RC Cola and a ................

Moon Pie Festival! Mom and Dad were here last month and we decided to hit the big city of Bell Buckle and the Moon Pie Festival. We arrived just in time for the parade. I think we caught over a dozen moon pies.

We (we meaning me and mom, Mark and dad were just along for the ride) had so much fun watching the parade, cruising the craft fair, and shopping in the antique shops. Of course they had moon pies but they had them in every flavor; vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, banana, peanut butter and mint!

We finished the day with lunch at Miller's Grocery. MMMmmmm.

Arrington Date Night

For our second date night, with our great new best friends, we decided to go to Arrington Vineyards for a picnic, music and fellowship. The forecast called for rain but we decided to go for it anyway. We all brought some fun food, and we learned we have some really good cooks in the group! Yea! We were there early so Betsy and Adam got us a great picnic table close to the band. Within 45 minutes down came the rain. We toughed it out for a bit then finally went to seek shelter. The rain continued for only for a short time and before we knew we were back at our campsite. We had a great time but they shut the place down at 9pm and that came way too quick. We ended up going to Dolen's - which was an experience. We played darts while the boys entered a poker contest, none of which won. Boo. :(

Wine Angels

I was blessed with ANOTHER trip to Vegas this year. Woohoo (sarcasm)! This time for a conference. We stayed at Caesars Palace and had the former Globetrotters in our booth as we did in Atlanta. Of course they were a huge hit and a big draw to our booth. I'm sure we had the best concept there except for maybe during one 30 minute break when someone had Joe Montana in their booth. I was able to sneak a picture of him.





We had some great meals while there. One night we attended a reception then headed to Mandalay Bay to find some dinner. The whole reason we chose Mandalay Bay was because the night before at dinner the conversation about the Wine Angels came up. Two of us had seen them on Oprah's episode of the most glamorous dream jobs and decided to look them up. We walk in and sure enough there is this huge tower of wine and two cords in which the "angels" shimmy up to get your wine. It was very neat! I can get so star struck over the simplest things. I was so excited and so giddy that the guy asked for my ID and looked it over, front and back. He then came back and apologized. :) Shoot, I didn't mind, sure you can see my ID. :o Well we split a bottle of wine and it was on to dinner. I have you know it was 9pm and we could not find ONE restaurant that was open. Not one, remember, we're in Vegas. I didn't know things shut down in Vegas. We finally found a "diner" type restaurant which did have the best shakes! But sheesh, we couldn't believe that's what we had to settle for in Vegas.

Home of the Wine Angels

Me and Kristi in front of the wine tower

Wine Angels - Kristi, Eboni and me

There she goes to get our wine

Date Night at Puckett's

My friend, Maureen, and I have been trying to get us and our husbands out for a date night for some time now. Well, we finally made it happen, with a few other couples too! We went to Puckett's Grocery in downtown Franklin. We had the best time, the meal was fantastic and the entertainment, oh my! Sherrie Austin was there, she was AWESOME! Her songs are fun, her voice is amazing and she looks like an entertainer. Some of us were stalker fans and waited until the end of the night to talk with her, buy her CD, get an autograph AND have a group picture taken. I just loved it. We all hit it off really well- I'm so fortunate to have met such a good group of friends! We've decided to have these little rendezvous monthly, no telling what we'll get into next.

Weekend With Kids

After being in Knoxville for the arrival of Alex, I headed back home to Mark as we had planned to keep our niece, Rachel, and nephew, David. The kids were dropped off early Friday morning and with the weather forecast we decided to start the weekend off with a bang and hit the zoo! Rachel always has fun at the zoo, I think the carousel is her favorite part. We had a very busy weekend. We baked cupcakes, put on makeup, watched movies, sang Taylor Swift (you have got to watch the video), colored, painted fingernails, played Wii, and went to the park. We had a great time! They were a ball of fun but I think me, Mark AND Molly are glad to have our quiet house back. :)

New Addition

In mid-May we welcomed a new addition to our family, Alex Jacob Stooksbury. This eight pounder is just the perfect baby boy. Although, he does have dark hair and dark skin, I'm not sure he really belongs to us at all. The delivery all worked out, just as it had with Drew. Casey called around lunchtime and said she was having contractions to be on stand-by (my bags had been packed for over 2 weeks just waiting). I had some off-site meetings that morning so I rushed back to the office and wrapped up some things before I got the call to hit the road. I did and made it with only 30 minutes to spare. Whew! Alex arrived with no problems whatsoever. Gee, Casey makes it look so easy - 2 pushes, I'll have kids all day long if that's all it takes! I was able to take the rest of the week off and spend some time with Drew AND Alex. Drew is such a punkin and so much fun at this age. I just wish I could spend more time with him. It will fun to see how different, or the same, Alex will be.

