Savannah!

And just like that  - our vacation to Savannah is over.  We had a nice time together as a family.  Nothing like being together 24/7 for 4 days to really bond your family. 

We got to Savannah around lunch time and had lunch at The Pirates' House.  A portion of this building is the oldest building in the state of Georgia.  It was originally opened as  an inn and tavern   but it wasn't long after it opened that a bunch of pirates took the place over as their hang out, hence the name The Pirates' House.

On the porch of the Pirates' House.

After lunch we walked from our hotel on Bay Street to visit Colonial Park Cemetery.  It was the original cemetery in Savannah. It looks fairly empty but that's because Sherman's Union soldiers used it as a campsite during the war so most of the stones were moved or destroyed.  Apparently they also slept in many of the mausoleums and just tossed the remains aside.  Also, at one point the city built a fence and a road over part of the cemetery so those graves were just covered over. Many of the old headstones are now hanging on a fence.  It wouldn't be a Cotell vacation if we didn't explore the old cemeteries!

After that we made our way to Forsyth Park and along the way visited some of the 22 city squares.

Then we headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner.  Our hotel had a rooftop pool and this was the view:

On Thursday morning we too a hop on hop off tour through the city.  This gave us a great view of the entire historic district and we learned a lot of history of the city as well. 

After the tour, we walked back to Forsyth Park and had lunch at Betty Bombers which is more of a local joint (not touristy) in the American Legion building.  The burgers there were excellent and they had WWII memorabilia on the walls.

We headed back through town to our hotel enjoying more of the squares along the way.  Here is the exact spot where Forest Gump sat on his bench in the movie.   The bench is now in the Savannah History Museum at the Visitor's Center. 

Then we drove to the Wormsloe Historic Site.  We learned all about the beginnings of Georgia here.  Our tour guide was really good and the whole tour was very informative.  If you ever go to Savannah I recommend a visit here.

And the entrance is a 1 and 1/2 mile driveway lined with 400 live oaks.  Gorgeous!  These photos don't do it justice.

After dinner on Thursday we took a ghost tour.  Our tour guide was probably new and still learning his lines and that made me nervous. It always seemed he was on the verge of forgetting what he was going to say.  Also, his stories were horrible.  Either there are no good ghost stories in Savannah or he just messed them all up.  The best part of the tour was that we got to go into the house where Juliette Gordon Lowe (founder of the Girl Scouts) died.  Also we go to see the old ships chandler and they made that part of the tour very spooky. 

Friday morning was rainy so we drove out to Bonaventure Cemetery.  The movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed there.  We downloaded an app that you were supposed to be able to use as you drove through the cemetery which would give information about the historical people and where they were buried.  The app was horrible and not worth the 4.95 we paid.  So we used the cemetery map we found online to see the graves we were interested in.

We then headed back to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist for the Good Friday service.  The cathedral was beautiful.  I didn't get any pictures of the inside because the service was going on.

And it was pouring rain on Friday so these pictures were taken the day before!

Thankfully it stopped raining because after we left the Good Friday service, we immediately went to River Street and hopped on a tour boat and went on a dolphin tour on the river.  We saw approximately 15 dolphins on the river/

At one point there was a pair of them that kept coming out of the water in unison.  It was really neat to see but I didn't get a picture of them.

On Friday evening we had a meatless dinner at a little Italian restaurant.  And oh how I wish we could have eaten meat.  This place was authentic and our meatless entrees were delicious so I can only imagine how good the meat-full ones were! The owner spoke in a heavy Italian accent and gave everyone hugs and the place was so small that you almost felt like you were in his house. 

After dinner, we walked around the city more visiting lots of little shops on River Street and in general enjoying the scenery.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we had ice cream at Leopold's.  Definitely visit them if you go to Savannah but be prepared to wait in a long line.

On our way back home on Saturday, we headed over to Tybee Island and went to the top of the lighthouse.

And with that, our Savannah vacation was over!

THankful Thursday - Edition 13

It's Thankful Thursday and I'm on vacation.  BUT - I planned ahead so here's my post!

1.  We are on vacation!  A few days in Savannah with the family should be lots of fun.  I love spending time with my people and cramming into a hotel room for 3 nights and being together 24/7. Should be great, right?  I think it will be!

2. Sarah got to go on her class trip last week.  We were worried about the weather but it all worked out and she had a great time!

3. That her illness was short-lived.  She came home with a fever, a sore throat and aches but she slept it off and was fine by Sunday.

4. Even though it's still cold we have had lots of sun this week. Surely it will start warming up soon.

5. The kids and I had lunch with my brother on Monday at the local Mexican joint.  We love spending time with Uncle Brad and I love the Mexican chicken soup they have!  It's really yummy and it's healthy enough that I don't feel bad eating a basket of chips and guac before the soup comes!

