sunday, Dan headed out the door to the airport at 6:00am to catch a flight to Seattle. The kids and I ate lunch with Brad and then visited with mom and then they headed back to their respective towns.

The tree came on Sunday so I put it together. It took me forever doing it by myself. The worst part was fluffing it out. That took a long time and I'm still not sure if it's fluffed properly. The tree is "acceptable". It's larger than the Costco tree (which in my opinion isn't a great thing). There are some "holes" and I'm not sure if it's because I didn't put it together properly or if I didn't fluff it properly. But I do like that i don't have to water it. There's no sap leaking from it. There are absolutely zero pine needles on my floor. It's prelit and I can switch between white (my favorite) and colored (Dan's favorite).

I finally got it decorated last night. It needs a few finishing touches, but I think it looks pretty good. No one is home to appreciate it so I made sure to text a picture to the family group chat last night.

I've spent this past week at work and in my spare time in the evenings frantically online shopping. I'm getting things checked off my list but it always takes longer than I think. I've been trying to work on the Christmas card as well but I'm having a hard time with it because the pictures are subpar. Maybe I will go with the rabbit ears photo after all! It really was the best one.

Twenty-three!

2025-11-24T07:15:00.001-05:00

Peter turned 23 on November 13th! Dan, Mom, Brad, and I headed to Raleigh the following Sunday to celebrate with him.

We got to his house around 12:30 and he arrived home from Mass just a few minutes later. He hopped into the car with us and we headed downtown. We had lunch at Midwood Smokehouse. One thing about us, we love barbeque. We've been to the original restaurant in Charlotte and thought we'd give the Raleigh one a shot. I had a hard time coming up with a lunch spot. It seems a lot of restaurants that are open for lunch on Sunday don't have their regular lunch menu available and have a brunch menu instead. I'm one of those weird people who don't like breakfast foods so I try to avoid a brunch menu.

After our lunch, we took a drive through Raleigh and ending up at Howling Cow Creamery. NC State has its own educational dairy farm, and they make their own ice cream. The lines were long because it was a gorgeous warm November afternoon - perfect for ice cream.

After ice cream, we headed back to Peter's house and unwrapped presents and chatted with his roommates before making the drive back home. It was such a lovely day and I'm glad we were able to spend it with my boy.

It was such a warm day - in the 70s- but it was super windy!

Cheers to 25 Years!

2025-10-17T16:43:00.001-04:00

September is always a big month around here. Dan and I have an anniversary on the 9th, Dan's birthday is on the 12th and mine is on the 13th (albeit three years after his). Since this year was our 25th wedding anniversary we decided to celebrate by spending some time in Key West, Florida.

I still can't believe we've been married TWENTY-FIVE years! It feels like yesterday and forever all wrapped up in one.

We headed to Key West bright and early on Wednesday, September 11th. Our flight to Atlanta from Greensboro left at 6:00am so we were out the door by 4:15am. Luckily the Greensboro airport is small and the security line was short. We had less than an hour once we touched down in Atlanta before we took off for Key West but luckily Dan is a seasoned traveler and goes through Atlanta regularly. He got us to our gate just as it was boarding. We were in Key West before lunch!

We took a taxi to the Coco Plum Inn, our bed and breakfast for the long weekend, and thankfully the room was ready early. We dropped off our bags and started exploring. The island is extremely walkable, especially if you stay in the old town area so we didn't even bother with renting a car. Ubers are plentiful and quick if you need one. And many people rent golf carts. That seems to be the main mode of transportation for seasoned guests on the island.

We immediately started exploring. Our bed and breakfast is right near the iconic sign Mile Zero sign so our first island selfie was this:

Walking around the town, the first thing you will notice is all the chickens and roosters. Apparently in the 1860s because of a ware in Cuba, many Cubans migrated to Key West and brought the sport of cockfighting with them. The sport thrived in Key West until 1986 when it was banned. Everyone who had roosters set them free. Then Hurricane George came through in 1998 and spread them all throughout the island. And now chickens and roosters are everywhere. It is actually kind of cool until they start crowing at 3:00am. Yes, I was awoken every morning at 3:00am by roosters. That was definitely not my favorite part of vacation. This however, was not an issue for half-deaf, deep-sleeper Dan who wasn't bothered by it at all.

We had lunch at Two Friends and of course, there were chickens, cold beer, and delicious burgers..

Literally just walking around our table.

I am on the Untapped app where you rate your beers, so I took lots of pictures of the beer that I had on this trip for the app. I promise, I will not show them all to you in this post. :)

I was ravenous by this point and devoured every bite of this delicious blue cheese, friend onion covered burger!

After lunch we explored a bit more and went back to the room to cool off. Y'all, I'm from North Carolina and I know heat but it was HOT in Florida. We checked the temps in the Keys verses the temps at home and it was literally only a couple of degrees warmer. It was extremely humid so that made the "feels like" temp so much higher. And also, when it's 87 degrees at home, we aren't walking around outside in the sun for hours at a time so I'm sure that had something to do with it too. :)

We headed to the Celtic Conch Pub for a beer and to listen to some music when Dan got a text from the tour guide who was scheduled to give us a tour of the island the next morning. He was worried that there were storms blowing through the next day right during our tour and wondered if we could do the tour right then. We said, "sure thing" and he met us at the bar and we did the tour from there.

He was a good guide. He was very personable and kept wanting to know what we wanted to know about and what we were interested in so he could show us. I said we wanted to know some insider info on where we should go and that we met at a Jimmy Buffet concert thirty years earlier so he took that and ran. He showed us lots of cool Jimmy Buffet spots and told us some stories. Apparently he had been on security detail for Jimmy at his last concert in Key West before he died.

Us in front of Jimmy Buffet's Ice House Studio. He converted a former shrimp ice house into a recording studio in 1986 and recorded two albums here.

We ended the tour at Mallory Square because it was around time for the sunset. Mallory Square is where everyone goes to see the sunset. There are street performers walking around and it's really supposed to be quite the show. But our tour guide told us the best place to go and we headed there instead. (Also, since it's the off season, there weren't many street performers there and it was hot as Hades and I was tired from our long day. I had been up since two in the morning and I just wanted to sit down at this point.)

So we followed our guide's directions and headed to The Sunset Tiki Bar at the Galleon Resort. It was perfect. It was shaded, there were plenty of places to sit and we enjoyed some delicious drinks. And the sunset!

And that was the end of our first day in Key West.

On Friday morning, we were up early, but not too early. Although, the roosters did get me up, I managed to go back to sleep. For a couple of weeks before our trip I had been having shoulder pain which I determined after googling and lots of acetaminophen was due to our old mattress. I was finally able to get some decent sleep on this trip and as soon as possible when we got home, got a new mattress and my shoulder has been fine ever since. I digress....

We headed down to breakfast. It was different every day with a menu posted so we knew what to expect each morning. The breakfast area was outside and our nice cook came out every morning told us our options and then got to work. We were forced to make small talk with the other people staying there but that wasn't horrible. Everyone was nice and it got us outside of our comfort zone a little.

Ham and cheese empanadas and fried potatoes. Yum!


My breakfast date.

After breakfast we headed to the Hemmingway Home and Museum. Our tour guide was fantastic! And it started raining while we were in the house which was perfect! We did the tour and then were able to go back through the rooms on our own. This was great because we wanted to see them in more detail and we wanted to stay out of the rain. After the rain stopped we headed outside and found one of the cat handlers and she showed us the latest batch of kittens.

We spent a lot of time with the cats. There are currently 61 cats on the property. Peter had been in Key West earlier this summer and sent us a picture of Elizabeth Taylor. We asked the cat handler where we could find her and she told us and we found her! How cool is that? Apparently the cats have free reign of the house and the grounds but they all have their spots where they prefer to hang out.

In speaking to our tour guide and the cat handler, we discovered that most of the employees of the Hemmingway Home recognize every single cat and know their name. When ever there's a new batch of kittens, multiple names are chosen and the employees get to vote on the names for the cats. And some names have been recycled from previous years but they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can use them again.

Elizabeth Taylor!

This cat is just hanging out in Hemmingway's study where he wrote.

A penny that Hemmingway threw at his wife when he thought she used his money to build a pool while he was away on an extended trip having an affair. She put the penny into the sidewalk around the pool. And jokes on him - her rich uncle who gifted them their house as a wedding gift, also paid for the pool.

Trying to get a picture of this pretty kitty's extra toes.

This cat reminded us of Kitten our cat at home.

As you can see, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the cats!

After our tour,we walked around some more and found ourselves at the Southernmost Point Buoy! But fun fact, they moved the buoy over about a block as they are doing major renovations on the plaza where it normally sits.

We had lunch at Amigos Tortilla Bar. It was delicious! Another fun fact, the first time I had elote was on our honeymoon in Cancun. So when I saw it on the menu, I knew I had to get it. It was delicious!

I love a good bowl and this one did not disappoint. And look at the elote!!!!

After lunch we toured the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum. Mel Fisher was a treasure hunter and spent 16 years off the coast of the Keys searching for the treasure from The Atocho and The Santa Margurita which both sank in 1622. He finally found over 450 million dollars worth of treasure in 1985. The museum was very interesting and we spent a lot of time there learning about pirating, the slave trade, and the treasures that were found.

We then headed to Captain Tony's Saloon.

