Tea Time

One of my very favorite things is Afternoon Tea. I love all the delicious goodies, the comfort of warm tea, but most of all, enjoying conversation and a special time with a friend. My friend Kim also loves afternoon tea and we had been dreaming about an afternoon tea date for months (8 months, to be exact). We could never find a Saturday afternoon that worked for both families so we finally decided to get a babysitter for our 4 kids on a weekday and to hit the tea house. So, this Monday that is what we did. Sweet Dorothy came to watch our kids at 1:00pm and we didn't return until 4:00pm. We went to the Roswell Teahouse and had a wonderful time. It was the first time we have ever hung out without children, which in itself, is a huge treat. It is amazing how much talking can be done when there are no interruptions!


The delectable treats. Yes, we polished everything off on this tower and savored every single bite!


Notice the personal cast iron teapots. They have a menu of 50+ teas and you can change flavors
as many times as you like.

Cheers!

A wonderful birthday!

Ricardo has always been sure to celebrate my birthdays in a very special way. When we lived in El Salvador and he worked for an airline, we would always travel for my birthday. Two years in a row he even took me to Paris for a long weekend. Yes, those were the days of free travel and no kids! We have not been away for my birthday since we've had kids so it was extra special to have a real getaway for my birthday this year. Our awesome, selfless, wonderful friends, Aaron and Helen offered to stay overnight with the kids one more time before the baby arrives, so we chose this past weekend so we could make a birthday celebration out of it.

A friend had given me two certificates for massages a few weeks ago so I booked 2:00pm massages for us on Friday and that was the beginning of our escapade. After our wonderful massages, we strolled around downtown Decatur for awhile which we had never done before. We loved it. We stopped for donuts and coffee (yes Em, at Dancing Goats!) and then headed to our bed and breakfast on Piedmont. The place was AMAZING. I am so sad that we did not have our camera because every nook and cranny of the inn was gorgeous. The gardens, the front porch, the staircase, the back porch...everything. I downloaded two photos from their website of our room and that's all I have.

Our bedroom

Our sitting room

Our room had a little sitting area so after we checked in, we served some of their complimentary hors d'oevres and brought them upstairs to nibble on while we played card games. It was so fun to be on our own schedule, do what we wanted to do and have uninterrupted conversation the whole time. We had 8:30 reservations at my favorite restaurant so we headed there for a fabulous meal that lasted almost 3 hours. Yes, we like to eat and we like to talk :)

Of course I was so excited to be able to sleep in on Saturday, but I woke up at 6:20 and could NOT fall back asleep. I adore bed and breakfasts because I always look forward to the gourmet breakfast in the morning. The dining room was beautiful and we had a delicious meal. Breakfast was at 9:30, then we took a stroll in the neighborhood and headed back home around 12:00.

Meanwhile, the kids had a wonderful time with Aaron and Helen. I had been telling them all week that they were coming over to spend the night and they were really excited about it. When I called on Friday afternoon, they barely wanted to say hi which put me at ease to know they were more interested in whatever they were doing than missing us. When we returned on Saturday, the kids had baked a birthday cake for me, made cards and bought flowers. And it wasn't just any birthday cake, Diego told them that carrot cake is my favorite, so carrot cake it was! We all had lunch together, ate cake and had a fun time!

After Aaron and Helen left, we were about to lay down for a nap when the doorbell rang. I was thrilled to open the door to a gorgeous bouquet of flowers sent by my godmother in Washington. Thank you Brownie!!!

We all slept for 2 1/2 hours, waking up close to 5:30pm. We headed out for a beautiful walk in the neighborhood and then drove to La Fonda (our favorite Mexican restaurant). Since the kids had napped late, it was fun to go out to dinner at the time we're usually winding down for bedtime. We stopped at Whole Foods on our way home and Ricardo and Diego surprised me by buying cupcakes. When we got home, they set the dining room up with the cupcakes, a sweet card and a little present. We ate cake and my wonderful day came to an end. Phew, I was really spoiled, wasn't I?! :)

Here are some pictures from our late-night festivities:

We asked Diego to take a pictures of us - here's the result:

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In other news, our baby boy is due to arrive in 5 weeks, 2 days. Wow! That is hard to believe. I had my 34 week appointment today (5 days late) and everything looks great. Diego and Alexia are awesome sports about having to go to every single one of my prenatal appointments. It is a joy for me to bring them along because it makes me so happy at how well they behave. I even had to get blood drawn today and I told them they had to stand against the wall and not move. They stood like soldiers with their heels against the wall for a good 10 minutes, while the nurse took her time with her other patients before sauntering over my way.