Way Behind!

Well sheesh, it has been way too long! And so much has happened. I'm going to try to get caught up. I have a list....a long list of the blogs I need to complete. So instead of putting it off, I'm going to just get at it.

Since I wrote last Mark and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary - awwwh! We've decided that we will always try to take some sort of trip, big or small, to celebrate just me and Mark. In mid-April we went to the beach so we wanted to go somewhere different, we chose Boston. We ended up getting a great deal on our hotel from priceline.com and we both had flight vouchers. So...with that we were able to splurge on FOOD! I love food and sometimes it's a big challenge living with my soo picky spouse. But let me give you the run down of our trip.

When we arrived we were starving, airplane peanuts just didn't do the trick. Wait, wait, let me back up. Gee, it's been so long I almost forgot. We take a cab to our hotel and Mark went to get his wallet and realized he didn't have it. He had left it on the plane - good job honey! UGH, I was so mad!! What a way to start the weekend. Who puts the most important thing in the back seat pocket of an airplane. So first things first, we cancel all of Mark's credit cards then we're on the hunt for food. We asked the concierge for something close just to grab something quick to tie us over until dinner. So we start walking, walking, walking some more and down comes the rain. Good thing I suggested we put on our rain jackets. We couldn't find anything to eat, I mean nothing. It was cold and wet so we decided to go back and just get a snack from the gift shop and have an early dinner. So we did just that. We're suckers for some Italian food so that was our first cuisine of choice. We ate at Limoncello, oh it was so good!

Day two we slept in after getting up at the butt crack of dawn the day before. Let me say this was the first trip we went on in which I did not have an itinerary for us. We were flying by the seat of our pants, which I think worried Mark a bit. We decided to do the Duck Boat Tours, it's such a great way to see a city. We wanted to get our tickets and pick out our tour time first. We got our tickets for a 2pm tour so we needed lunch. We walked across town (which was not far) to Cheers (where everybody knows your name!). I just love little places like this. We had a great burger, took some pics and headed back to our boat tour. We got to see a lot of the city and pick out some places we definitely wanted to visit again on foot. By the time we got back it was time get ready for the baseball game! It was great to see Fenway, the park everyone talks about. It was a great night for a ballgame and a great experience. I wish we had a baseball team here.

Day three was walk the Freedom Trail day! And boy it took the whole day. This 2.5 mile trail leads you to all the historic sights in Boston. We found out everything is the "oldest" in Boston. I am not a museum kind of girl so I was happy that Mark already mentioned he didn't want to visit museums and aquariums on this trip. Thank goodness! We began our day touring the U.S.S. Constitution (oldest commissioned warship afloat). I must say this was really neat. I can't imagine living on something like that. We visited the oldest church, Paul Revere's house and dined at Regina Pizzeria. MMmm, the best pizza! We continued to stroll by the oldest restaurant, ye olde Union Oyster House, shopped and watched street performers in Quincy Market. We rounded out the day with steak and seafood at Skipjacks.

Day 4 I had to work some. We had a conference going on in Boston so I had to get some things set up for them. Mark was a great sport and went with me. We decided to get up early and get all that out of the way as to not interrupt our entire day. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch and headed to Harvard. What a neat campus, we just strolled around campus, thanking God we were not still in school. We decided to round the trip out with one more Italian dish from Ristorante Fiore.

Since our Anniversary fell on Sunday and we were out of town we were able to enjoy our wedding cake on Monday. And I must say it was as delicious as on our wedding day. It was yummy, yummy!

Happy Anniversary, Honey! We had a great trip and to top it off Southwest called and found his wallet - EVERYTHING was still in it!! Thank you Lord! They mailed it back and all is hunky-dory.