Captain Tony's Saloon was the original location of Sloppy Joe's Bar which is another iconic Key West bar. It was here that Hemmingway came every afternoon to drink after he spent hours working on his novels. Yet another fun fact: I first came to Key West to attend the destination wedding of my best friend in the late 90's. I think it was 1998. As soon as Dan and I sat foot in Capt. Tony's I immediately felt like I had been there before. So, I am assuming I stopped there for drinks at some point during myr time there circa 1998.

Later that evening we headed to dinner at Mangoes. We weren't super hungry so we split some delicious nachos. There was also live music happening so I was in hog heaven. There was a lot of live music in Key West.

It started to pour down rain while we were eating on the covered patio and the wind really kicked up. causing rain to blow into the patio area. We had to go to a table inside and the guys singing had to stop because their equipment was getting wet. We finished our nachos and let the rain subside.

We decided that we still wanted to head to our sunset spot and see if the clouds would make for a good sunset. So we took off in a sprint. There was still a little bit of drizzle falling on us but I could tell by the colors of the sky that the sunset was going to be amazing. And it was!

Wet hair, wet shirt, don't care. The sunset was amazing!

The most beautiful sunset came after a downpour of rain. The clouds made for a glorious sky. There's an analogy in there for life I do believe.

The next morning we headed to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. This fort predates the civil war and currently houses the largest cache of Civil War armament in the country.

Full disclosure here...we started the tour with a tour guide and a large group. But this tour guide went on and on and on and it was so hot and while he was knowledgeable, he could have done the tour in 45 minutes or less but said it was going to be about two hours or so. We stuck with him for about 30 minutes and then just toured the rest on our own. People were dropping out quickly and Dan and I decided that if we didn't leave soon it was just going to be us and the tour guide and we didn't want to be stuck there for any longer.

The fort is home to one of the best beaches in Key West so we headed there so Dan could take a quick dip in the water.

It's interesting to me that Key West has so few beaches. If you want to swim in Key West and are staying in Old Town, you will need to plan your transportation to the beach. One of the couples we met at breakfast who stay in Key West regularly rent a golf cart so they can easily get to the beaches. They have there favorite beaches and none of them are within walking distance if you are taking chairs, coolers, etc. We did walk to the fort but it took us about 30 minutes. So if you are planning a trip to Key West and you want to spend your days on the beach, you will need to factor that in to your planning and budget.

We then headed to lunch at Caroline's Cafe. It was delicious. I got the Island Style Roast Pork Bowl. It had pork, black beans, rice and plantains. So good!!!

After lunch we toured around the town some more and decided we had to have a slice of Key Lime Pie while we were in Key West. We got a slice from the Old Town Bakery and took it back to eat by the pool at our hotel. It was delicious!

After the pie we headed to the Green Parrot which is a dive bar right next to our hotel. We've been walking past it all weekend and decided it was time to go in an have a beer.The building the bar is in opened as a grocery store in 1890. It became a bar, "The Brown Derby" at the beginning of WWII. Through the years it changed hands and eventually names.

After our beers we headed back to our room to freshen up for our sunset cruise. There are a ton of cruise options but we went with a company that did the cruise on a schooner and didn't allow large parties or music. We didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of drunk bachelorettes. :) It was the perfect choice for us. There were 20 people on board. We were served drinks and apps and cruised around until the sunset. We were sitting near the captain and Dan asked him a ton of questions about the ship and sailing. (Dan has sailing experience from his childhood days on the Cape.) So they nerded out together talking about sailing. And while we didn't get to go to our special sun set spot, we sailed right past it. :) It was such a lovely evening to be out on the water.

After the cruise, we had a light dinner at The Waterfront Brewery.

Still taking pictures of the beautiful sky.

I had the conch stew. It was tasty!

The next day was Sunday so we headed to mass at The Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea. They are doing major renovations on the interior of the church so mass was held outside in their courtyard.

And then we headed back to the docks to catch another boat. We were spending the afternoon on a sandbar. We spent about an hour sailing out to a sandbar near some mangroves. We enjoyed adult beverages and they fed us lunch. We played in the water at the sandbar, kayaked to the mangroves,saw some dolphins and enjoyed ourselves!

The water was so clear. I could have stayed at the sandbar all day!

After we got off the boat, we changed clothes and then headed to Sloppy Joe's. You can't go to Key West without visiting Sloppy Joe's!

And of course they had live music. Many of the bars have live music all day and all night every day and every night! After a quick bite, a drink, and some music at Sloppy Joe's we headed to our sunset spot for one last sunset.

We headed back to the hotel and packed up because we had a flight out of Key West the next morning. On Monday morning, we had our final breakfast and checked out of the hotel before calling an Uber. Next thing you know, we were at home and just like that our 25th Anniversary Celebration in Key West was over.

It was hot as blazes the entire time and it rained one day but other than that, everything was absolutely perfect. Our hotel was adorable, the food was great, the live music was awesome and everywhere. We relaxed, we spent time in the water, we saw some historical sights, and of course, the sunsets were spectacular!

The best part of it though was spending time with Dan. I couldn't imagine doing life with anyone other than him and there's definitely no one I'd rather be in Key West with other than him. (Although having the kids there would have been really nice!) But don't worry - we spammed the family group chat with a million photos so I'm sure they felt like they were there!

Life Update: Sarah

2025-08-23T15:38:00.000-04:00

Next up on the update front is my sweet girl, Sarah. Sarah just started her senior year at UNC Charlotte where she is majoring in Communications and Public Relations. One of the requirements for graduation in her major is that she has to have a relevant summer internship so in February she started the search. She applied to so many openings and wasn't getting called for interviews for any of them.

Summer was quickly approaching and she began to worry that she wasn't going to get a job. So she arranged her fall schedule so that she had classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays in case she needed to do her internship during the fall semester.

She was panicking that she wasn't going to get any internships. Without an internship she wouldn't be able to graduate! I started praying harder than ever and I asked everyone I knew to pray for her. And within a couple of weeks, she had four interviews lined up! She got called back for second interviews with three of them. And while this was going on, she said, "Mom! Your prayers are working too well!"

She got offered all three of the jobs she had second interviews for and chose the one she really wanted the most. She currently works for the Charlotte Motor Speedway as a Communications fellow! This is a fellowship and not an internship which means she works for them from July to the end of December and she is absolutely loving it! **Please notice how God works...she wasn't getting any interviews so she set her school schedule so she could work a job in the fall if she needed to. And the job God provided her with was not only her dream internship but a six month fellowship that works with her school schedule! Y'all! God is so good!

After she started, she found out that typically they choose recent college graduates for this position. In fact, the other fellow that she is working with just graduated from college. So that made her feel extra special!

She says she is learning a lot. Every Thursday, all the interns have a meeting with different guest speakers or learn about different things/skills to help them when they begin looking for a job. She's meeting a lot of cool people and having the time of her life!


Their special guest speaker this day was a retired commander from the 82nd Airborne (he was there after Dan was in the 82nd). He is currently running NASCARs Welcome Home Patriots program.

The aftermath of the Monster Truck Race!


Riding around the track doing over 100MPH! She said that she is getting track certified so that she can drive on the track.

She also got to work the Coca Cola 600 which is the Speedway's biggest race. It was at the end of May. They asked her to come work it even though her official first day of work wasn't until July 1st. She had a blast!

So official!

View from the roof where all the spotters stand.

The Press Room! She got to sit in while they were doing all the before race pressers with the race car drivers.

She even got to hang out on pit road!

In June, Sarah went to a graduation with Joe and his family in Philadelphia. They also got to attend a Phillies game. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not but Sarah (who used to hate baseball) is now a Phillies fan thanks to Joe and miraculously loves baseball now.

For Sarah's birthday, Joe got her tickets to see The Great Gatsby on Broadway. The Great Gatsby is her favorite book and Sarah loves a good Broadway show so she was thrilled. They had the best weekend in New York.

Look at the cream cheese selection at the bagel shop they went to!

AND!!! They got to see the Phillies BEAT the Yankees in Yankee Stadium! (That makes this Red Sox fan happy!!

AND! They got to see Chicago. They got cheap tickets they day off the play. What an unexpected bonus!

And now, after an eventful summer of work and play, she is back in class. She is juggling school, work, her executive position in her sorority, AND she has an executive position in the UNC Charlotte chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of American. It's going to be a very busy semester for my girl!

LIfe Update: Peter

2025-08-23T14:23:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd give quick life updates on the kids to mayyyyybeeeeeee get back in the swing of regular blogging.

As you may remember, in May, my boy graduated from N.C. State with a degree in Political Science. He had a great four years and was little melancholy that his time as a student there was over. He loves Raleigh though and has decided that's where he wants to live. And who can blame him. It's a great little city and almost all of his friends are there. (The only thing that's missing is me. :))

His lease didn't end until the end of July but all of his roommates were heading back home for the summer so he came home too! I was so excited to have him here for a couple of months. It made the fact that Sarah stayed in Charlotte this summer instead of coming home a little more bearable. And he could look for a job online just as easily here as he could in Raleigh.

While he was home, he went with Dan on a business trip to San Antonio and explored the sites there. He visited the Pearl District, saw all of the missions, tried some Texas BBQ, drank a lot of new to him beer (he loves rating beers on the Untapped App), visited the Alamo, and had dinner with Dan every night on the Riverwalk. It was a great little trip for him and I'm glad he was able to go. And it was also a nice distraction from his job hunting.