My mom bought Diego and Alexia's homecoming outfits for them so of course she was excited to get one for this baby too. I picked it out online and she sent it in the mail today...I LOVE IT! The photo does not do it justice, but I thought it would be fun to share. It got me even more excited to meet this lil' guy.

So we've decided to name him Marco Andres which I think I've already shared. This week, Ricardo and I were exploring other options. A few weeks before Alexia's arrival, we did the same thing. We had that "Oh no! Is this the right name?!" question. So it was inevitable that it would happen this time around. This is how my conversation about it went with Diego:

"Que tal si cambiamos el nombre de Marco?" (What do you think if we change Marco's name?

"No! Marco es Marco." (No! Marco is Marco)

"Te gusta el nombre _____?" (Do you like the name ____?" ( I won't share the name I suggested)

"Si me gusta, si tenemos otro bebe, pero Marco es Marco" (Yes, I like it if we have another baby, but Marco is Marco.

So there you go, Marco is Marco!

Auntie Asawari's visit

My dear friend Asawari came to visit us last week with her adorable 19-month old son, Mihir. Asawari came to visit in June of '08 when she was expecting Mihir. Here is the link from that visit. When we were in California last year, we were able to hang out a bit, but it was so wonderful to have 3 full days together. They flew in on Wednesday afternoon and left very early Sunday morning. Diego and Alexia LOVED Mihir and were so sweet and gentle with him. It really brought me a new sense of excitement to introduce them to their new baby brother because I know they are going to love doting on him.
Asawari and I had such a special time being together and enjoying the new stage of our friendship - experiencing motherhood together!





On Thursday morning we had Rebecca and her kids over for a playdate and all the kids had such a blast.

Asawari took over the camera and captured some beautiful shots while we were outside:

This is Diego's new favorite activity. He lines his cars up at the top of the slide and watches them race down. He then slides down the slide to collect them and runs back up to start the race over again.

Alexia dipping her toes into the race

Alexia loved helping Mihir out and taking care of him. Here she was trying to put his crocs on for him

On Friday we went to the zoo and had a such a great time.

Oh sweet boy!! He is such a good boy and just adorable.

On Saturday Asawari, Mihir, Alexia and I headed to the Farmer's Market to stock up on a ton of Indian spices, fresh vegetables, chicken, paneer and naan. We were in the kitchen from 1pm to 8pm cooking the most wonderful meal ever! Of course Asawari did all the work; I just chopped, diced, washed, chopped some more and washed some more. I also entertained Mihir and Alexia when they woke up from their naps. Ricardo and Diego had a boy's day out for the whole day and didn't return until around 6:30.

Here is Ricardo very excited about the feast! She made lentils, garbanzos, rice, paneer with spinach, chicken, raita (yogurt sauce) and naan. It was fabulous!

After dinner on Saturday we realized that we didn't have any pictures of Asawari and I together so we headed to the living room to take pictures. I love this picture that captures our laughter so well. We were cracking up at Ricardo because he was being goofy with the camera.

Thank you so much for a wonderful visit dear friend. We miss you so much!

Florida, continued

Back-tracking a bit, here is the beginning of the trip...

Sporting her sunglasses for the car ride. The kids were superstars for the road trip. It took us 7 hours to get down there and 6 hours to return. We do not do DVD-player in the car, but they were happy with books, music, silly family games and GUM. Diego has only been allowed to chew gum on plane rides, but we let him get gum for the road trip and he was beyond thrilled. Of course Alexia wanted to try it for the first time and enjoyed her first piece for about 6 minutes, until she swallowed it. We let her try two more times and she ended up spitting it out because she didn't like the flavor. Diego probably had 8 pieces of gum on the way there since he liked chewing it and refreshing with a new one every little while. Since he knows very well that he cannot have gum again until another road trip or plane ride, we let him do whatever he wanted with those packs of gum! He was so good and as soon as we arrived, he put his gum away to save it for the ride home without us even having to ask him to do it.

