St. Patty's Day in Savannah

My younger brother, Ben, came to Savannah to celebrate St. Patrick's weekend with us.  It was quite a treat because he doesn't usually get much time off of work.  Curtis and I were honored that he came to Savannah to spend time with us.  Of course, we had a meal at Paula Deen's restaurant, Lady & Sons.  Here Ben and I are posing in front of a Paula Deen cut-out.

Here's Curtis and Ben posing with her!  The food was pretty good, but my favorite part is the mint sweet tea.

After dinner, we walked over to River Street to see the festivities that were going to begin the next day (March 17th).  We realized that it was going to rain pretty soon because there were flashes of lightning.

Look at what a great picture my brother took!  You can see the lightning in the background as we had our picture taken.  Wow!  On our way back to the car, we got soaked!

The next day, we woke up very early to get to the parade.  We had heard that this year's St. Patty's Day parade in Savannah was supposed to be the largest in the country - even larger than New York City!  They were estimating over 1 million people would be there.  We decided to take the shuttle so that we didn't have to worry about parking.  Look at how full our shuttle was!

We got a decent spot and made ourselves comfortable for the parade.  Notice my brother's nice wig!

And here I am with my lovely husband. :)

There were crowds everywhere!  And everyone was in green!

I also took my turn sporting the green wig!

In the parade alone, there were over 15,000 that were in it!

I heard that the parade lasted 4 hours.  We didn't get a chance to stay for the whole time but I'm glad that we can now say that we have made it to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Savannah!

New Year's Celebration

Curtis and I had the special treat of having my older brother (Tim), his wife (Monica) and my two nieces (Charlotte & Adelie) visit us for a few days.  They live in Galveston, Texas, and it is very rare for us to spend time together!  The last time that I saw Tim and his family was in December of 2009.  I hadn't even had the chance to meet my youngest niece, Adelie, because she wasn't born yet.

I love how Charlotte (age 3) and Adelie (age 1) match!  Monica told me that Charlotte always wants to match her sister.  How cute is that!

Curtis spent lots of time with Charlotte.  We could tell that Uncle Curtis was one of her favorite people in the family. 

 We went to Paula Deen's famous restaurant, The Lady & Sons, with them.  Here's a great picture of Adelie smiling with her big sister at the restaurant.  The food was yummy - Tim and Monica really enjoyed their ribeye steak.  Curtis and I love their mint sweet tea!

 What a beautiful family they have!  I enjoyed every moment that I had - my conversations with Tim & Monica, cooking with Charlotte and just holding Adelie.

 Here I am spending some quality time with Adelie!

 On New Year's Eve, we all went exploring in downtown Savannah for the day.  I just loved these sunglasses that Charlotte had!  They perfectly matched her outfit.  She really likes penguins!

 We walked into lots of little shops, we tasted local wine and honey, and walked through several of Savannah's squares.  Here's Charlotte posing in front of a huge Christmas tree in Ellis Square.

 Uncle Curtis and Charlotte ran around in Ellis Square also.

 Adelie was content to watch under her stroller shade.

 Here's a girl shot!

 Charlotte had the Balloon Man make her a special penguin balloon to match her outfit.

 She was so happy with her balloon!

 Uncle Curtis is very silly - he wore Charlotte's glasses.

 Charlotte posing with a huge Nutcracker and her penguin balloon.

 A family shot of the Curtis' in Johnson Square: Tim, Monica, Charlotte and Adelie.

 Charlotte threw in a coin into the fountain after she made a wish!

 We even explored an antique store.  Charlotte got bored and began feeding Adelie her lollipop.

 After visiting downtown, we spent time hanging out at our house.  Curtis and I got Charlotte Candyland for Christmas, so we played a few rounds of that.  

Before we knew it, it was time for the girls to go to bed and the festivities continued in anticipation of the new year.  

We played Yahtzee & Apples to Apples until midnight came.  We celebrated with some bubbly and watched the ball drop!  I think all 4 of us are looking forward to a new year, hoping that this year will be better than the last one!  Then, off to bed we went so that we could go to church the next day to worship the Lord.  The church service went well - I think Tim and Monica were really encouraged by the sermon.

After all of their stuff was packed up, they continued their trek down to Jacksonville to see our parents. 

We had a great time, but in the end, we were really pooped!  I don't know how we are going to have the energy when we have children in the future, but we are still looking forward to that day!