6. Lent is almost over!  Can I get an AMEN and a HALLELUJAH?  I am so ready for Easter Sunday!

7. Perfect dress for Sarah.  We went shopping on Monday to find a dress for Easter because while the girl has a lot of leggings and jeggings she doesn't have a lot of dressy clothes. And I wanted her to have something cute for Easter.  But we have the worst time shopping for dresses.  Thankfully we found a dress we both liked and a cute pair of shoes that we both liked for $50!  The best part?  She will also wear it for Confirmation!  Woohoo!

8.  Run Peter Run.  Peter's track coach emailed a workout schedule for the team over our two week break.  And Peter has actually been doing it.  The best part?  He's doing it without me telling/reminding/cajoling him.  (Easter miracle?  Probably!)

What are you all thankful for this week?

A rather boring weekend update....

The kids are officially on Easter/Spring Break!

They get two full weeks this year.  Normally they just get a week and a half but because all the teachers in the Diocese of Charlotte have a two day meeting, they get two full weeks.

To say my kids are excited is an understatement.  They've been looking forward to two full weeks off since the day they went back after Christmas break.

We picked Sarah up from her trip on Friday night and before we even got to the school she had texted us that she was feeling bad - freezing cold, sore throat, back ache.

I took her temp when we got home and it was almost 101.  She was supposed to go to her final Confirmation Retreat on Saturday morning.  It was scheduled to last from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm. Needless to say, she wasn't able to go to that.

Other than to eat a little lunch and a little dinner, she was in bed all day Saturday.  But she was fever free all day and only complained of a sore throat.  I am very thankful because I thought we were about to get hit with a spring break flu!

Our weekend was pretty laid back. It was rainy and cold (so what else is new?) on Saturday but it was sunny on Sunday.  It was still cold and windy but at least we had sun!  My parents had invited us and Jennifer's family to Sunday lunch.  My dad grilled steaks and we had a baked potato bar, a salad bar, cheesy garlic bread, and corn on the cob to go along with it.

My mom made an orange pineapple cake, Jennifer brought a dutch apple pie and a key lime pie, and I made a wine cake.  Needless to say, we all rolled out of there stuffed!

Here are the only pictures I have of Sarah on her trip:

Friday!

This week has gone by fast!  It's always odd to me that some go by some so slow and some speed past.

Sarah was able to go on her class trip yesterday.  It had snowed in Charlottesville but the roads were clear.  I set the alarm for 4:20 and Sarah hopped right up.  Oddly enough, this never happens at 6:30 on a normal school day.

I dropped her off yesterday at 5:30 AM and the bus pulled out at 6:00 AM. She's sent me a few pics and said they are having a good time.  We are scheduled to pick her tonight at 10:00 PM. I imagine she is going to be very tired but she has a Confirmation retreat all day tomorrow so there will be no sleeping in for her. 

Peter has a track meet this afternoon and thankfully it is sunny. It's not really warm but at least the sun is shining and the winds we've had the last couple of days are gone!

I finally heard back from GE about the dishwasher that won't drain and because the washer is outside of the one year warranty period they happily offered me a discount on the parts.

I kindly responded back that I was disappointed that my expensive dishwasher that was less than 18 months old was already not working and I had hoped for a different response from GE.

I left it at that to see what they would come back with.  And low and behold, the customer service agent "did some more research" and because it's less than 18 months old, they will fix it for free this time. 

Moral of the story - always push back when you don't get what you think you should get but always do it nicely. 

Secondary moral of the story -it's always easier to wait on slow customer service agents when it's the dishwasher as opposed to say the clothes washer.  I might not have been so eager to slowly play the customer service game of emailing(thanks to extended phone wait times), waiting for a response, responding to requests for serial numbers, waiting on further responses, more questions, more responses (you get my drift) if it had been the washing machine!

So, even though I'm still washing my dishes by hand, I consider this a victory!  Now I'm just waiting to find out the date the service tech will come to do the repair.  And since we are traveling for a big chunk of next week, it will be sometime during the first week of April. 

I guess I better get some Palmolive so I don't get dishpan hands!

Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy this adorable picture of the cat who literally gets into everything:

Thankful Thursday - Edition 12

It's Thankful Thursday!  Here's what I'm thankful for...

1. Sarah's track coach - I love Coach Steele's heart for the kids at Our Lady of Mercy and I love her passion for getting them excited about running and being part of the team.  She starts recruiting at the beginning of the school year by seeking out all the new kids and encouraging them to run.  She isn't intimidated by coaching 97 kids.  That's almost half of our school!   Her love of the kids and the sport shows and it makes it an honor and a pleasure to assist her each year.