Speaking of looking for a job....the job market is currently a bleak one for recent graduates. As a political science major, Peter wanted to work either for the state of NC or the city of Raleigh but right as he was beginning his job search in early February, Donald Trump was cutting all those federal government jobs which meant many people in those positions started searching for jobs at the state and local levels. And the state started to freeze positions at their level with all the uncertainty. Sooooooooo.....Peter had to change his focus. And after months of online applications and a lot of prayer he is currently working at a law office in Raleigh as a legal assistant! He's been there for two weeks now and is really enjoying it.

He also moved into a new house with a couple of guys. Since this one is not in walking distance to NC State, it's cheaper and a lot nicer than the other places he's lived. It's in a very nice neighborhood in Raleigh and it's only a couple of miles from campus and all of his favorite places. He is enjoying exploring the new neighborhood and finding new places to eat, grab coffee, have a drink, etc. In fact, just a few minutes ago he texted me about a cool BBQ place he found!

So, all in all, things are going great for my boy. I'm so thankful he found a job that he seems to be enjoying. He's living in a cute little house with some great guys. He's enjoying his new neighborhood and fall is his favorite time of year: cozy vibes, football, cooler weather and in his opinion, the best four moths of the year!

I miss having him at home but I'm glad he's happy!

Cape Cod 2025

2025-07-07T07:23:00.005-04:00

We typically go to the Cape in August but this year we headed up on June 19th and got back home on June 30th. We did this to accommodate the kids work schedules. It was nice being at the Cape so early - the weather was lovely and there weren't as many people as there are in August. But, now we are home with nothing to look forward to in August. Oh well, I guess we can start planning next years trip!

Here are a few highlights:


I try to get a picture of the road sign every year when we get on the Cape. Sometimes it sneaks up on me but not this year! I love that they change this sign every year!

We got ice cream almost every night after dinner. This was the day we go to the Cape and were able to stop at Twin Acres in Sandwich which is one of my favorites. We don't make it here every year because of it's location so I was excited to eat there this year!

Peter on the front step playing some tunes.


Cape sunsets are gorgeous. It was funny because of friend of mine was back in NC on Lake Hartwell and texted our group chat a picture of the sunset at the exact same time we were enjoying this beauty so I texted back with this image. Isn't it cool to think that even though we were states away from each other, we were both enjoying the same sun setting?

This is our beach on Lewis Bay. I say "ours" because it is the beach that is a two minute walk from our house and is the one that all of the neighbors in the association can use. I love it because it's peaceful and you can swim in it. When the kids were little it was nice because it's so calm and I could relax while they were in the water. There are other beaches near by with waves but I like the peacefulness of our little beach.

We were out chasing sunsets again!

We spent an afternoon in Hyannis just walking around and doing a little window shopping. Then we stopped for some drinks at Finns Tap House.

We decided to head to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a little day trip. We walked around the historic section of town and had lunch at the River House.

This was our view with lunch.

I love a good bowl and this salmon and rice bowl did not disappoint!


This is Dan in the backyard of the Governor John Langdon House. This was one of the only pictures I snapped as we were walking around the historic district.

Before heading back to the Cape, we visited Albacore Park and took a tour of the USS Albacore. The Albacore was a research submarine that the navy used from 1953 until 1972. It was so cool to tour the submarine. It gave me a huge appreciation for sailors. I could never live in that tiny space but I'm thankful for the servicemen and women who do!


On the was back home, we stopped near Plymouth at Cancun and I got another delicious bowl. I told you I like bowls! :)

Selfie on our morning walk.

We spent some time on the beach.

This is the view walking up to our little beach.

Another morning walk selfie with my sweetie.

We attended a Cape Cod League baseball game.

After the game, the boys went fishing.

Every year they try their luck. Every year they have no luck! Zero fish caught!

We headed to Boston on the Thursday of our trip. We picked up Sarah's boyfriend Joe from the airport then picked up Dan's uncle and met his brother's family in Needham for lunch. It's always so great catching up them and in usual fashion, I got zero pictures.

After lunch, we headed to Fenway Park for a tour. We try to see a Red Sox game if we can but their schedule did not match up with our so we did a tour instead. I have to say it was awesome! We had a great tour guide and it was so cool to be able to see parts of the park that we normally wouldn't have access to.


As a bonus, Wally happened to be walking around so we got a picture with him. He normally isn't there for the tours so, lucky us!

Hanging out in the Green Monster seats!

Fenway Park has it's own little garden. They grow produce to use in their restaurants and they make donations to local food pantries with any of their excess.

View from inside the media booth.

The lone red seat at Fenway Park, located in the right field bleachers (Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21), commemorates Ted Williams' longest home run in the park. In 1946, Williams hit a ball that landed 502 feet from home plate, which is still the furthest home run ever hit at Fenway. The seat was painted red in 1984 to mark this historic event.

I really enjoyed being in the park with very few people in it. Our tour guide was fabulous. I think his name was Mike and he's middle school teacher who does Fenway tours in the summer for extra cash.

It was late when we got back on the Cape so we stopped at Skipper's for chowder. It was delicious but Captain Parker's is still my favorite.

On Friday, we headed to Provincetown. On our way, we stopped at Longnook Beach in Truro. You can't tell from these photos, but there are large sand dunes surrounding the beach and we have to walk down a very large dune to get to the water. It was beautiful!

The water looks so close here. If you look on the beach, you can see a green volleyball net to get a little perspective.

We are on the top of the dune looking down even though you can't tell that in the pictures.

We then headed to Long Point Light House and took a tour of the lighthouse.

Inside the light house.

Cool view looking down the light house stairs.

Us in front of the lighthouse!

We had lunch in Provincetown and Sarah had an espresso martini.

Evening view of our little beach.

We always like to go to the Harbor in Hyannis in the evening. The boats are always so cool to see.

A cool shot I took while out on a drive.

We also got to spend some time with Cathy and Eric as we overlapped them two nights. It's always great to catch up with them and in typical fashion, I got no pictures.

And then, just like that, our vacation is over and we have nothing left but the memories.

Celebrating the birthday girls.

2025-06-17T06:38:00.000-04:00

My Mom turned 82 on May 31st and Sarah turned 21 on June 4th. We had our family celebration with lunch at Village Tavern and met my uncle and Sarah's boyfriend, Joe there. I have no pictures from lunch itself but afterwards we came home and had birthday cake (which I made!) and presents. Uncle David and Joe weren't able to come back for dessert so sadly, no pictures of them.

I have no pictures of the cake. I think because I was filming us singing happy birthday and never actually took a picture! Oh well.

The weekend after we celebrated at home, Sarah had a birthday party at school with her friends and then they went out to the bars. Here's a few pictures she sent me from that.

The basement minus Grace who's working in Wisconsin this summer!

Happy birthday, Mom and Sarah!

Twenty-one is...

2025-06-10T08:04:00.001-04:00

My sweet Sarah Donna turned 21 on June 4th! And if you will recall, when the kids were little, all the way up to when they turned 18, I would do a blog post for their birthdays. When Peter turned 21, I reinstated that, so I thought I should do the same for my favorite girl.

Twenty-one is...

considerate
smart
compassionate
driven
confident

beautiful (on the inside and out)

hardworking

funny

conscientious

caring

responsible

thoughtful

one of my favorite people

Twenty-one loves to...

hang out with her boyfriend, Joe

play with cats (even though she's allergic)

watch Modern Family (even though she's seen the whole series multiple times)

sing Broadway show tunes (and loves to see Broadway plays)

watch the Philadelphia Phillies (even though we are a Red Sox family, we will keep her)

beat her friends and family in the New York Times Mini

try new recipes

run

hang out with her sorority sisters

sleep in

travel

binge watch shows with her bestie

clean (she's a bit of a germaphobe)

drink coffee (Starbucks is still her favorite)

work(this girl likes money and isn't afraid to pick up a shift)

Oh how I love my sweet twenty-one!

Happy birthday, Sarah!

NC State Graduation Weekend. Class of 2025. Go Pack!

2025-05-13T07:43:00.002-04:00

He did it! He graduated! Congratulations to Peter! The entire weekend of May 3rd was spent celebrating.

I had been stressed for quite some time about the entire weekend. We had two ceremonies to attend, two family meals, and a roommate and families grad party. I was nervous about parking, making our dinner and lunch reservations, getting the food for the party, etc. I was so stressed that I typed up an itinerary (which I then proceeded to call an agenda the entire weekend) and emailed it to everyone so we would all be at the right place at the right time. And I did a lot of praying.

I prayed many times for God to take over - to handle it all. And every time I would give it to him, I would immediately pick it up and start worrying again. Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, I told him that I was REALLY and TRULY giving it to Him. That He was in charge and that I was just going to enjoy the weekend and relax. And at that moment, he said, "Girl, it's about time. I've been waiting on you to let me help you. All of your worry is in vain." And I could finally relax.

On Friday morning, Sarah got home (she still had exams the next week but luckily she was able to spend the weekend with us in Raleigh). We headed to Raleigh around 1:15pm with my mom and brother following behind us.

We made it to the hotel, got checked in, and quickly changed clothes before heading to campus. Peter's department graduation was Friday night at 6:00. I had been stressed that the parking situation would be a nightmare. There were multiple department ceremonies going on all over campus all weekend and I had heard from the parent Facebook page that getting in and out of the parking garages were taking forever.

But what do you know. We rolled up to the parking garage, where there was a long line just to get into it, and my brother looked to our right and said, "Why can't we just park here?" There were some spaces where you needed to have a sticker from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. It was 5:05! and there were some empty spots! We parked there and low and behold Cathy and Eric happened to be behind us a little ways and found a similar non parking garage spot! We all met up and walked in together with Peter who had a friend drop him off. I immediately thanked God because parking at this event was one of the things that I had been worrying about.