20 minutes after we pulled into the house, we changed our clothes and walked straight to the beach via this pathway...

This is the little beach pavilion which houses the stairs to access the beach. The beaches of Seaside are simply breathtaking. The sand was so so so so fine and perfect and the water was delicious. I can just imagine what the water must feel like in the middle of the summer!

As soon as our feet hit the sand, Diego was amazed. He did sand angels, cartwheels and literally threw himself onto the sand and rolled around.

We had intended our walk down to the beach to be brief and all clothes to stay on...

...but shirts were soon thrown to the sand and to the waves they ran! This is Diego's expression as they were running to the water.

Alexia was still sporting her diaper from the road trip and got her clothes wet so decided she wanted to prance around in her diaper. She loved it just as much as Diego once she got comfortable.

Wild hair and no clothes, we decided to head back to the house for ice cream.

The house had this awesome screened-in porch with this great swing, a rocking chair and a table with lounge chairs. We didn't get many photos of the house and porch, but it was perfect. We spent a lot of time reading on the swing and the kids were able to ride their "moto" and "bombero" inside the porch while Ricardo and I hung out inside the house. This picture was taken quite early in the morning so it was still chilly out.

Diego's favorite beach activities were kicking this ball and playing paddle ball with Ricardo. Ricardo bought a paddle ball set and Diego was incredibly good at the game.

Sweet girl in her daddy's arms.

Here he is with the paddle. His coordination with it was quite impressive.

Florida - part 1

I still have not completed our Florida post. I am going to go ahead and share what I have and will try to finish it off tomorrow! As you will see from the pictures, our week was filled with so much joy and many special times. We are so thankful that we were able to take this family trip and cherish the memories dearly!
The pictures below are from the second half of the trip so the first half of the trip will be uploaded tomorrow.


Alexia sat like this on my legs for a good 40 minutes. She was just not feeling well and was really clingy.


She got up for a bit to spot the boys in the water...


...I can still hear Diego's squeals of joy coming from the ocean!

We had a fun dinner out one night and the kids behaved so well which made it a real pleasure to take them out.

Every night of the trip (except one) was ice cream and move night. After eating out or eating at the house, we would put on a Planet Earth episode and eat ice cream out of the tubs - what a treat!

It was the perfect time of year to go to Seaside because there were so few tourists. We had this playground to ourselves every time we went.

We tried to watch the sunset from the beach most nights

Diego barely walked a single step the whole time we were there. His mode of transportation was on his "moto." He rode it EVERYWHERE - to the playground, to the pool, out to dinner, out to lunch, absoultey everywhere. The beach was so close to the house that he accepted walking to the beach, but other than that, off on his "moto" he would go and he loved it!

A delicious shrimp lunch, overlooking the ocean. We were the only ones on this deck so the kids had a blast running up and down the deck while we had our lunch.

The best flavored shaved ice ever!

One of the highlights for me was renting bikes and riding around for a few hours. We didn't get any shots of us on the bikes, but we got this cute one of them in the buggy together. They loved it!

A sweet daddy/daugther picture, but this also captures Alexia's mood most of the week. She came down with a fever our first night there and had a bad cough and just felt miserable. She had a really difficult week with many tantrums and meltdowns, but we prayed a lot for patience for us and a happy heart for her and we were blessed with a really special week of sweet memories.

Since she wasn't feeling great a lot of the time, her favorite spot was on our shoulders.

This adorable place sold the most delicious cupcakes. They were so yummy and rich that just one was enough to share between the four of us.

A very cool line-up of treats - cupcakes, flavored ice, fruit cocktails, bbq and more!

There he goes on the "moto" again. This is the main street that runs through Seaside. This was our route to go from the house to the town.

Our street for the week

Our adorable cottage which was called "Bella Vista"

We had dinner here the first night we arrived and the last night there. They had delicious pizza and an awesome terrace filled with toys and games for the kids.