June Recipe Club

Mary hosted June's Recipe Club and chose '4th of July Fun' as her theme.  We all came up with our own recipes...and as usual, it all tasted great!  Check out our blog for all the yummy recipes!

Anna Kate's Black Bean Corn Dip

Anna Kate's Pickled Okra-Ham Rolls

Rhonda's Corn Salad

Lauren's Blueberry Walnut Salad

Meghan's Pasta Salad

Liz' Wild Rice Cranberry Pecan Salad

Melanie's Marinated Green Beans

Caron's Marinated Pork Tenderloin

Mary's Fish Tacos

Ashley's YUMMY Blueberry Crisp

My Chocolate Chess Pie

The group!

Hoot Out 2011

I hosted 'Hoot Out' 2011 this weekend here in Birmingham at Ross Bridge Resort.  In total, ten owls flew in for the weekend.  It goes without saying that we had an amazing time.  These girls know me better than anyone and even though I don't see them everyday anymore, when we're together it is as if no time has passed.

I'll let the pictures tell how we spent our time this weekend....eating, drinking, laughing and talking!

I had this cake made in Albertville...is it not the cutest cake you've ever seen?!

This is 'Henrietta'!

I ordered some coozies for everyone to use while we sipped on our beverages!

The whole group!

Cheers to finally being altogether!

Happy Birthday, Bailey!

We spent all day Saturday out by the pool!

Saturday night before dinner, we showered our newest 'Mommy-to-Be', Melanie...she got some adorable presents for Miss Olivia Grace!

Olivia Grace Busby will make her arrival into the world in October!  Miss Olivia, you are already so loved and blessed!

The cake tasted as good as it looked!

Before heading to '26' for dinner, we had a few drinks outside at the hotel.

Girls, it was a wonderful weekend.  I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed planning it for everyone.  Allison, I'm already looking forward to see what you plan for our Winter 2012 trip....Hooty-Hoot girls! 

Happy Father's Day

Along with having the best mom in the world, Sister and I also have the best dad.  My dad has lots of names:  Bob, Bobby, GrandBobby, Diddy, and Daddy D...and he responds to all of them!  He has lived in a house with three women for his entire adult-life...that alone tells you how wonderful he is.  And when I say that the three of us girls are high-strung, dramatic and OCD that is an understatement.  My dad has a wonderful way of calming everyone down and keeping us in check.

My dad is one of the sharpest dressed men I know and he plays a mean air guitar!  Dad loves wine, golf, finances, white bucks, reading, the Auburn Tigers and his girls!  In my older age, Dad and I look more and more alike...I totally have his eyebrows and his forehead!  haha

I wanted to do some pictures of Dad and me throughout the years, but I haven't been home lately to raid the family photo albums.  Below is one of my favorite pictures of us together. 

Happy Father's Day, Dad!  I love you so much and am so grateful to be able to call you 'Diddy'.

A New Lens and a Photo Shoot

A couple of months ago I heard about a website where you could rent lenses for your camera.  I was intrigued and knew I wanted to rent one, but wasn't quite sure which one I wanted to try out.  When I found out Sister was prego with Baby #2, I decided I wanted to try out a close-up (Macro) lens.  I spoke with my fellow amateur photographer, 61, and she helped me narrow it down to a 100 mm/2.8 Macro lens. 

After much discussion, we decided we needed to rent some lenses and have a 'photo shoot'.  Tara and Blair drove over from ATL and we met up at the Botanical Gardens EARLY this morning.  Sister packed her 'assistant' backpack...she had it all...princess gummies, juice boxes, dresses and a squishy pig!  She was a life-saver and did a great job making the girls smile for the over 500 pics we took.  We jumped, we danced and even climbed over/through a fence in order to get the best shots we possibly could.

When the lens arrived yesterday, I have to admit that I was very intimidated...it's a hard-core professional lens.  And after today, I'm officially in love with it...I'm contemplating selling a kidney on the black market so that I can buy it sometime soon...it is AMAZING!!!  It is so up-close you can see hair follicles! 

Enjoy the pics of the girls!  Caution-there's quite a few of them!

Tara was ready!

Sister, a.k.a "Our Assistant" was ready!

Here we go!

A bump-shot of Sister!

After our photo shoot, we spent some time baby-pool side in the driveway!

Tara, we had so much fun with y'all this morning and I can't wait to see all 400 of your pics!  Katherine and Blair-thanks for being such photogenic subjects...I have a feeling this is the first of many more photo shoots to come!   :)