Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is my dad's birthday. I will be nice and not divulge his age, but only give you these clues: he was a child of the 1960's, a teenager of the "glorious 70's", and he was born in 1957...woops, sorry Dad.

I firmly believe that I have the best dad in the entire world. I mean could anyone else's dad make a game out of how long a box of toothpaste from Costco would last? I think not... not to mention that my dad's white chili makes other people's homemade chili taste like it came straight from the can. No offense, my dad's is just that good.

But in all seriousness.

Daddy, I am so blessed to be your daughter. You have been my hero since day 1. You taught me how to live a life pleasing to God through your example, you taught me how important it is to work hard/ complain less, you taught me to own up to my mistakes and not make excuses, and you taught me to think for myself and be my own person.

There's something about dad's and daughters that's special. It must make it worth it, because we sure do cost a lot. But Dad, let's be honest, you kind of had it easy. Neither Ashley and I were girly girls, we had more sports equipment that dolls, we hated dressing up, and to this day I would rather listen to someone scratch their nails against a chalkboard than go shopping.

I think it's no coincidence that I married a man who reminds me of you in almost every way. I love you Dad! Happy Birthday.

p.s. No, I am not sucking up...I do not need money :)

We have been pretty big buds since birth... my birth that is.

Weekend Reunion

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was able to get away this past weekend to spend a night hanging out with my best friends from high/middle school. I have the greatest friends in the entire world... in fact, my friends are better than yours, there I said it... and it's true :)

Like good ole' Ralph, the best part about having life long friends is that they know everything about you, they know all your weird quirks, they know how dramatic and crazy you were in high school, and they know every boy you have ever had a crush on (and make fun of you for it). But the best part is that even at 23, it's still refreshing to be around people who accept you for who you are.

God has blessed me with pretty amazing friends, from high school, college and now nursing school. I am forever grateful to Him for putting these girls into my life.

Yes, Heather really did take that much luggage for one night.

And here is sneak peak on Lexi's attire for Halloween, a banana! Isn't she just the cutest peel you have ever seen?

Rain Rain Go Away...Come Again... NEVER!

If I have to see another cloudy Birmingham skyline, I may never wake another day. Rain... seriously, take the hint and go AWAY! My husband and I absolutely sick of it, not only does it make you feel gloomy, it makes Bham traffic go from bad to I might have a conniption on my way home worse.

Not only is it always rainy, it's only ever sunny when Matthew and I decide to leave Rainy City 2.0 for the weekend. I mean really? We might as well live in Seattle, which would be way cooler(i.e. The Space Needle, being near a coast, it's where Frasier Crane calls home) like I said... a lot cooler.

Why can't I have a Saturday that's sunny and chilly? Instead it's misty and about as miserable as living inside a cigar humidor. Not ideal corn hole weather. I just want to wear my North Face fleece and feel comfy, I want to cook white chili and it be worth it, I want to never see my umbrella again, and I want to be able to take my dog to the park without having to hose off all the nasty mud when we get home. I mean if it's going to be wet...can't it at least be snow?

Is there a solution to this problem? I'm guessing either pray that the local weatherman might actually be wrong about the rain for once, or get out of this town! I'm voting for the latter.

I hear it doesn't rain a lot in southern Cali...

Lexington, Joe B's, and Bobby Flay

Blogger decided to go all crazy on me yesterday... I tried posting this on Sunday, but Monday came around and the blog was unrecognizable and you couldn't read the post or see the pics. Again, I am pretty illiterate when it comes to computers.. my only solution was to delete and start over. So.. here is the post again.

This past weekend, Team Hardison, including our furry third, headed up to Lexington to visit the Hardison ‘rents. We had originally hoped to get tickets to the Alabama-Kentucky game, but after the Florida debacle the week before… I’m slightly ashamed to wear blue in public, unless it’s a t-shirt with a head shot of John Calipari (sorry Mom).

Regardless, we were pretty pumped about going to Lexington for an extended period of time, something we hadn’t done since last Spring. We left after clinical/work on Thursday, stopped at Baja Burrito on the way up (that and SatCo are the things my tummy still craves after a year), and got to Lexington around midnight. Friday, Matthew and I had the whole day to peruse around Lexington. We hit up one of our favorite restaurants, Cheddars, and enjoyed lunch despite the horrendous service. Afterwards, we went to see the new Ricky Gervais comedy, The Invention of Lying. If you like Steve Carrell/ Office humor, you will like this flick, although I thought it was a little slow at times.

Sandra always makes us welcome home signs when we get to Lex...this time she made one for Lexi!

They are big buds

Friday night we headed down to Joe Bolognas (the BEST pizza place EVER), and then headed over to Memorial Coliseum to check out the thousands of people camped out in line to get Big Blue Madness tickets.Unbelievable. Some of these people had been there since Wednesday! I wish we had stuck around because we heard the next day that Calipari showed up with his son to camp out with all the fans!