Before we took our seats for the ceremony and Peter took his spot in the holding room with the other graduates we tried to get a picture on the seal. The seal is in the middle of Tally which is the student union. Superstition has it that if you walk on the seal during your time at State, you won't graduate. All the students avoid stepping on the seal. And on graduation night, they were lined up to get their picture on it. We waited in the line for a bit but were worried about being late so we got out of line and took our seats in the ball room and Peter took his place with the other graduates. I disappointed that he wasn't going to get his picture on the seal. But guess what? Immediately after we left the ceremony, on our way out to get some family pictures, there was no one on the seal so we got our picture! And just moments after we got our picture, another long line of kids was forming to get theirs!

I had been stressed about making our dinner reservation Peter's ceremony was at 6:00, the reservation was at 8:00. I wanted to get family pictures, we had to get out of the parking garage, get downtown, get parked in another parking garage, etc. I knew it was going to be close. But, because we weren't in the garage, we had plenty of time and actually made it our reservation a few minutes early. That's another huge praise and one more thing that I had been stressed about but God worked it out.

We had a very tasty dinner at Birdie's downtown. After dinner, we headed back to our respective hotel rooms to get to bed because we had to be up early the next morning for the big graduation at Carter-Finley Stadium.

My mom and brother weren't going to this ceremony so they headed back home Saturday morning. Sarah had a lot of work to do for finals so she stayed at the hotel working on a paper that was due on Monday. Dan and I and Cathy and Eric were scheduled to leave our hotels by 7:30am. Cathy and Eric, being better at schedules than Dan and I, left right on time. Dan and I got held up in the hotel Starbucks because there was a line. It was a Starbucks so I should have factored in that there would be a line.

But thanks to Cathy and Eric being on time, they got seats for us that were very close to the stage and were in the shade. In addition, they were able to get us actual seat with backs. They have them scattered randomly around the stadium but they were able to get some. That was a huge benefit because basically we were sitting in that one spot for over three hours without moving and the seat backs made it much more comfortable.

The graduating class had 6900 kids in it! Based on our rough counts and calculations of the chairs on the football field, it looks like they were prepared for 4200 of them to attend. There were probably (based on my rough estimation 600 or so empty seats. I don't think they have ever done a school wide graduation before and I'm very glad we attended. It felt so special to be celebrating with so many people.

Another wonderful thing about the seats Cathy and Eric chose was that Peter and his friends were actually sitting almost directly in front of us! That was definitely another God moment! There were four lines of graduates processing in through four different stadium entrances. Peter and his friends got in the line that unbeknownst to him put them right in front of us. We were texting the whole time they were processing in and were waving wildly when we spotted each other. It was so funny because everyone was doing that with their graduates. Also, it took 25 minutes for them all to process in and that's with four lines!

The ceremony was long but thankfully the only people that walked the stage were the PHD candidates. But it went by quickly and we were in the shade for most of it and we had seats with backs so it was all good. The best part was the speaker. His name was Daryl Caudle and he is an Admiral in the US Navy with over 100,000 troops and personnel currently reporting to him as Commander of the US Fleet Forces. He's originally from Winston-Salem and he graduated from NC State 40 years ago. And in It's Such A Small World moment - Eric has actually met him through a mutual friend and had dinner with him recently! How cool is that?!

The Admiral was an excellent speaker. At the end of his speech, I turned to Dan and said that I was fired up and felt like I needed to go out and do something great with my life! After the ceremony when we were at lunch, Peter said all of his friends felt fired up as well from the speech and talked about how awesome the speech was. So, we tasked Eric with getting that message back to the Admiral through their mutual friend.

After the ceremony, Dan and I, thanks to being late to our original plan, actually had good parking spots to get out of the stadium quickly. We were able to get to the Trophy Brewing and Pizza on time for our reservation. (This was yet another stress point I had going into the weekend that God worked out for me.) Joe picked up Sarah and got her there on time and Cathy and Eric got there in plenty of time even though they had a harder time getting out of the stadium. The pizza and beer were delicious and we had a lovely lunch celebrating our new grad.

Then we had work to do. We had to pick up a keg for the roommate/family party, get the table and chairs set up in the back yard, and get the food from Sam Jones BBQ. (There's a whole side story that I won't go into because it's boring but it did leave me with a lot of stress leading up to the event which again, turned into no need to worry.) But the food was delicious so we will stop there. Well, let me just quickly add, if you want to use Sam Jones to cater an event, do so by all means but do not try to go through their catering coordinator. She will not return your multiple emails or multiple phone messages. Just call the restaurant directly. ;)

We spent the evening hanging out with Peter's roommates and their families and then all of their friends started pouring in after dinner so we finished out Peter's college career with a keg party.It was the perfect end to a perfect weekend.

The next morning we went to Mass and then had lunch at Lobera Tacos and Tequila. We stuck with the tacos and stayed away from the tequila. After lunch we dropped Peter back off at his apartment and we headed home.

It was a wonderful weekend celebrating our new graduate! I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. When I finally stopped worrying and let God take over, everything worked out perfectly. Now I just need to remember this lesson moving forward.


Graduation Announcement

Processing in to the Department Graduation


At NC State, even the graduations are red!

Four years of not stepping on the seal paid off!

Can you spot Peter? I love how close we were to him in the stadium!

See him? He's waving while everyone else is still coming in. :)

Cal, Peter, Zeb, Will, Brendan. All the senior year roommates.

The roommates and their families! Such a great group of guys.

Owen, Peter, Corbin. These guys have been friends since high school and now fraternity brothers and college graduates.

The guys had one of their fraternity brothers who has a nice camera take their graduation photos. Afterwards they took some shots at Mitch's = their favorite hang out/bar.

The roommates.

Owen, Peter, Cal, Harris

Seniors, brothers, friends. Go Pack!

Easter 2025

2025-04-21T07:17:00.001-04:00

The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed!

I hope everyone had a blessed and happy Easter. I just woke up this morning to news that Pope Francis has passed away. I guess he wanted to celebrate one last Easter on earth before he went to heaven to meet the Lord.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

We had a lovely Easter weekend. Sarah came home on Friday night after class and work. Peter had tickets to see Billy Strings at the Koka Booth Amphitheater on Friday so he came home on Saturday.

He and Dan washed all the cars which was much appreciated as mine was filthy. Thanks, guys!

We went out to dinner at Quanto Bosta to enjoy some delicious Italian food. I have been reminiscing about our trip to Italy last May and wishing that we were able to go again. Since that's not happening any time soon, it was nice to eat and reminisce together as a family.

After dinner we headed to Wiseman Brewing to listen to some reggae and enjoy some tasty beer. Sarah's a good sport since she's not twenty one yet but only six more weeks for her.

After that we came home, watched some hockey and then this old lady headed to bed.

On Sunday, the kids got their Easter baskets. Yes, my kids still get Easter baskets and honestly, they always will. I mean, I'm 55 and I still get one. :)

We headed to Mass then came home and had lunch with my mom and my brother and then the kids both headed back to school. It was a quick visit but I'm so glad they were both able to come home. I'm happiest when we are all together.

Good for the soul....

2025-02-21T08:10:00.001-05:00

It had been about 6 weeks since the kids were home for Christmas break so we were excited when Peter came home last weekend! Sarah was texting me that she missed up but that she was too busy that weekend to come home. So we did what any parent that's only one hour from their child would do - we all hoped in the car Saturday afternoon and drove to Charlotte!

Well, technically, we drove to Concord and met Sarah for Mass at St. James the Greater and then headed to dinner. Since we made the plan so late and it was Valentine's weekend we didn't even try to go to Charlotte for dinner. It was too late for reservations anywhere and I knew I didn't want to spend two plus hours waiting around for a table at a "good" restaurant. So, I made the executive decision that we would eat at the Afton Tavern in Concord. We'd eaten there the night we moved Sarah in to her apartment this summer. The restaurant had good food (basic American) and it was large. It didn't strike me as somewhere that people would be flocking to for Valentine's Day. And I was right!

We headed there right after Mass and got a table after a short 5 minute wait. The food was good but oh, my! Just spending quality time with my family was the best part! I really love my little family and my biggest joy in the world is when we are all together which doesn't happen much lately. It was definitely good for the soul.

I had to commemorate the evening with a family selfie and a picture of my babies.

In other child news, Peter is currently in his last semester at NC State and is looking for a job. Prayers on that front would be appreciated!

Sarah is currently looking for an internship for the summer. Not only does she need a job but it is a requirement for her major. Prayers on that front would also be appreciated.

Sarah is serving as the Vice President of Administration for her sorority this year and she sent me some of the photos they took of the board. You know I have to share them here because I'm so proud of this beautiful (inside and outside) girl.

The 2025 Delta Zeta Executive Board (The girl in the white in the middle is the president. The VP's are all in pale pink. So cute!)

I've been super busy at work. The managers got back from Atlanta market several weeks ago and product just keeps rolling which means I've got plenty to do! I worked 40 hours two weeks in a row and this week only worked about 32 - we actually had some winter weather this week otherwise I would have gotten 36 plus. Things should start to slow down a little bit for me in the next couple of weeks and maybe (just maybe, I can make no promised) I will start up my old lady aging series again. Because of course, everyone wants to hear me whine about getting old.

So there you have it. A quick little update from my neck of the woods. Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2025-01-13T07:47:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

December flew by so fast. And here we are already half way through January.