2.Homemade mochas - a friend of mine gave me some nice hot chocolate mix for Christmas.  Sarah loves hot chocolate but she likes to make it in the Keurig because it's quick and easy.  So not to let good hot chocolate mix go to waste, I've been making my own mochas.  In the afternoons I've been brewing a cup of decaf in the Keurig, putting a large tablespoon of hot chocolate mix in the coffee, some cream and of course a big dollop of whipped cream and viola!  A homemade mocha of sorts!  YUM!

3. Plumber Dan - the dishwash stopped draining this week so Dan had to pretend he was a plumber again.  Unfortunately, he couldn't find the problem so I've been in contact with GE since the dishwash is only a year and a half old at this point.  I want them to fix it so I haven't called a repairman yet.

Even You-Tube couldn't help.  Most likely it's the motor or the pump...

4. Hand-washing dishes  - So we've been washing everything by hand since Saturday and while I don't love that, I do love washing and drying beside my sweet husband.  💗💗

5. The snow - hahahahaha!  NO.  I am not thankful for the snow but it was pretty coming down for four hours yesterday.  I am however, thankful that it did not stick and that it was gone by lunch.

6. Weather forecast for Savannah - it looks like the rain is gone now and it's going to be sunny and warm.  I know all that can change quickly but I hope it doesn't!

7. Leftovers - I love it when I make a decent meal and there are leftovers for my lunch!

This was leftover ginger beef, jasmine rice, and a coconut curry vegetable stir fry (that came in bag with the sauce included and was so delicious that even Dan commented on how good it was! And he is not a fan of most vegetables so that was high praise.)

What are you thankful for this week?

ANOTHER snow day? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They were calling for more wintry weather early this morning and I blew it off.  Picture me sticking my fingers in my ears and singing "lalalalalalalalalalalala"

Peter was adamant that his school would be cancelled.  I scoffed and harshly informed him to get his homework/project-that-he-left-until-the-last-minute (when will he ever learn?) finished before he went to bed.  And he did (as far as I know).

I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM only to discover that Sarah's school is going in on a 2 hour delay BUT Peter's school is CLOSED.

Now I'm worried about Sarah's 8th grade trip.  She is supposed to leave tomorrow morning at 0'dark-thirty to head to Charlottesville,VA to visit Monticello, James Madison's birthplace, the Luray Caverns and the University of Virginia.  I checked the weather in Charlottesville and they are supposed to get 3-6 inches this morning.  If that happens there's a good chance her trip will have to be rescheduled.

She has been looking forward to this trip since the beginning of the school year because in her mind, once she got to this trip, 8th grade would be smooth sailing until June.  And she's sort of correct except that there's still a lot of work to be done before June.  But she's had this trip in her head since the first day of school and an "if I can just make it to the trip I'll be fine" attitude.  Hopefully they can still go on their trip but if not the teacher assured me that they will reschedule it.

My plan of sitting at the computer all day and finishing the taxes has been slightly derailed now.  Because once Peter gets up, he will be on the computer completing another project that he has to finish that's due later this week and playing video games, watching you tube videos, and generally goofing off.  Luckily, I'm almost done with them and there's still 3 weeks left until April 15th so I still have pleeeeeeeeenty of time. 

Hmmmmm....wonder where Peter gets his why-do-it-today-when-I-can-do-it-tomorrow attitude? 

Yesterday I spent the better half of the day figuring out our itinerary for our trip to Savannah.  The kids get two weeks off for spring break and we decided to spend some time next week in Savannah. We've never been there and thought it would be a nice little vacation.  But having never been there we don't know what to do or where to start.  So I cobbled together a loose itinerary for the 4 days we are there and I guess we will just hope for the best.  The weather forecast calls for a lot of rain so that's a bummer since we will be doing a lot of walking around.

In case anyone needs a Wally fix, here you go:

 He will literally curl up anywhere!

The weekend update, a Monday review, and a recipe.

Yesterday I headed to the grocery store as normal, raced back home to unload the groceries, got some laundry going, headed to Chick-fil-A to pick up lunch for Sarah, headed to school to monitor Teacher Lunch Out and deliver Sarah's lunch, went out to lunch with a couple of school moms, headed back to pick up Sarah, brought her home, went to pick up Peter from track practice, came home and helped Sarah fix a Margherita pizza for World Thinking Day at her Girl Scout meeting, took her to Girl Scouts, came home and ate dinner, put away the laundry and then sat my big butt on the couch until bedtime.

So that's why it's Tuesday and you are just now getting the weekend update. And I'm not really sure it's worth the wait but here it is anyway:

Peter didn't have track practice on Friday since he had a meet on Thursday so it was nice just to come home from school with no where else to go.  When Dan got home from work, he started the yard work.  Unfortunately, it's time to start mowing the grass again around here.  It really needed it last weekend but it was pretty rainy so it had to wait.