Pumped about my bday present...a pillow from PBarn I really wanted!

David’s birthday is next weekend, so Matthew and I planned to make a homemade german chocolate cake and take it up to Lexington. Little did we know that this little project would turn out to be a 4 hour endeavor Wed night! Let me interject here to inform everyone that this was a Bobby Flay recipe…but more on Bobby later. Despite the time commitment and someone’s mistake of adding whole milk instead of buttermilk (it was either Matthew or Lexi), the cake turned out looking and tasting fabulous! We were super impressed with ourselves, and now I even more want to open up my own bakery… baking is always a good reason not to study! So after a very healthy meal of Joe B’s pizza, we cut into that baby and it was awesome.

I made the cake, Matthew made the homemade caramel with coconut and roasted pecans...and then the homemade ganache on top!

After 4 hours... finally done!

I think he liked it.

But…. Everyone get ready, because here comes the best part of the weekend. Saturday, D and S had gotten us tickets to the Lexington Food Show…with special guest BOBBY FLAY! Now, everyone knows that Matthew and I adore this man. He is the butter to our bread, the cheese to my macaroni, etc… We watch every show he is in on Food Network (Throwdown and Iron Chef are our favorites), and always bake/cook his recipes. We had been looking forward to this for months. As soon as he stepped out onto the stage, we were mesmerized. How can a guy be so funny, nice, and a good cook… all at the same time?! My excitement however took a turn when he asked a lady (who was not me) up on stage to help him cook. I was so jealous. In my head, I kept thinking how much more clever and funny I could be on stage with Bobby than this woman! It did not damper my mood for long, because the show was fantastic, and it only deepened our admiration for Bobby. Matthew promised to take me to one of his restaurants for an anniversary…someday.

So excited!

Bobby working his magic!

Then the Cats lost… No need to dwell on this, basketball season is on its way.

We headed home early this morning because Matthew has a stats test on Tuesday. We’re glad to be home, but sad we’re not in Lex anymore. Always so fun to visit and get away from the “real” world for a while! Thanks D and S for a great weekend!

Please watch this video below. Had it not been for Bobby Flay, this would have been the highlight of my weekend. Also, please note that Lexi is ok... Watch it more than once, it only gets funnier.

Birthday...Surprise!

Well, look who is making his second post in two months! I know, I know, please hold your applause. Anyway, this post is not about me, its about my lovely wife and her 23rd birthday. As our avid readers may remember from her last post she mentioned that I had a surprise planned for her birthday. Well that is not entirely true, a more accurate statement would have been that her best friend Heather and I had a surprise planned for her birthday.

While I am not the best at "recap" blogs I will attempt to keep this entertaining and as informative as my mother's facebook statuses (statusi?).

The 8,401st day of Andrea's life unfolded as this... I woke up before she did Fri morning and made a delicious (if I do say so myself) breakfast of sausage, bacon, and pancakes and then unfortunately had to head in to work for a little bit. Now this is where the day began to get hectic for me. I had, unbeknownst (can something be beknownst?) to Andrea, been talking/planning with Heather for the perfect time for her and her husband Russ (who is one of my best friends, nice how that works out right?) to come visit us for the first time in Birmingham. So obviously we needed to have a clean apt and clean sheets on the guest bed/couch or Andrea would have killed me for letting company show up and the apt be a mess, which it really never is but you know... Anyway, that morning after breakfast I had been succsessful in convincing Andrea that today was a good day to clean the apartment so that we wouldn't have to mess with it on Sat. She planned to do her chores during the day and I would do mine when I got home early before we went to dinner. Unfortunately I was not succsessful at talking her into taking the sheets of the couch from when Adam and KB were here because I could obviously not push to hard for it without arousing her suspicions. So needless to say I made two separate trips home during the day while Ann was gone working out and getting her nails done (a great present from her nursing friends) to wash and dry the sheets.

Finally the evening arrived and we went to try a new (to us) Italian place for her birthday dinner. Amore, a tiny family run place out 280 in Greystone was well worth the 20 min drive. There couldnt have been more than 10 tables in the whole place but the food was phenomenal! We got a meatball appetizer that was amazing and than after the main course they surprised us with a complementary creme brulee (i mean who can turn down custard and caramelized sugar right?) Well before we had left I was sly enough to slip a key under the mat so that Russ and Heather could let themselves in while we were eating. I think judging by Ann's reaction when she saw them it was a great surprise to end her birthday.




