Happy Birthday to Me...

I have had a wonderful birthday weekend! It started Friday with a birthday breakfast of fruit and pastries at the office. Then, Friday evening, Mama and Jerry took Charles and me to Como Steakhouse for a delicious birthday dinner! Yesterday, Charles took me on part two of our staycation - Graceland and Sun Studios. We had a fabulous time, thank you very much!

This morning I awoke to Charles bringing me doughnuts topped with candles. After breakfast I went into the living room and found that in addition to my great day yesterday, I had presents to open...My roses are so pretty and smell so good! I just love the pottery piece Charles chose for me, the MSU travel mug, the cute bunny reusable tote that rolls up so that I can carry it in my purse and my sweet card from Charles and Toula!
I got to chose the rest of the day's activities, so Charles and I took advantage of the beautiful weather by playing tennis. I let Charles enjoy the Cubs game while I took a magazine outside this afternoon to relax - it was so nice!

I got so many good gifts this year (as always)! I was really excited that Mama chose to buy a sewing/embroidery machine for me! All those sewing lessons that Molly and I took are going to be put to the test! Mama surprised me at my birthday dinner by having a pretty present waiting in my seat for me. I just love my Vera Bradley flip-flops and garden bag which I intend to put to much better use by using it along with my picnic basket for fun picnics! I also really liked the surprise in the outside pouches!Mama and Jerry called me this morning and sung Happy Birthday to me! I really enjoyed the serenade!!
Miss Jennifer also called to wish me a Happy Birthday this morning. I really like the neat hand made bowl and cookbook she gave me for my birthday. I've already marked a few recipes I want to try out!Molly was so sweet. She gave me an early birthday present that I just love. I can't wait to have a Mississippi State party so that I can use this cute platter! I tried waiting until my birthday to use my favorite lotion, but I was unable to resist and have had nice rosewater and glycerin dreams for the last few nights!In addition to the wonderful presents and birthday calls, I received the sweetest birthday cards in the mail from my family and friends! I am so lucky and thankful that I have such a wonderful family and wonderful friends!!

Girls' Weekend

This past weekend, Molly, Ava and I traveled to Birmingham to visit Kristi. We had a wonderful visit and such a fun weekend!

Ava was such a good traveler, but after a four hour drive, she needed some time to rest and stretch out!!
How cute is she!!???

We arrived Friday afternoon and enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and stayed up late playing a fun game of spades followed by lots of fun girl talk!!

Saturday morning we had fun playing with Ava. I had her laughing, although I just couldn't seem to capture her cute smile with my camera...All that attention from her Aunt Ki Ki (Kristi) and Aunt Mae Mae (me), wore Ava out!
We headed out for a late lunch at Stix...
followed by some shopping at the Galleria...
My favorite stop was at Build a Bear! We had such a good time building Ava a little lamb, Bonnie...

The whole Build a Bear thing was new to me. After picking out Ava's friend, the builder helped fluff her up and then gave Molly the heart. After a sweet little routine (which almost had me in tears) the heart was placed in Bonnie...then Molly gave her a bath...and then Ava got to meet Bonnie...After a little more shopping we headed back to Kristi's where we relaxed and visited. We stayed in that night, and Kristi cooked the most delicious pizza for dinner!

Sunday morning we left early. Ava was sad to say goodbye to her Aunt Ki Ki. We all had such a good visit!!

We headed home through Batesville so that we could join Collins, Dan and his family and friends for Collins's first birthday party. After opening presents, Collins got to see his cake. He is such a neat little child, he just stuck one finger in the cake and that was it! No messes from him! Collins really liked the balloons and nearly walked to get one. We had a good time at the party and were so glad that we could share in Collins's first birthday.

I was so glad that Molly and I had our usual Tuesday night get together tonight because I got to hold sweet Ava all evening!

Staycation: Part 1

Earlier this year, Charles and I decided to explore the many things Memphis has to offer that we had not experienced together. The Pink Palace Museum was playing Under the Sea, an interesting looking IMAX film, so we decided that that should be our first excursion. I was off of work Monday for the 4th of July, so we took that opportunity to enjoy an early lunch at Pei Wei followed by the Pink Palace...

The film was really good; if you have a chance to see it, definitely do! We learned all about the many animals of ocean, camouflaged predators, coral reefs, and many other interesting oceanic things. I really liked watching the cute little cuddle fish, the leafy sea dragon and the funny and playful sea lions!

We ended up staying for a triple feature! Not only did we learn about ocean animals, but we also traveled down the Colorado River to explore the Grand Canyon and traveled to Egypt to learn more about mummies.

We also explored all the museum had to offer!

We began our museum adventure in a room filled with skeletons of all kinds of animals from pythons...

to giraffes...and learned that all mammals, no matter if they have short necks or long necks, have 7 bones.

We saw all kinds of birds in that room too. I thought the owls were cute...When we saw the eagles, Charles said, "No, TTT!"

We learned how birds fly. Instead of just flapping their wings up and down, they actually wave them aerodynamically. I got to try out their flight pattern!We saw beautiful butterflies from all over the world...

In the next exhibit, we learned all about geology and dinosaurs.
We saw fossils from many different time periods...

and saw many different dinosaurs...

and a woolly mammoth type...we also saw many different gems and minerals...Some were so colorful and pretty, and some were huge!

We also saw an earthquake magnitude measuring machine...

We learned about all kinds of animals and saw a deer and her cute baby...

and all kinds of other woodland creatures...We saw a buffalo...and a drama groundhog...

We learned how the Native Americans lived in our area...

and saw pieces of their pottery...

We learned about the Battle of Memphis...

Nathan Bedford Forrest...the Civil War, and about the Confederate Veterans...

and saw many pieces of Confederate currency from all Confederate States...

We learned about Reconstruction and saw a Reconstruction era campaign flag...

We also learned about the Victorian Era. It was interesting to see the types of toys they played with...We saw a hand run cotton gin...and looked inside a general store...
and saw how grocery shopping evolved by exploring a replica of the first Piggly Wiggly....

They had many of the same brands and even some of the same logos of today stocked on the shelves!We saw a Model T and a gas station from those times...

We also learned about the Memphis Red Sox...

And famous African-American Memphians such as W C Handy...

We saw the Circus!I loved all the detail of this diminutive circus scene! It had it all - animals, spectators and all kinds of circus acts...

We toured the dinosaur exhibit...and saw a moving and roaring T-Rex...

saw a cute little dinosaur and her cute baby... and saw one of Nessie's friends!

We also toured the mansion and saw everything from a polar bear...

to a shrunken head!

We learned about the Suffragettes...

and about the Memphis Cotton Carnival... and saw the evolution of the swimsuit...
Charles was brave and checked out the objects in the log...
He accurately identified 3 out of the 4!

We also saw a strange looking old gas mask...

and learned about Memphians' contributions to WW I...

WW II...

and the Korean War...

We also saw many artifacts from the late 1800's early 1900's which were uncovered from the Fed Ex Forum site...We saw bottles of all kinds...all early games such as dice and marbles...

We actually learned lots and had a great day!