I made our normal Friday-in-Lent supper of pesto pasta with garlic bread.  Afterwards we ran to the grocery store for a couple of things and then we came home to get watch an episode of Survivor.

On Saturday, we spent the entire afternoon at Wake Forest University where our school hosted a track meet with two of the other local Catholic schools. We usually host two or three just-for-fun track meets each season and then end with the conference championship meet where all the local Catholic schools participate.

This year due to busy schedules, we are only hosting two fun meets.  But that's okay with me because hosting these meets is a lot of work.  It takes a lot of volunteers to run a  track meet and it's always a long day.

Our kids ran really well and had a lot of fun.  The day ended up being fairly warm and mostly sunny so it was perfect.  Sarah ran well and had more fun than she thought.  She never wants to run track and only does it because I make her.  I figure if I have to be there as an assistant to the track coach then my kids are going to participate.  (And I don't HAVE to be there, I want to be there -  sort of.  I love the track coach and will help her with anything she needs.  And this is my last year!)

We made it home a little before 7:00 and grilled out.  We love to grill out these delicious steak bites:

This is a picture of them before they went on the grill.  Didn't get one afterwards but trust me, they were delicious.  We have them a lot.  The marinade is what makes them so good and you can use a fairly cheap cut of meat and still have tender steak.

Here's the recipe if you are interested:

Steak Bites

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 Tablespoons dried basil
• 1 Tablespoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1-1/2 lbs. flat iron or top sirloin steak, cut in 1-inch pieces

Directions:

Place all ingredients except the steak in a baggie and mix well. The add the steak and seal the baggie. Let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours and up to 24. Then we skewer them and Dan throws them on the grill for 15 minutes. Or you can cook them in a skillet on medium high heat for about three minutes.

I had originally planned to have them 2 weeks ago but our schedule changed.  I already had them in the fridge marinating so I just threw the baggie in the freezer until we could use them.  The extra time in the marinade made them even more flavorful than ever.  So we all decided that I needed to start doing it that way from now on. 

After dinner Dan and the kids wanted to go to Sonic because they've got their half price shakes after 8:00 so off we went.

We attended Mass on Sunday morning, had lunch at my parent's house and then the kids had projects and papers to work on.  My brother came over and we watched Carolina lose to Texas A&M and then watched some episodes of Shark Tank.  We totally missed a whole night of American Idol but that's okay because Sarah was working on school work anyway. There's no fear of missing out when you don't realize that something is on!  :)

We did however record last night's episode so hopefully we can watch that tonight. (Last night she had scouts and a bunch more homework.  8th grade at our school is no joke!) Although, I'm going to be honest, I'm not looking as forward to it as she is.  I'm still hoping the new judges grow on me....

And then before we knew it, it was Monday and I've already given you the details of that day and now it's Tuesday and I've got work to do - taxes, pay bills, track practice at Sarah's school.

See you tomorrow!

Track meets and the fact that I'm old, tired and lazy.

Last night Peter had another track meet.  And it was not as cold as last week's meet but thanks to very high winds, I was bundled up like it was in the low 40s  One  of the other moms and I were joking that we looked like homeless people huddled over in our mismatched hats, gloves, and winter parkas.  And it didn't help that one of that we were scarfing down another mom's snacks like we hadn't eaten in days.

Track meets are exactly like swim meets - you sit  around for hours eating snacks because you're bored and hoping you don't miss the 2 minutes that your kid is going to swim/run because you are talking and not paying attention.

Here's the one decent picture I got of Peter:

Sarah has her first track meet tomorrow.  I am the assistant to the track coach so I've been busy helping to get everything ready.  It's supposed to be in the mid 60s but there's a 40% chance of rain.  Hopefully it will stay away!

We have no plans for St. Patrick's Day. Well, we were supposed to go to a trivia night fundraiser at Peer's school that sounded really fun.  But then the start time of  Sarah's track meet got pushed out by 2 hours and there's no way we would be back to Peter's school in time for the event.  And it's the kind where you go in as teams to win the trivia contest and you are supposed to bring a dish to share with your table/team.  I hate going to things late (especially when I don't know if I will be 30  minutes late or an hour and half late) and I knew there would be no way I'd be able to get an appetizer ready in time for this thing in addition to the track meet. So in the end we cancelled those plans and I'm feeling good about my decision. I'm not one of these people that go from event to event. I find when I do that I don't enjoy each thing - I'm too worried about getting to the next thing.   I prefer to just have one major thing to do per day.  That way I can focus on it and enjoy it.

Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I'm old-fashioned, say I'm over the hill

Or maybe I'm just old, tired, and lazy. 

Whatever the case, we will be grilling dinner at whatever time we get home from Sarah's track meet and we will be enjoying a calm evening after a long day at the track.  That's more my speed...

Enjoy your weekend!