My Tulips

I love flowers! My dear friend, Heather, came from Texas to visit family this weekend. She and her sweet 3-year-old stayed with us while they were in town. I came home to find beautiful tulips on my kitchen table. She even went for the color of the flowers I had in my wedding! So precious of you, Heather. Thank you!

Macie likes them too! You can see the flower on the far right has lost several petals as well as some chew marks on the leaf below it! Oh well, at least she stuck with that one and didn't trash the whole display!

The Ending of an Era

Years ago, my brother taught me a game called Settlers of Catan. I was overwhelmed by it and didn't play it again . . . until I met Brice.

Brice started talking about this game that he used to play with his friends and his dad until wee hours of the morning. As he described the game, I realized it was the same one my brother had taught me. But since Brice loved it, I thought I'd give it another try. After a couple of games, I was hooked! So Brice and his dad and I play a few games every Sunday night -sometimes with our friend, Mac, when he's in town. We play with the same old game they've had for years.

Last night, that all changed. In one swift, yet slow motion, move, Brice's drink spilled all over the game board in the middle of our first game of the evening. The cardboard pieces quickly began drinking up every bit of liquid as it spread from piece to piece. We tried to pat them dry, but the damage was done and there was no chance of recovery. So we said good-bye to our old faithful friend:

And hello to our new one:

That's right, we could not be deterred! David immediately left for Barnes & Noble to get us a new game. And the game goes on!

On a side note, I found a dice version of the game that can be played with 2 or more people. Now Brice and I can get our Settlers fix between Sundays! :-)

If you wanna play, come on over!!

Seasons in Alabama

This is a tricky time of year in Alabama. The weather changes drastically every few days so you have to keep both seasons of clothes handy. We had beautiful 60's temperatures last week. And today is March 1. So naturally, what did I wake up to this morning?

Beautiful, isn't it? Now those of you reading this from Kentucky and Missouri can laugh all you want - but you've both lived in Alabama and know this was a big deal! For the next few hours, it poured down!

Macie was quite curious about the white blanket covering everything outside her house. She was glued to the windows!

Cole wasn't with us this morning, so we didn't get out and play in it - although I'm told he did! We stayed in, drank coffee, and watched a movie. It is now mid-afternoon and this is the view from my house:

Beautiful, isn't it?

And the forecast for next weekend? High of 74.

Best of the Best from the Best

From Oscar.com:

Officially named the Academy Award of Merit, the statuette is better known by its nickname, Oscar. While the origins of the moniker aren’t clear, a popular story has it that upon seeing the trophy for the first time, Academy librarian (and eventual executive director) Margaret Herrick remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. The Academy didn’t adopt the nickname officially until 1939, but it was widely known enough by 1934 that Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used it in a piece referring to Katharine Hepburn’s first Best Actress win.


In light of the previous post, I thought I'd share some of Brice's thoughts on the 81 Best Picture Winners from the Academy. These are what he considers to be the top 25:

1. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. Ordinary People
3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
4. West Side Story
5. On the Waterfront
6. Schindler’s List
7. Casablanca
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai
9. The Godfather
10. Braveheart
11. Gandhi
12. Gentleman’s Agreement
13. Ben-hur
14. Crash
15. It Happened One Night
16. Silence of the Lambs
17. My Fair Lady
18. The Sound of Music
19. Forrest Gump
20. Slumdog Millionaire
21. American Beauty
22. Kramer Vs. Kramer
23. All the King’s Men
24. Chicago
25. In the Heat of the Night

These are what he considers to be the bottom ten:

1. The Lost Weekend
2. Cavalcade
3. An American in Paris
4. Oliver!
5. The Last Emperor
6. Midnight Cowboy
7. The English Patient
8. Gigi
9. Cimarron
10. Marty


Facts about Oscars:

* Only Best Pictures to Dominate the Main 5 Categories
(Best Picture, Director, Screen Play, Actor, and Actress)
- It Happened One Night - 1934
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - 1975
- Silence of the Lambs - 1991
* Best Picture Winners Tie for Receiving 11 Oscars:
- Ben-hur – 1959
- Titanic – 1997
- Lord of the Rings the Return of the King – 2003
* Best Picture Winners that Failed to Win Any other Awards
- Broadway Melody (1929)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
* Shortest Best Picture Film: Marty - 91 minutes
* Longest Best Picture Film: Lawrence of Arabia – 222 minutes

Oscar Night

The Oscars - Brice's favorite night of the year. Brice is a big movie buff. Just this week he accomplished a major feat: he has now seen every Best Picture Winner since the Oscars began in the late 20's! That's 81 movies - and not all of them enjoyable!

Last night was the 81st Annual Academy Awards so we had some folks over and made a night of it! I love parties! I love decorating and preparing food and playing games and laughing and watching people have a good time. Well it was all of the above!

