Fore!

 In March Andy headed down to Alabama for his now-annual boys' golf trip. They go somewhere different each year, and this time they spent three days in the Montgomery area golfing the Trent Jones Trail. The look on Andy's face tells you how much fun he had. It's one of my favorite pictures of him ever. The man was in his element. He freely admits that these are some of his favorite vacations - sans wifey, playing 36 holes a day, eating dinner, then collapsing into bed at night to do it all over again the next day.

 Andy organizes the trip and this year it included his uncle and a good friend from work.

 The boys hanging out after a round.

Another great picture: Andy with our brother-in-law, Randy (L) and his best friend from college, Steve (R). Also known as The Rands and Steve-O. Two of his favorite people in the whole world.

Gaming

Ben turns seven in about three weeks so I asked him to make a list of what he wanted for his birthday. I told him that if he didn't want to, I'd just tell all the grandparents to donate to his college savings account. The list appeared soon after. He's on a major Pokémon kick right now, so I knew that would play a major role, but was surprised to see that his first two requests were along the same lines as his Christmas list from last year. Many parents are much nicer than me, because all I have to say is, "keep dreamin' kiddo."

He's a major media addict, so there's no way we're getting him his own device. He's still bereft that Andy deleted Angry Birds off his phone and the whole time my brother was in town he begged Rikker to let him play games on his phone. Ben always wanted to ride with Rikker whenever we went somewhere and at first I thought it was because he adored his uncle and little cousin. Reality: He wanted to have a better chance of playing games while they drove.

So I've been thrilled that he started making his own Beyblades out of Legos. Real ones are little metal top-like toys that you spin and use to "battle" other people. As I understand it, whichever Beyblade is spinning the longest wins, and they can bash into each other to knock out the competition. He's very creative and figured out how to correctly weight the pieces and which ones to use to spin the best.

An assortment of his Beyblades that we played with this afternoon. After that it was Connect Four and on to CandyLand, Lucy's new favorite game. She carries the cards around and calls them her "Pokémons." Either those or Go Fish cards. Oh, the sway that older siblings hold on younger ones.

Were there any toys you coveted or games you played to copy your older siblings?

My older sister was, in my 5-year-old opinion, the world's best colorer so I always tried to copy her technique. She neatly outlined all the edges and then lightly shaded the interiors, never veering outside the lines. I look back now and can see that it was just a manifestation of her perfectionist/Type A tendencies. (Love you Nan!) :) To this day, the woman's closet is the most organized of any I've seen. And to think, it all started with the Strawberry Shortcake coloring books.

Spanx Alot

I bought my first pair of Spanx yesterday. Still not quite sure how I feel about it. I guess it's all but inevitable for us thirty-somethings who've birthed multiple kids. After Lucy was born, I asked my doctor if there was anything I could do about the perma-pooch that used to be my lower abs. She said with a smile, "Yes. You can get surgery...or wear Spanx." Option two is the more economically feasible choice at the moment. 

But for some reason, when I saw online that they now have Spanx for men, I laughed hard and it made me feel a little bit better about donning "shapewear." Now you know what to get your hubs for Father's Day. I'm sure he'll love it.

Dream House

Andy and I love driving around to explore new neighborhoods and check out houses. Tonight after taking the kids to DQ, we ended up in a heretofore unexplored neighborhood and I literally found my dream house. I love every inch of it (from the outside) and would love to end up in something like this someday. Classy, yet not too ostentatious. It even looks like a ranch-style house (bonus!) but with vaulted ceilings (double bonus!)

We'll take it and you can throw in the silver Audi parked out front.

A closer look. I even loved the wreath on the door - and I'm very picky about those kind of things.

Here's another house I absolutely adored in the adjacent neighborhood. It was perfectly situated on the hillside with the architecture taking advantage of the topography. I couldn't stop drooling over those windows, along with the stone and the contrasting wood. Very Nantucket.

Birthday Daddy

Happy birthday to Andy (and twin sister Betsy)! 

We celebrated with a french toast breakfast and tonight we're going to see the Broadway touring production of West Side Story. That was actually his Christmas present to me since it's one of my favorite plays. The note I opened on Christmas morning read, "When You're a Jet...April 18th!" So a double thank you and happy birthday to my favorite leading man.

Battle Stations Ready

Last Wednesday morning I completed my most recent interview for the MWP.  The woman is a captain in the Air Force, currently stationed in South Korea. She is inaccessible for long periods of time and had a one day window of availability between assignments, so I had only 24 hours' notice to write questions and figure out the technology to conduct the Skype interview online. We use an Internet-based digital recording system and I've always done my interviews over the phone, but because the she didn't have any phone access while on a humanitarian mission in the Philippines, we had to set up a different type of recording. My brother in Bangkok was kind enough to be my Skype guinea pig and helped me work out the kinks in the hardware so everything would flow smoothly. Because of the 12-hour time difference, I set up a little workstation in our unfinished basement to do the interview at 6 a.m. before the kids and Andy woke up. At the appointed hour, I plugged in my little headset and we went to work, conducting the interview from her hotel room in the Philippines. Her viewpoint and experiences as a woman in the military were really interesting. It kind of looks like I'm in a bunker - fitting for the military themed interview. It also looks like my basement could use a little tidying. :) I forwarded the picture to our editor and she posted it on the MWP Facebook page. 

In Other News:

Andy got back a week ago from his annual boys' golf trip. This year they traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, to golf part of the Trent Jones Trail. The group consists of Andy's dad, our brother-in-law Randy (pictured above - L), Andy's best friend from college, Steve (above - R), Andy's good friend from work, and a colleague of his dad's and the colleague's son.  In the four years since they started the tradition, their adventures have also taken them to St. George, UT, Orlando, FL, and Birmingham, AL. This year Andy's uncle also came along. They had a fabulous time, as you can tell from the mile-wide grin on Andy's face. He said four days wasn't enough, but it was plenty for me flying solo. :)

 On Thursday we got a new cousin when my sister Nanette had her baby. This man of the hour is named Gehrig Shaun Blackburn. If you're a baseball fan, you might recognize his namesake. Little G has a bit of jaundice, so he's spending most of the day working on his tan, but got a minute to snuggle.

Finally, although Ben was sick yesterday and spent most of the gloriously beautiful day inside, we did get to have some St. Patty's day fun with our annual green dinner. Then he promptly fell asleep at 7 p.m. Lucy, on the other hand, was up until 9:30. She still naps, but I'm beginning to reconsider the wisdom of that as she's not tired for bedtime. Any advice?

The Simple Life

Does anyone else remember that show featuring Paris Hilton at the beginning of the reality show phase? You can breathe a sigh of relief -  this post doesn't really have to do with any C-list celebutantes. It does have to do with one of my favorite magazines. If you're also a fan, right now you can get a yearlong subscription for only $12. Gotta love that. Real Simple strikes a good balance of what I like to read about: budget fashion tips, smart organizing solutions, book suggestions, saving money, fun (yet somewhat realistic) decor ideas, and yummy recipes. In fact, we tried this Real Simple recipe last night and it was a hit. The perfect combo of healthy, fast, and tasty.

Curried rice with shrimp

What magazines are you reading right now? What do you or would you subscribe to?