a busy week

Thought I would pop in for a quick update of the week's events - it has been nonstop! Our little craft group from work got together Thursday evening - along with my blog friend, Anne. This time, my mom hosted at her house and we had a delicious meal followed by hours of playing with wool felt to make little needlebooks. We all came up with something a little different! My friend Courtney even modified hers to become a checkbook cover. Mine is a little one with an embroidered felt Spike kitty on the cover – I intended to finish it up on vacation this week, but I made a major mistake and left my bag of craft supplies at home. Whoops. I promise I will finish and post pictures soon!



Then, after a busy weekend, Nathan and I headed south for 3 free nights at The Grand Hotel in Point Clear. He is on the Supervisory Committee at our credit union and got sent to a conference there, so I took advantage of the perks and went along. It was drop dead gorgeous there...not to mention drop dead HOT and HUMID! But I survived nonetheless. How could you not enjoy yourself at a place like this:



The Grand sits right on Mobile Bay, which was gorgeous as always, but seeing the oil booms right off the cost gave me a bit of a reality check. I saw a few people playing in the water, but you couldn't make me get in that water - yuck! Not when there were boats maintaining booms a few hundred feet away...I would have stayed in the pool. However, that didn't stop us from enjoying the view every day. It was still lovely, and the breezes were much loved. Can you feel the heat in this picture?!



One of the coolest things they do is a march around the hotel at 4pm every day, followed by a canon blast to honor our armed forces.

[flickr video=4861138305 secret=31f4a9bd5d w=400 h=300]

On our last night in town, we went over to my sister's house for supper -- she just lives about a half hour away in Daphne. The food was delicious, and it was great to see the family with of course, my sweet, goofy nephews. Yes, this is Taplin riding his bicycle, in his diaper, wearing his baseball helmet:



I didn't get to take too much advantage of the great shopping while we were down there (thank you Dave Ramsey!) but I did make two small purchases... I picked up a copy of a historical biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, at a secondhand book shop in Fairhope (it's fascinating so far!) I also splurged 99 cents for this cute little red ceramic bowl from World Market. It's home now on the glass shelf in our bathroom, and I'm sure I'll use it all the time to keep jewelry and whatnot. I so wish we had a World Market in Huntsville...or maybe not, because I know that's where my paycheck would go.



All in all, it was a wonderful, relaxing trip. I napped every morning after breakfast and we took several walks around the grounds, both day and night. I feel spoiled! We are about to hit the ground running yet again, however, what with hosting a shower this Saturday night, and 2 wedding weekends back-to-back after that, in which Nathan is a groomsman both times. Does it ever end?! I'm ready for a few weekends of zero plans.