We like wearing ourselves out!!!

After we dropped Patrick and Soumya off at the airport last night we decided to head over to Sam's club because we were out of dog food. We picked up a few things and then headed home and power washed our deck and mowed the lawn. We just have a small window of time to get all this outside stuff done because of the weather. Today we were able to get a coat of stain on and hopefully we will get another coat on tomorrow. We will see how the weather holds up but it is supposed to get a full 24 hours without rain, so we shall see. After we stained the deck I had to go to work for a couple hours and Tom got suckered into helping out one of our neighbors put fence posts up. After we ate dinner we took the puppies out for a long walk and came home and cleaned up the house. Needless to say, just typing these blog posts is making me very sleepy... I think it is off to watch a little bit of TV to catch up from the last 5 days without TV or internet (that was nice) and then off to bed.

Good Bye Sunday

Sunday was Patrick and Soumya's last day here. I got up early again and cooked them breakfast cassarole. After breakfast we hung out and decided to go walk the last couple of days off at a trail that Tom and I go running at in the mornings. When we got out there we found that our trail was under about 3 feet of water. We knew it had rained a lot but holy cow, not that much!! So instead of walking the trail, we went around to all the different trails in the park and looked at all the flooding; sounds exciting huh!


After the trail we headed off to play miniture golf. I still can't believe it because both Soumy and I got Hole-in-One on the same hole and beat the boys in many diffent holes, they somehow still beat us, they tied at 51!!! Grrr. We should have beat them!!

After mini golf we hit some softballs in the cages. We definately beat them there. I was actually hitting pretty good. Soumya hit pretty much every ball. Patrick and Tom, however, wiffed it more than they would probalby like to admit. So feel free to make fun of them the next time that you see them!

After batting cages we ate at a grinder place across the street from Mini- Golf. It was my first grinder and it wasn't all that bad. We then headed back to the house and packed to two up so they could make their flight. We had a little bit of puppy play time left in the back yard before we had to get them to the airport to make their 5 o'clock flight.

We had a great time with Patrick and Soumya here. Thanks for coming and we can't wait to see you guys again around the 4th of July!!!

A very busy Saturday.

Saturday was a full day. Tom and I are definately not used to all of this excitement. After the tour of the Hermitage we were off to a wine tasting. One of the Wine stores in West End does a free wine tasting every Saturday at the coffee house next door to their store.


We were able to tase 5 different wines, of which only 2 I liked but that's not bad.

We had a good time just sitting around catching up.

Supposedly we are going to be in the next Grad Cru Winery newsletter. The guy wanted to take our picture to put on his website so I made him take a picture with our camera too!!

After the wine tasting we were off to Monel's. This is one of Tom and my favorite restraunts in Nashville, but you have to go really hungry. It's an all you can eat family style Southern Home Cookin' Spectacular. If you ever come visit us, you will take a trip here. Dinner included: Fried Chiken, Fried Catfish Filets, Meatloaf and BBQ Pulled Pork; mashed potatoes, green beans, corn pudding, cucumber salad, broccoli salad, coleslaw, baked apples, homemade biscuts, rolls and cornbread and banana puddin' for desert!! Mmmm doesn't that sound like unbutton your pants and walk 4 blocks around the restraunt when you are done eating!!!! Well worth every calorie!!

Trip to the Hermitage

After the rain died down it actually turned into a nice day. We decided to take an adventure to the Hermitage. This is President Andrew Jackson's Plantation and has been around since the early 1800's. It was a really neat experience to see all the historic sites and how nicely they have kept up the property...

His wife, Rachel's, garden was actually the most specatcular site that we saw. The land owned by the Jackson's is actually over 1,000 acres. The garden is quite magnificent.

It is at the back of the garden where the family graveyard is... Here is the tomb of Rachel and General Jackson.

Here we are in another section of the garden... it is beatiful flowers and plants built into little pathways for what probably makes up over and acre in its own.

Off in the distance behind Patrick you can see the mansion. We wern't allowed to take any pictures inside there but it is really spectaculr in there too. It is filled with amazing pieces of furniture and is decorated in very detailed wall papers and draperies. Amazing how nice it was for early 1800's but it was never updated with plumbing or electricity... They have kept it very original.

Saturday Morning

Over night and in the morning on Saturday we had some crazy storms. When we woke up it was still raining pretty good. What did we hear outside, our crazy neighbor is mowing his lawn in the rain...genious!!! Tom and I got up a good hour before Patrick and Soumya. Soumya had all these special requests for homemade breakfast. Saturday morning I made scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy. I think I definately spoiled them this weekend with the food.


Here's crazy corner neighbor guy mowing his lawn in the rain!!!

The puppies were very happy to have company over. After breakfast we sat around and waited for the rain to die down and Shirley hamed it up with Soumya...

She sure does take advantage of a good cuddle and a chin rub wherever she can find one!!!

Friday night

Shirley and Riley had a great time running around the yard and playing. They are not used to having company over so it was like little kids getting to stay up past their bed time.

After the fire started to die down the rain started to come... It was only sprinkles but enough for us to decide to come inside and play a game. This was Tom and my first time playing Cranium... We weren't too bad at it, we came close but were no match for the pros. It would probably be a better game to play with more people but we still had a real good time.

Weekend with Patrick and Soumya

Patrick and Soumya were here all weekend for a visit to Tennessee. They arrived late Friday morning and when I got home from work around noon we had a little barbeque. After lunch we decided to head into Nashville for some ice cream and a stroll around downtown. Ask Soumya how the ice cream went... She decided to go for the double scooper and ended up with more of it on her than in her mouth because it was melting all over her!! Pretty funny to see but I did feel kinda bad for her, Sorry Soumya!! :) After walking across the padestrian bridge, which is the best view of downtown from downtown, checking out Coyote Ugly and touring Broadway and 2nd Avenue we decided to head over to Tom's favorite, Yazoo Brewery. We hung out there and Tom and Patrick had a couple beers then it was back home to the puppies...


When we got back home, we decided to grill dinner. We actually had a nice dinner; grilled salmon, snap peas and a salad. It was still nice out side so we ate outside and Tom and Patrick prepared a fire. Patrick got a crash course in wood chopping from Tom, he did pretty good for his first time!

It was great to be able to sit out by the fire, we hadn't been able to do that in a couple weeks because of all the rain we have had. So, thanks Patrick and Soumya for bringing the nice weather with ya!

Soumya was happy she got to toast marshmellows!!! We didn't get a picture and it's too bad because if we would have had a video we would have won $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos. Soumya had the stick with the marshmellow on it in the fire and Shirley came out of no where and grabbed the stick and tried to pull it out of her hand... It was hillarious!! Oh, you just had to be there but if you know Shirley you can only imagine it!!

Here is Patrick roasting his marshmellow and showing it to me on fire! These two boys are so funny when you put them together. It is a constant battle of the comedians!!