We had a lovely Christmas. The kids both got home for break the second week of December and I have really enjoyed having them home....even though it's meant actual cooking and lots of laundry. Although, they can do their own laundry and cook their own meals, I like doing it for them when they are here. :)

We've spent a lot of time watching football (college and professional) as well as a lot of hockey (Carolina Hurricanes). We've eaten out, gone to breweries, watched tv, talked, laughed, and in general just enjoyed being a family of 4 again. Peter's classes started on January 6th so he left on the 5th. Sarah's classes start today but she left last Wednesday to go to State to hang out with her boyfriend and their friends. And I didn't blame her. Dan and I were both back to work last week (well actually before that even) so she was just hanging out around the house alone.

I'm not going to lie though. It was a little sad when I came home from work last Wednesday and the house was empty. It had been so nice coming home and having the kids here. Back to the empty nest...

On to the Christmas update...

I hosted the annual Christmas Eve party after the Lovefeast and Candlelight service at the church I grew up attending. Jennifer and her family joined us and we had a great time. And of course, I got zero pictures.

Christmas morning was our normal stockings, presents, lots of coffee and then off to Mass. Cathy and Eric made it in time from D.C. so that Cathy was able to join us at church. After church we had lunch with my mom and brother (mom prepared a Thanksgiving feast) and opened more presents. Then we came home and opened even more presents! Our dinner was leftover food from Christmas Eve and then we watched A Beautiful Mind. It was a very enjoyable movie. Peter wanted to watch Inception but that seemed to intense for me.

The next day we hung out around the house and I made chicken pot pie soup for lunch and then we piled into the car and headed to Raleigh. Peter wanted to show Cathy and Eric his beloved NC State Campus. It was a good time to do it too because we practically had the entire campus to ourselves.

We had diner at Player's Retreat and then we went to the Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary. We had never been so I had no idea what to expect but it was really cool. If you live in NC, I highly recommend it.

I had to work on the 27th and Cathy and Eric had to head back to D.C. so Christmas was over.

On New Year's Eve,we met the Waller's for dinner at Tokyo (our longstanding tradition). It was delicious as usual and I love when I get to hang out with Jennifer. I miss when the kids were little and we got to hang out every day!

I actually had to work New Year's Eve for a couple of hours after the store closed because New Year's Day meant INVENTORY! I worked a lot of hours but we managed to get it done by end of day on Saturday. 4 days isn't bad when you are counting and reconciling an entire store's worth of inventory!

And that pretty much sums up the holidays for me!

Happy New Year! Although at this point I should probably say, "Happy Valentine's Day!" ")

A November recap!

2024-12-04T16:30:00.003-05:00

December?! Already? November flew by but one thing I've noticed as I've gotten older (as we age...) time goes so fast. And speaking of aging, I haven't forgotten about my series. I've got lots to write about. But sadly, as we age... we get tired easily and prefer to sit on the couch when we get home from work instead of writing blog posts about getting old. Oh well! I will get back to it eventually but for now, I wanted to do a quick update from November.

My sweet little baby boy turned 22!? He was able to come home for a couple of days so that we could celebrate with him. When I asked what he wanted for dessert, he immediately said "banana pudding"! Now that's a good southern boy for you! And in case you don't know it, this is the best banana pudding recipe hands down. I always make it in a triffle dish instead of a 9x13 because it makes the presentation a little nicer. And then I stuck two number two candles in it and voila! Birthday "cake" for my baby!

Guess who's a HUGE Grateful Dead fan? And guess who loves his new Christmas sweater?

He's also a huge Hurricanes fan so this sweatshirt and hat from Uncle Dick and Aunt Jen were perfect!

It was so nice to spend some time with my boy. The only thing missing was my girl!

But never fear! Both kids came home for Thanksgiving so I was in hog heaven. I worked Monday and Tuesday and then spent the day on Wednesday cooking. But I had help. Sarah made the carrot cake I always make and Peter made a pumpkin pie. Both were delicious. I also made cranberry sauce and sweat potato casserole.

We spent Thursday with my mom and my brother and Jennifer's family. Mom insisted that we take a group photo so I brought my real camera and my tripod and I'm so happy I did. Look at this great group picture:

We had a great time. The food was delicious and it was so good catching up with Jennifer and her family.

And then of course, we headed to the mountains the day after Thanksgiving to get our Christmas tree.

It was COLD. It even snowed a little bit on us but that just made it seem more Christmasy.


We found the perfect little tree!

And then we headed to downtown West Jefferson and walked around while we waiting on our table at New River Brewing Company. The food is good there and the beer is too so win-win!

When we got home, I made chili and we decorated the tree in our pjs.

We also watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles because that's now our Thanksgiving tradition movie. It's really funny and has definitely stood the test of time!

Peter headed back to Raleigh on Saturday morning because he had a graduation party to attend and he and his friends were going to watch the State/Carolina game and Sarah spent the day with her whole crew so just like that, it was just the two of us. It was a wonderful time with my sweet little family and I cherish every minute I get to spend with them. That's another thing about aging...you finally understand what's important and it's ALWAYS the people never the things.

And guess what it did on Tuesday? We woke up to a light dusting of snow. Of course, schools here were cancelled and I got to go to work an hour later and there were lots of wrecks. It was so quiet and peaceful when I was drinking my coffee.

I hope you all had a great November! I like to think that I'll get back on here and post again in December but I have a lot to do what with it being CHRISTMAS EVE IN TWENTY DAYS! So I guess I'll go ahead and wish you a Merry Christmas!

And just for fun...Here's some out takes from our Christmas card "photo shoot". Yes, we did it in the front yard on Thanksgiving morning but it was the only time we had since we were getting our tree on Friday and the kids were heading in different directions on Saturday.

I should have used this one for the card! :)

As We Age...A Series in Who Knows How Many Post Because I've Got A Lot of Issues. Part 2

2024-11-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

Next up on As We Age...A Series in Who Knows How Many Posts because I've got a lot of issues....

I would like to discuss feet.

Ewwwwwww. Gross. Nobody likes to talk about feet. And certainly, nobody likes to look at pictures of other people's feet so there will be zero pictures of my feet posted here today.

While I may find feet ugly I am very thankful for my feet. Until 4 years ago, I had zero thoughts about my feet. I used to bee bop into a shoe store and pick any shoe I thought was cute, purchase it, and wear it with no issues but then one day all that changed.

It was the end of 2020 and I was working early voting for the election. In our county, early voting lasts 17 days. They like for everyone working to be there every day and to be there the entire time the polls are open which is typically 12 hours. They don't like election workers coming and going in shifts. They like continuity. Most of these 17 days I was on my feet for all most the full 12 hours .

And for most of these 17 days I was wearing cute, non-supportive shoes - the type of shoes I've always worn. Flats, fashion sneakers (you know the shoe that looks like a sneaker but has zero cushioning or support), little booties, you get the idea. I was dressing for cuteness without giving a second thought to my feet. Because prior to this, my feet hadn't given me any problems.

After that election my feet were killing me. Every step I took caused my feet to burn. I remember it felt like they were ripping with each step and the pain in my heels were intense. After much googling, I determined that I had plantar fasciitis.

And in case you are lucky enough not to know what plantar fasciitis is here's a brief synopsis:

Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation of a thick band of tissue called the plantar fascia. This tissue runs across the bottom of the foot and connects the heel bone and toes. This is one of the most common causes of heel pain. Plantar fasciitis occurs when the fascia becomes overstretched or experiences excessive strain caused by repetitive stress from activities like standing or running. The most common symptom is a stabbing pain in the bottom of the foot near the heel. Pain is usually the worst in the morning.

I brought it up with my doctor who agreed that's what I had. She gave me a printout of exercises to do with my feet. I bought a contraption from Amazon stretch my feet. I used a frozen water bottle to roll my feet on to stretch out the fascia. I even started doing the foot exercises before I got up in the mornings because when you haven't been using your feet the muscles constrict and then if they aren't stretched out properly the ripping feeling occurs. These exercises helped some and the frozen water bottle felt nice on my poor feet but it was still very painful to walk. And if you will recall, this was the exact time I was starting to gain weight so I'm sure not being able to move without pain didn't help in that area either.

I decided I needed more than some foot exercises to help with the pain so I went to Fleet Feet and got special inserts in my shoes. I also bought a pair of very expensive Hokas to wear when I needed to be on my feet for long periods. Both of these helped but I still didn't feel like my feet were healing. It was at this point (spring of 2021) that I discovered the thing that literally saved me...

OOFOS!

I had never heard of OOFOS but in my extensive googling and searching for relief from my foot pain, I came across an ad for them. And even though they were the ugliest things I've ever seen and they were expensive, I ordered a pair.

When they came and I put them on, I swear, I could hear the angels singing.

My feet felt good for the first time in months. I could actually walk without intense pain.

They were ugly so I never wore them outside of the house but the minute I got home from anywhere, I put them on. I even kept them by my bed and wore them to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I remember about a month after getting them, I accidentally wore them out the house, I was mortified. I looked down and I had these ugly shoes on out in public. Sarah told me they weren't that ugly and not to worry about it. I decided to stop being vain and enjoy the fact that I could walk from the parking lot into a building and not be in pain. And from then on, I started wearing them to the grocery store and any other places that it didn't really matter. I would never wear them to church or out to dinner but I basically was wearing them 85% of the time at that point. And it was then, they my feet finally began to heal.

