Happy Valentine's Day!

The majority of our Valentine's Day was filled with laundry, cooking, cleaning, more laundry, more cooking, and more cleaning. In the afternoon, we decided to get take a drive over to Opryland Hotel to get out of the house for a few hours. We hadn't taken the kids there for a quite awhile, and we actually weren't sure if we had ever taken Kirsten there. It turned out to be a brilliant idea. It (amazingly) was not crowded at all, and Dominick LOVED running down all the paths. He loved running ahead of us, but did a great job listening and not running too far ahead. Kirsten babbled in her stroller the entire time we were there, and watched everything and everyone around her. We had a great afternoon at a beautiful hotel. Maybe next time we can even spend the night!!

A conversation recap from this morning.....

Dominick: (pointing to his Cars dvd case) “Do you know who this one is, mommy?”.

Me: “hmmmmm, I’m not sure, buddy, is it Sherriff?

Dominick: “nooo, mommy” (and laughs)

Me: “is it Red?”

Dominick: “nooooooo, mommy” (and laughs some more).

Me: “Is it Mater?” (I knew it wasn’t Mater, but I couldn’t think of any other names to guess).

Dominick: “noooooooooooo, Mommy. I think we better call Nana Kelley and ask her!”.

I think he’s right. Sadly, his mommy is not a Cars expert yet!! Dominick just saw Cars for the first time during his stay at Grandma & Grandpa Barga's house during our Mexico trip. Dominick got pretty attached to it during his visit, so Grandma & Grandpa Barga let us borrow their copy for our drive home from Ohio to TN. Well, none of us really know very many of the characters names yet from the movie (especially me). While Nana Kelly was here visiting last week, Dominick wanted to watch Cars, and Dominick kept asking over and over again what each car's name was. I was trying to make dinner and feed Kirsten (and didn't know any of their names anyway), so Nana Kelley helped him learn all of the character's names (with a little help from disney.com). Oh, how we miss you Nana Kelley!!

We miss you Nana Kelley!

Nana Kelley came to visit us from Alaska this week. We (Dominick, Jeff, and I) haven't seen her since May 2008 when we went to Alaska to visit Nana Kelley, Uncle Joey, and Anneke. Kirsten had never met her!


We didn't do a whole lot of crazy stuff while she was here, but we did manage to get her to the Olive Garden and Marshall's, which are her favorite restaurant and retail store, and both don't exist in Alaska. We also visited Opry Mills mall, where she and Dominick rode the merry-go-round together, and Jeff took her downtown one night for some live music. She also watched "Cars" with Dominick, and taught him the names of all of the characters in it (with a little help from disney.com). We enjoyed your visit sooOOO much....we hope to see you again soon, Nana Kelly! We miss you already -

4 days in Paradise (almost).....

We just spent 4 glorious days lying on a gorgeous beach, floating around in an amazing pool, immensely enjoying a swim-up bar, (and thus drinking waaay more banana mama's than a person should in four days), sleeping in, taking afternoon naps, and missing Dominick and Kirsten like C-R-A-Z-Y! Our good friend, Chad, got married on Saturday, Jan 30, 2010 in Rivera Maya, Mexico. We really had the most fabulous time!! The resort that we stayed at was fantastic! http://www.valentinmaya.com/?vm=r

Congrats to Chad and Kathryn, and thank you for including us in your amazing celebration! Thank you to my parents for watching Dominick and Kirsten for us - we REALLY appreciate it! We are SO lucky to have them to watch the kiddos for us so that we could get away for a few days.

Oh, and although the trip was supposed to be for four days, Jeff's trip was cut short because he ended up needing to be back at work on Monday, Feb 1. In order to do that, he changed his return flight to fly directly back to Nashville on Sunday, Jan 31. I flew back to Dayton (our departing city), the following day, and the kids and I drove back to Nashville on Tuesday, Feb 2. So, Jeff had three days in paradise, and I had four days in paradise, followed by a not-so-fun day of driving....hmmm........

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