As people arrived, we taped a movie character to their back. They had to figure out who they were by asking yes/no questions. And for some strange reason, we all kept our character names on for the remainder of the evening. The toughest by far was Atticus Finch - good job Geoffrey!! Mac hates musicals (even though he's a musician) so he was appropriately given the following:

Maria - The Sound of Music

We also had a challenge for everyone to find as many Best Picture winners in this puzzle:

And then came the big event! We had ballots for every one to mark who they thought would win each category. This made even the Sound Editing award interesting!

We had a collection of previous Best Picture winners to give to the person who guessed the most correct awards. Mac won with an amazing 17/24! We also had some movie trivia cards for whoever found the most winners in the puzzle - Mac won those as well! So in case you can't tell, Mac is a big movie buff too!

Thanks to those who came for creating a fun evening! We'll see you next year!

An Unexpected Blessing

Remember this photo?

Well, you shouldn't - you've never seen it before! Maybe you're thinking of this one:

Can you tell what's different? First of all, the one on top is a shade or two darker. But more importantly, the one on top is new while the 2nd one is used. But wait, you say, they are both sitting in your house! How can that be? Ok, here's the story:

We bought Cole a 2007 used piano (immediately above) and gave it to him for his birthday a few weeks ago - see previous post. The day it was delivered, I played it and noticed that one particular string made a horrible buzzing sound, like metal vibrating on the string. I immediately called the owner of the store and he sent someone out the next day to take a look at it. A brief examination led to no conclusions so he came back another day and worked on it for close to two hours. Still couldn't get it to stop buzzing. He suggested replacing the string but wanted to talk to the owner about his opinion. After several days, the owner called me back with his proposed solution - trade out the piano for one he had in stock, same model, brand new!

I was stunned, speechless. He explained that he wanted to do the right thing and I had purchased a piano expecting it to work. It was under warranty so he wanted to make good on the deal and give me a piano that works. Holy cow! There are still companies that think like that?? So we got a free upgrade on our piano the very next day!

Brice and I went by the store to see the owner and we both hugged his neck! So now I offer free publicity and high recommendations: ELLIS PIANO For any piano/musical needs, please use them!

Valentine's 2009

Brice and I celebrated Valentine's Day over two days. He got out of school early and came home with two Mad Libs he wrote called "Mad Annas." After filling in the blanks and laughing hilariously, I could guess what we were doing next. We watched Sleepless in Seattle - my favorite romantic comedy! We went out to dinner Friday night to avoid the major Saturday crowd. He took me to Little Savannah, the restaurant we went to the night we got engaged. What an amazing meal! Check it out:

Valentines Evening 2009
Chef’s Tasting Menu

Amuse Bouche: Braised Beef Ragout, Truffle Oil
Oysters Rockefeller: Baked Apalachicola Oysters, Creamy Spinach,
Apple Smoked Bacon, Homemade Hot Sauce
Herb Roasted Quail, Baby Frisée Lettuces,
Pomegranate Molasses, Lemon Vinaigrette
Surf and Turf: Grilled Tenderloin of Beef,
Sweet Potato Purée, Snow’s Bend Kale, New Hampshire Lobster Hollandaise
Chocolate Marquise Cake, Pistachio Cremé, Fresh Raspberries

We exchanged gifts Saturday night. Kudos to my husband! He did good. Don't you just love it when someone gets you a gift that shows they know you and put some thought into it? Well, I've been in a word puzzle phase for a while now. Crosswords, cryptograms, logic puzzles, you name it! He was so excited about what he found:

Yes, those are crossword PJs!!! And two brain game books! Thank you, honey!

I had put together a gift basket with various goodies. Brice hadn't quite emptied the basket when Macie decided she would be the gift!



Then Brice popped in a DVD without telling me what it was - our wedding video! It was his first time to actually watch it! So fun seeing who all was there and reliving those moments.

To my Valentine - thank you for two fantastic years, and these two fantastic days!

Secret Agent Cole

Cole received some nice Lego sets for Christmas and has been hard at work. He just completed the secret agent travelling center set. The headquarters here offers a variety of weapons, two laptops, an on-site jail, a jet ski, motor raft, four-wheeler, four secret agents, and three villains with their flying bad-guy machine. Some great pretending ensued!

Agents on the move

The artist with his craft

Latest Foods

Another quick recipe from Brice's phone: Chunky Chicken Wrap. The tortilla is coated with guacamole, the mix includes mayo, spinach, cheese, and chicken. We added apple slices and pecans. Quite tasty!

No photo, but tonight I made Shrimp Fa Diavolo. Basically, it's shrimp spaghetti, but I used penne. Received approval all around!

Later this week: Mac 'n' Cheese Pizza!

Entertainment for Jenny

You may have heard about these guys:




But probably not these guys:



I just saw this one:




And here's a montage of random friendships:




Just sharing a few moments to say "Awe!"