Eventually, I started seeing ads for OOFOS on TV and started seeing other people wearing them out in public. I've gone through quite a few pairs of them over the last four years and my brother and my husband are now also proud OOFOS owners. Thankfully, now, the basic OOFOS have come way down in price too. I was originally paying $90 and now you can get the basic pair for $60!

My feet are now fully healed from the plantar fasciitis thankfully and I can wear cuter shoes again. But gone are the days where I can wear just any old cute shoe. The heel has to be a certain height and there has to be a certain amount of support. If not, I have to use my good old inserts. I still come home from work or being out and put on my OOFOS.

I remember in my youth wondering why all the little old ladies wore such ugly shoes and vowed never to be like them. HA!!!

As we age, our feet break down and we become little old ladies wearing ugly but sensible shoes!

Have you guys ever heard of OOFOS? Do you own them? Would you wear them out in public?

As We Age....A Series in Who Knows How Many Parts Because I've Got A Lot of Issues (Part 1)

2024-11-01T07:03:00.005-04:00

I am 55. At least that's what the calendar and my math told me on September 13th. And don't think I didn't double check my math! I still can't believe it. How did I get so old??

My mind thinks I'm 21 but my joints are telling me otherwise.

And now the doctors are telling me too.

It all began when I turned 50. Literally 3 months after turning 50 in 2019, I was down on the floor watering the Christmas tree when I couldn't just get up. It's like my knees mysteriously decided they were done. I had to use my hands to push myself up off the ground and it's been that way ever since.

That's exactly the same time that I started (also mysteriously) gaining weight. Literally nothing changed in my diet or my exercise but every morning when I would weigh, the number on the scale would be slightly higher than the day before. I blamed covid, I blamed perimenopause , I blamed myself for not being "better". But now, I believe it's just aging(so also maybe perimenopause because being in perimenoapause means you are getting old).

How do I know it's aging that was causing the weight gain? Because when I asked my gynecologist about it I got a speech that started with "As we age...." Basically saying you are getting old and there's nothing you can do about it. I saw this doctor (a male) and got this speech year after year so I switched gynecologists. I found a nice woman and thought she might be more helpful. After I described my symptoms and complaints, she started with "As we age...." and I got the same speech. Again it was just you are getting old and you have to deal with it.

So, for 4 years, I kept gaining weight even though I was trying different things. Different diets, different exercises. No diet. I even tried less exercise and more calories because a lot of things I was reading about weight gain as we age said that I wasn't eating enough and that I was exercising too much. And still, nothing happened EXCEPT that I continued to gain weight.

Fast forward to February of this year. I decided enough was enough. I was officially in menopause so even though I was old and aged, I was going to do what I've done before to lose weight. I was going to limit my carb intake.

In February, I was a whopping 35 pounds over my actual weight in the spring of 2019. That's the equivalence of a pregnancy weight gain without the joy of a baby at the end.

I started limiting my carb intake to under 20 per day. This meant I cut out sweets, adult beverages, potatoes, rice, bread. All the things that make life delicious. But it was worth it. By July, I had lost 23 pounds. Since then, I've added back in a couple of adult beverages on the weekend and also some other tasty weekend carbs and I've maintained by 23 pound loss.

I have decided that my goal through the end of the year is to maintain my current weight loss and then start back up in full force in January to see if I can get these last 12 to 15 pounds off. It's going to be hard but I think I can do it!

I'm feeling better about myself and in general, just feeling better. My knees still don't work though but that's just because, as we age...


This was June of 2019 when I was feeling good and looking good! No clue of what was yet to come. This was 3 months before I turned 50.


This was October 2022. Who is this woman? I don't recognize her.

This was last month. It's a definite improvement and I'm feeling so much better in my own skin these days. We'll see if I can drop some more pounds next year. But if I can't, I'm perfectly happy at this weight and hope I can maintain it.

This is part one in a series of all of my aging woes. So if you want to hear me complain more about my old body, stick around! :)

Tis the season...

2024-10-30T08:26:00.001-04:00

It's election season and this is the first time Peter and Sarah are eligible to vote for the president. What should have been an exciting time for them was marred by the fact that both candidates are extremely flawed and there is no obvious "good choice" that you could confidently cast your vote for. (At least in our opinions.)

But, we did our duty as citizens and we all got out there and voted. And since it's 2024, did it even count if you didn't take a selfie and share it to the family group chat?

Voting in three different counties means three different I Voted Stickers!

Not only is it election season, It's also Halloween! Last weekend, both kids attended Halloween parties and they sent us pictures of their costumes.

Sarah was Daisy from The Great Gatsby (her favorite novel)

She added gloves!

Peter was a pirate!

Here he is with all his roomies on their back porch before heading out!

And because this is one of my favorite Halloween pictures it seemed appropriate to share it now...

This was from Halloween 2007 and you can read my blog post from that day if you are interested Oh those sweet babies!

Happy Halloween everyone and don't forget to vote!

NC State Parent's Weekend 2024

2024-10-10T08:39:00.000-04:00

On Friday, September 27, we headed to Raleigh for Parent's Weekend. In the past, we've only stayed for one night but Peter asked if we could stay the whole weekend so we obliged. We also decided that instead of staying in the outer areas of Raleigh we would splurge and stay downtown. We used Dan's Hilton points and were in the heart of downtown Raleigh all weekend. It was really nice and very convenient.

Dan had to work on Friday but was able to take a conference call on the road so we were able to meet Peter and his friends for dinner at Trophy Brewing Company. Their beer was really good. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it! After that we headed to the Raleigh Beer Garden which holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most beers on tap anywhere. They currently have 385 beers on tap! It was a really cool place with different floors, a rooftop bar, and mini golf on-site as well.

The Raleigh Beer Garden was just down the block from our hotel so we walked back and were in bed around midnight. That's late for this old lady! We were up early because the NC State Football game was at noon and we had to go to a tailgate party.

You can tell Peter is older because thankfully we were able to skip the frat lot tailgate party (which, y'all, if you've never been - those are LOUD!!) He has a fraternity brother that graduated last year whose parents live in Raleigh and they have a very nice tailgate party for each game. So went went to their tailgate before the game. We got there a little before ten and then headed in to the game right after kickoff.

State was playing Northern Illinois. They were the team that beat Notre Dame the first game of the season. NC State was supposed to have a very good football team this year (they were ranked 24th) at the beginning of the season but sadly they are not very good. So we were afraid they were going to lose this game but they managed to win. (Side note - it's going to be a very long football season as none of our teams are good this year. In addition to State not living up to expectations the Panthers and the Patriots are both horrible. Hopefully Drake Maye can do something for the Patriots this weekend.)

Sarah went to Raleigh to see Joe and they were also at the game. We met up with them at halftime. It was so nice to see her and give her a big hug!

After the game, we headed to a cookout hosted by Peter's fraternity. They had a local BBQ restaurant prepare chicken and pulled pork and the parents brought the sides. It was a lot of fun!

After the cookout, we headed to Mitch's Tavern for a couple of drinks with Peter's bestie, Cal, and his parents and another friend who has graduated. Mitch's is one of Peter's favorite places to hang out. He and a group of friends go there every Wednesday for trivia night. And a lot of times they win but usually they come in behind this one team that always wins. Peter has dubbed them their rivals and they strive every week to beat this team.

On Sunday morning we went to Mass and then had lunch at MoJo's Burger Joint, one of Peter's favorite burger places in Raleigh. After lunch we dropped Peter back off at his apartment and then we headed home.

It was such a nice weekend and I'm glad we stayed for two nights. It was so nice getting to know some of Peter's friends better and we enjoyed getting to know Cal's parents better as well. I miss Peter but it's nice to know he's got good friends and I think he's right where he's supposed to be.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. Sadly I didn't get any of us with Peter's friends or friends parents. I'm the worst at getting pictures or asking for group shots so there are no photos from Friday night or Saturday night.

The lady photobombing us with the Wolfie made me laugh.

UNCC Parent's Weekend 2024

2024-09-17T06:52:00.001-04:00

Dan and I aren't all work and no play! We managed to squeeze in a fun 36 hours in Charlotte this past weekend.

It was Parent's Weekend at UNC Charlotte! We headeddown on Saturday morning and picked our girl up from her apartment and went to the Delta Zeta house for lunch. We got to meet some of Sarah's sweet sisters and some parents.

From there we headed out to get Dan a different UNCC tee shirt. He didn't like the one he was wearing because it had a pocket on the front of it. And I agree with him, tee shirts with pockets are weird. We also helped Sarah put air in her tires. She knows how to do it herself but the free air station on campus was out of order and since we were out and about in her car, Dan did it at the gas station.

We went back to her apartment, got her roomie and bestie Gabi, and went to check into our hotel before the game. Then we headed to the tailgate lot. There we met Sarah's big sister. She was the sweetest thing and had the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen.

Then we headed to the football game. The 49ers were losing the entire game. But then the quarterback got injured(he was the 2nd string qb), they put in the third string guy and they ended up winning. So that was exciting. I'm glad we stayed. We always stay even if the team is losing. I heard some parents in the hotel lobby lamenting that they left at half time so they missed the comeback. Ummmm, that's why you stay!

On Sunday morning we headed to Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral which is where Dan and I got married 24 years and 6 days ago. It was so nice to be there almost 24 years from our wedding date. The church is so beautiful on the inside.

After Mass we went to lunch with our girl and then dropped her off at her apartment where she said she had laundry to do and studying. We gave her lots of hugs and headed home.

It was just so nice to spend time with her. I miss having her around but I'm so thankful that she's happy, and thriving, and living her best life! That brings this mom great peace.

Here are pretty much the only pictures I took....

The Delta Zeta house is so cute on the inside. I should have taken more pictures.

The girls make huge banners for every occasion and hang them over the door. Just pretend the whole banner is showing in this photo. :)

Us with Gabi at the tailgate lot.

At the game. Sarah was in the student section with her friends.

St Patrick' Cathedral


Just two love birds who have gained some weight and some wrinkles over the last 24 years of marriage.

Lunch after Mass with a side of Panthers football. We had to watch it on the big screen tv's but the Panther's were at home and downtown Charlotte was hoping with tailgate parties and fans everywhere. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be another loooooonnnnnngggggg season.

And here are a few pictures of Sarah's little apartment after she and Gabi decorated....

These are the blackout curtains that Dan hung for Sarah on a day that I was working. Sarah said they help her sleep so much better.

I know I shared this one in a previous post but am putting it here again for full effect. :)

Pink chair, of course!

We squeezed in a trip to the Cape!

2024-08-30T08:27:00.001-04:00

It has been such a busy summer for all of us! As you know, once the kids got out of school, we headed to Italy. It was a dream trip and I am so glad we got that time together in such a beautiful place.

Immediately upon returning home, Peter started his internship at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh and Sarah started her internship at The Bethesda Center for the Homeless in Winston-Salem. Both kids learned a lot and had really good experiences at each job.

I have spent the summer working at my job and I think I may have mentioned it, but took a new position now. I think technically it's called Inventory Specialist. Basically everything that comes into the store goes through me first. I open the box, price it, put it into our point-of-sale system, insure the invoice matches what is in the system, send back damaged items, etc.

I think I picked up on the new job pretty quickly and as soon as I learned my job, we got a new point of sale system and I think I've learned that pretty quickly too. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?! :)

It's our buys season now as all the fall and Christmas inventory is pouring into the store daily. It can be a little overwhelming as we have a small stock room and there are many very large boxes to be worked through. I normally work 10-5 M-Th but have been getting there at 9:00 and staying until almost 6 most days as well as working some Fridays and Saturdays and I'm still not caught up. But it will be like this until Novemeber. I'm not complaining though because I really enjoy this job and the people I work with. And having a little paycheck is nice as well.

Sarah was able to spend over a week with her boyfriend Joe and his family traveling to a family wedding. The wedding was in Colorado and then they headed to visit more family in California. She had a great time with him and his family and was very excited to get to meet his extended family.

When the kids were done with their internships (well technically Peter had to end his a few days early to make this happen) we were able to squeeze in a quick trip to the Cape. I say squeeze it in because literally we picked him up an hour after he got off work in Raleigh and headed up there and then on the way back, we dropped him off on a Friday evening, got home with Sarah, packed up the car and headed to Charlotte the next day to move her into her new apartment. All because classes started that Monday.

Old dogs may be able to learn new tricks but all that traveling and moving sure made this dog tired! But it was all worth it because we got in another family vacation (I will always be thankful for time spent with my people) and got everyone where they needed to be in the nick of time!

We were able to spend some time with Dan's brother and his family as well as Dan's uncle. We got in a Red Sox game. Sarah's boyfriend Joe was in town for a different Red Sox game and was able to join us on the Cape for 24 hours. We relaxed on the beach a lot and just enjoyed time together as a family. After all the going, going, going, in Italy, it was so nice just to relax and hang out with one another. And other than a little rain at the baseball game and a lot of rain on the way home from it, the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

With the kids back in school and Dan and I back at work, we are adjusting to the empty nest again. I enjoy my time with him but I do miss my babies. Thankfully they both text every day and keep us posted and up to date on everything so that makes it better. They both seem to be happy and thriving where they are so that makes me happy.

Here are some pictures from our summer....

Peter's still living with his fraternity brothers this year but only 5 guys live here instead of 12. It's much nicer than the other place and so far, he's very happy living here. Hoping and praying for a great senior year!

This is always a beautiful sight to see after two days of driving!!!!

Peter and his friends have discovered the movie Good Will Hunting so when we were in Boston for the Red Sox game we stopped by the L Street Tavern which is in the movie.

Peter in front of the L Street Tavern

At the game. They lost but we still had fun!

My little family enjoying the afternoon on the beach.

Joe joined us for 24 hours. He had met a friend in Boston for the Red Sox game that was the night after ours. Then he took the bus from Boston to the Cape and Sarah picked him up at the bus station in Hyannis.

Dan and I were up before the kids every morning and took nice long walks along the beach and around the neighborhood. Such a great way to start the day.

So peaceful.

Of course, we had to take Joe to Captain Parker's so he could try their famous clam chowder. It is soooooooo good!

Clam Chowder with Clam Cakes and a Lemon Dill Aioli. YUM!!!!!

At the JFK Memorial Park in Hyannis.

AT the beach with the Best Day Ever. He even has the koozie to prove it!

My sweet girl.

After our nightly ice cream...the views are lovely.

Every year, we allow Peter one Lobster Roll. They are very expensive. This year we went to Brax Landing in Harwich Port. The food was delicious and the view was great and Peter said the Lobster Roll was the best one he's had yet.

Look at Sarah's giant plate of nachos!!!

We always try to make it to Grey's Beach for the sunset once during our visit. It never disappoints. Bring your bug spray though!

Me and my favorite girl.

Dan and the kids took a bike ride one evening while I was preparing dinner and he sent me this cute pic.

And this one.

Another selfie from one of our walks.

Dan and Peter decided to go to Hyannis one afternoon while Sarah and I were on the beach. They stopped to pose with Iyannough, the Indian whom Hyannis is named after.


And then just like that, our Cape trip was over, we drove the two days home and got up bright and early the next day and moved this beautiful girl into her apartment.

And the day after that, we celebrated my brother's birthday at Mom's house. It was just Mom, Brad, Dan, and Me but it was nice to be home and back in a routine

Italy, Day 7, May 17, 2024

2024-08-07T07:42:00.001-04:00

It was our final day in Italy and we intentionally left it unplanned so that we could see anything else we decided might be interesting but didn't necessarily need tickets for or didn't need to purchase tickets well in advance. Sometimes it's just nice to see where the day takes you.

And in this case the day took us to the Catacombs. The Catacombs are underground burial places and there are at least 40 of them in Rome. They were used from the second century to the fifth century and were for burying Christians and Jews. Christians didn't believe in burning bodies like the pagans so they needed a place to bury them. The catacombs are made up of a vast labyrinth of underground passages with niches dug out on the sides. The bodies were wrapped and placed in these niches and the niches were covered with a stone or clay. Because Roman law wouldn't allow burial in the city wall the Catacombs are all outside of Rome so even though the city has since expanded it was a trek from our AirBnB so we had to take a taxi to get there. We toured the largest one which is the Catacombs of St. Callixtus. It also happened to be on the Appian Way which is one of the earliest roads in Rome.

The catacombs were cool - literally and figuratively. It was a little spooky but there were no bones just hundreds and hundreds of niches of all sizes depending on the wealth of the family doing the burying. It definitely made me appreciate a graveyard as I can only imagine how dark and stinky the catacombs were almost 2000 years ago! Also, Saint Cecilia is buried there!

After our tour, we took a taxi back to the city and visited St. John Lateran. It's the oldest public church in Rome. It was founded in 324AD and is the catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Rome and is the seat of the Bishop of Rome, who is, of course, The Pope!

And like every church we stepped into in Rome it was absolutely breathtaking on the inside. Inside were massive sculptures of all the apostles that were made in the 1700's as well as the tombs of 6 popes.

Adjacent to St. John Lateran are the Scala Sancta or the Holy Stairs. According to Catholic tradition, the Holy Stairs were the steps leading up to the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem and are the step Jesus took on his way to the trial during his Passion. The Stairs were brought to Rome by Saint Helena in the fourth century.

Since the 1700s the marble stairs have been covered over with wooden planks to protect them but there are openings so that you can see the marble. You are only allowed to ascend the stairs on your knees slowly and pilgrims do it while praying. I had really wanted to do this but wasn't sure if we were going to be able to have the time to do it. But everything worked out and we were able to pray our way up the steps. It was a highlight of the trip for me. I wish that I had a picture of us praying on our knees up the steps but the sign said no photography.

The wood was relaid over the marble in 2019 but so many people have gone up these steps on their knees that the wood was already worn down into hollows (like the shape of knees). It was really special to be going up the same steps that Jesus took to his Passion and to some how feel a part of it or at least to feel closer to it.

After this we met up with Sarah's boyfriend, Joe. If you will recall, he arrived in Italy the same time we did for a study abroad program. He was meeting us for lunch and to spend the rest of the day with us.

After lunch we headed to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. We took the train and then walked. It was quite a hike from the city center but it was very cool. It was built around 12BC as a tomb for Cestius. He was a magistrate in Rome at the time. At the time it was built, the pyramid would have been in a field away from the city because no one was allowed to be buried in the city limits. It is very well preserved now because it was built into the Aruelian Wall around 271AD.

Even though it is well preserved, the park that it is in is a little unkempt. There was really no one around looking at it. It seems forgotten by Rome and it's many tourists. Although it did undergo renovations in 2015 and has since been opened to the public to go into 1 Saturday a month. It's just so cool to me that something that was built 12 years before Jesus was born is still standing and we got to see it.

Afterwards we headed to The Baths of Caracalla. We took the train here and walked as well. This public bath house was built around 212 AD and was in operation until the 530s. It was massive. It sits on 62 acres and had a daily capacity of between 6,000 and 8,000 bathers. And apparently could hold 1,600 people at a time. That's a lot of baths! :) There was an Olympic sized pool. There was a hot room and a cold room used to provide hot baths and cold baths and of course, all of the water was brought in using aqueducts. There were still remnants of all the many tile mosaics on the floors and walls as well.

There was a lot of walking because these baths were huge and I'm not going to lie, we were all getting tired. We were up early, had already done a lot of walking and were just exhausted in general. The baths were very cool but we did the tour ourselves but probably should have gotten a guide. There weren't a lot of visitors to the baths so it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves (minus a few tour groups). It was really neat to see.

After we left the baths, we took the bus back to our AirBnb for a quick rest and then we had appertivo at Hostoria Fratellini near our favorite Piazza Novona and then walked around a little more and found the perfect dinner spot - Trento Quatro, also near Piazza Novona. Dinner was yummy and like every other restaurant we ate at, the vibe was awesome - lots of people, music, good food and pleasant wait staff. And it didn't hurt that after our meal, the maitre d' brought us all glasses of Prosecco. If you know me, you know I love Prosecco. And if it's in Italy and it's free - it's all the more delicious!

Afterwards we headed back reluctantly to the AirBnB because we knew our time in Italy was over. We were heading out super early the next morning to go home.

It was such a lovely vacation that 2 and half months later, I am still thinking back on it daily (every time I look at my lock screen) and feeling so grateful and blessed that we had this time together in Italy.

Fino alla prossima volta...


These images are from the tombs but are not ones I took because there was no photography allowed.


Long dark tunnels with niches on the sides...each niche equals a body or bodies! 

 
The nicer niches meant your family had more money


The obelisk outside of St. James Lateran.  The Romans loved to bring in obelisks from Egypt and this just so happens to be the tallest one in the world. It dates from 15t century BC and was brought to Rome in 357AD It was a symbol of Christianity in Rome

The entrance to St. John Lateran. In typical fashion, it's very unassuming on the outside but so gorgeous on the inside.


The Grand Altar at St. John Lateran

St. Peter

St. James the Greater

St Andrew (You can see by the chairs below the size of these statues!)

St. Thomas

St. John

St. Phillip

St. James the Lesser

St. Bartholomew

St. Matthew (Again, use the people below for size comparison!)

St. Simon

St. Jude










These giant doors are over 2000 years old!.  They were built in 80BC and located in the Roman Curia.  Julius Ceasar would have walked through them on his way to work.  They were moved to this church in the 1600s.








Outside of the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Holy  Stairs

This is a stock photo of the Holy Stairs. I wish I had asked someone to take our picture going up them because even though the sign says no photos there are plenty of photos on the internet of people praying up them. Oh well, maybe next time! ;)

This is St. Paul's Gate and is one of the southern gates in the 3rd century Aurelian Wall. The gate has since been separated from the wall and now looks like a castle.

Me, Dan, and a cat in front of an Egyptian Pyramid in Rome!

Just a casual street in Rome with an Egyptian pyramid beside it.

These two are just the cutest. And Joe was very helpful with navigating the bus and trains as he had been using them all week and was a pro!

Outer walls of the bathhouse.

Interior chambers in the bath house.

This place was massive and my pictures don't convey the size of the bath house. But it did hold 1600 people at a time so....

Remnants of some of the mosaics

Sarah and Joe

Appertivo time with these cuties!

This appertivo came with salads! Every place is different.

Santa Maria della Pace. It wouldn't be Rome if there wasn't always a church in site. This one was near our dinner spot.

Santa Maria after dinner.

A restaurant on our way back to the AirBnB. It was very... purple!

Italy, Day 6, May 16, 2024

2024-07-03T09:17:00.000-04:00

Guess what? We were up early again. :) Well not too early. I had scheduled a 3:00 PM tour of the Coliseum so we didn't have anywhere to be until then BUT, you can't sleep in when there's so much to see!

We (Dan) spent hours pouring over Google maps before the trip to plan the perfect day of sightseeing before our tour of the Coliseum. He started at our apartment and used the Coliseum as an endpoint and added everything we wanted to see between the two places. And between Dan and Google Maps, we had plotted the perfect walking course.

Our first stop along our route was the Pantheon. Again, I'm always shocked at how you can just be walking along and there is a structure that is 2,000 years old. The Pantheon was dedicated in the year 126 AD so it was built prior to that. It was built by Emperor Hadrian on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Ceaser Augustus (great nephew of Julius Ceaser) after the earlier temple burned down. Hadrian left the original temple inscription which is why it's exact build date isn't known.

It's one of the best preserved of all the ancient Roman structures because it's been in continuous use since it was built. Inside is the Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs and has been operating as a Catholic church since the 600s. Fun fact - the portico is still the world's largest unsupported dome. How's that for ancient engineering?! Please note that we did not do a tour inside the Pantheon. I wish we would have but time was limited. That just leaves us something to check out the next time we visit! :)

Our next stop was the Spanish Steps. The steps are 135 steps between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and the Piazza Trinita dei Monti at the top. And the Tinita dei Monti Church (and a gorgeous view) is your reward after climbing all the steps. The stairs were built in 1735. After checking out the view from the top of the Piazza Trinita and the church we headed to the Trevi Fountain.

The Trevi Fountain was built in 1762 and is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome and one of the most famous fountains in the world. We knew it would be crowded and it was. But I also discovered online that there is a Benetton store right at the fountain and there are great views of the fountain inside. We found that was true so we got to see some nice views and enjoy the air conditioning.

We then headed to St. Igatious of Loyola. This church is known for it's stunning painted ceiling. It was painted in 1685 by Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit friar. It was painted to look like a dome and it is definitely convincing. They have a giant mirror set up so you can look at it in the mirror without killing your neck. There's always a long line for that so we opted just to use our necks. It was magnificent! Our entire trip, I could not get over the fact that every church was so stunning on the inside.

We then headed to lunch at Abruzzi. I need to stress again how much I enjoyed eating every meal outside at all these restaurants. The weather was perfect and I loved watching all the action on the streets.

After lunch, we headed to the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. This is a large national monument built between 1885 and 1935 to honor Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy. We got tickets to the top so we could look out an enjoyed 360 degree views of Rome. It was definitely worth it to do this. We stayed up there a long time looking at Rome. It was beautiful. Afterwards we went to the outdoor snack patio and got something to drink. We were thirsty and we still had a ways to go.

After this we finally made our way to the Colosseum for our tour of that along with the Forum and Paletine Hill. We met our tour guide and group. This tour we had about 20 people in our group. I definitely recommend smaller tours for everything but this we decided to pay less for this tour since we splurged in Pompeii and the Vatican. Also, I would always recommend the morning tour if possible. Our tour guide seemed grumpy as she had already done a morning tour and it was pretty warm that afternoon. I was hoping for less crowds later in the day but I think any time you go to a tourist attraction in Rome, it will be crowded.

We learned a lot about the Colosseum but the main take away was that while it was used for battles between gladiators, it was also used for shows where they would kill wild animals from Africa. There's a whole system of tunnels under it to transport gladiators and wild beasts to the floor for the shows. Also, they used to fill it with water and stage sea battles. Apparently it would be open for a month or two at a time and in addition to "the shows" there would be food, alcohol and prostitutes. The rulers of Rome used it as a way to keep the people happy. It was so big on the inside. I couldn't get over how large it felt. Estimates are that it held 80,000 spectators.

After touring the inside, we headed to the Forum and Paletine Hill where we were treated to more gorgeous views. The Forum was the area where there were government buildings, temples, markets, etc and it was a daily gathering place for the early Romans. Paletine Hill which is adjacent to the Forum was the site of Ceaser Augustus' imperial palace.

After the tour we headed to our favorite time of day - aperitivo at Al Biscione Cafe and then we had dinner at Osteria Pasquina.

It was another long but wonderful day. Again, I ended this day feeling very blessed to be in Rome and to be enjoying it with my family. What a gift!

The Pantheon!

We were walking past the Papal Basilica of Saint Lawrence and popped in.

These are the names of people buried under the basilica.

The Piaza Spagna at the bottom of the Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps

You can see the church at the top.

A school field trip complete with a nun!

Views from the top of the steps

The walk contnues

The Trevi Fountain

The crowds at the fountain.

This was the view of the fountain from a window in the Benetton store!

Outside of Hadrian's Temple

Church of St. Ignatious of Loyola

The gorgeous ceilings inside St. Ignatious

The tomb of St. Robert Bellarmine.

The Altar of St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Chapel of the Crucifix

Lunch with my loves!

When in Rome you have wine with lunch!

Our lunch spot.

Approaching the Victor Emmanuel II Monument

Lots of gorgeous views of Rome from the top of the monument

The birds were not afraid of the humans

My sweet boy repping his Wolf Pack!

We had great views of the Colosseum from the monument. And that was our next stop!

Back in the time the Colosseum was in use, the facade would have been covered in marble and there would have been a statue under every arch. The marble was taken off after it stopped being used and was put into other structures.

These were the tunnels that were under the floor of the Colosseum where they led in the gladiators and housed the animals from Africa.

A family selfie. :)

The Arch of Titus built in 81AD

The Forum

Deciding on our apertivo spot

This looks good!

Dinner! And it was a little cool on this night.

When dining outside in Rome, you must always be prepared for a selfie with a vehicle! And yes, that car really is as close as it appears!