The four of us just hung out here at the apartment and played rock band for the rest of the night, aaaaaaaand pretty much all day saturday too (boo on the rain, i'm sick of it) Sat night though was a whole lot of fun as we all got to go to a multi-person birthday party at my boss' house. Today we took them to eat lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant and showed them around UAB's campus.

Sometime during the night, Lexi ended up in this....

Needless to say it was a really fun weekend and we were so glad they were finally able to come and see us!! I think everyone had a blast and as always, there is an open invitation to come and crash on the couch, thanks Heath and Russ for making our weekend and Ann's birthday!

Dr. and Dr.

BFF's

And last, but definitely not least. Happy 26th Birthday to my sis-in-law Ashley! From then to now...

Birthday Week!

I decided it was time for a change. A formatting change, just for once. Don't you think that writing in a paragraph form all the time is binding? So here are my notes on life recently.

> I am super depressed about the Titans being 0-2. I don't even want to talk about it any more than that or I may throw something at this computer. Nonetheless, silver lining, the Patriots lost... I'm always excited to see Tom Brady bite the dust.

> I started taking a spinning class at the UAB Rec center. I was getting tired of my usual running plus ellipctical. Hello leg workout. It is AWESOME. Matthew and I have also started swimming some mornings before class. Anyone have any ideas on how to build up your lung capacity? I'm four strokes in and feel like my lungs will burst!

> This semester has been super easy so far. I'm sure I will eat my words at some point.

> We celebrated Geoff's 26th birthday on Monday. He told me he would rather have my cooking than go to a restaurant. Reason # 1,000 that I love Geoffrey Walter so much. Also, he told us it was ok for us to move in with him next summer. What a great guy.

> Ed (Matthew's boss) invited us to go to Holland with him sometime next summer!

> We are less than 1 week away from the Blink 182 concert!

> Matthew has a super secret surprise planned for my birthday this weekend. Usually I'm pretty good at figuring out what he is planning, but this time I absolutely have no clue.

> I absolutely HATE one of the courses I am taking this semester. I leave the class angry every Wednesday.

> Matthew and I are contemplating whether we want to move into a 2 bedroom in the same apartment complex. It will only cost about 20 bucks more a month, but then we would have to deal with moving furniture... all over again, only to have to do it again next August.

> Grey's Anatomy starts back tomorrow night. I have already planned a party for it with my nursing school buddies. Cannot wait.

> I got my credit card stolen at the Psych unit last Thursday. Well..not exactly stolen. It's a funny story, but much better in person.

>We celebrated mine and my sister's birthday this past weekend in Nashville. We went to Sperry's for dinner, mainly because dad had gift cards, and he gets a pastor (preacher) discount...ha. Our birthdays are 2 days apart.. 25th and the 27th. As a kid, this was annoying, you got 1 day all to yourself and then had to turn around and do it for your sister. Now, it's fun celebrating together, even sharing a birthday cake, which I never would have done growing up!

> Little Matthew is running cross country this year, and Big Matthew and I were able to go to one of his races this past Saturday. Big Matthew embarassed me by asking, "So what other events are there?" Are you kidding! You must be the only person alive who doesn't know what cross country is!... and it's not Track! Now obviously I have had a lot more experience with this... my sister ran all through high school and we went to meets all the time, but come on! Crawl out of the hole you've been in and get with the program!

> I have discovered that my husband makes yummy homemade Mexican salsa. I've never been more proud.

> We went to the Vanderbilt game with Dad on Saturday night. Depressing. It was like I was watching Vandy from 5 years ago.. absolutely no offense. Highlight of the evening was The DOG, a new hot dog restaurant on Belcourt near The Coop. It was incredible! To all my Nashville peeps... try this place!

> But most importantly... Happy Birthday to my best friend Heather who turned 24 today! You are now in your mid 20's!

Heather and me: Middle School... oh the awkward years

High School.. a little better

College

And now. I love you Heath! Happy Bday!

Big News

So.. we sort of have some big news. Now before all (five) of you go rushing to conclusions, this news does not involve a 9 month wait with an expensive gift in the end. So, please you can all rest assured (Mom) that this is not the case.

Matthew has decided within the last couple of weeks that he is no longer going to pursue medical school. Thankfully, he decided this before taking the MCAT and sending out applications, which saves us money, always a good thing! This decision came after a couple of months of going back and forth, until he ultimately decided that although he thinks it would be neat to go to medical school, it's not something he absolutely has to do to be fulfilled in his vocational life. On a side note... with the way things with healthcare are headed, we didn't want to take out hundreds of thousands in loan money when the potential earning for MD's could be falling each passing day. Let me step up on my small political soapbox for .5 sec... Don't you want the surgeon opening up your chest to be making good money? I would like to pay for steady hands, thank you! Ok... soapbox back under the bed.

Needless to say, we have officially decided that we will be out of Birmingham by next August. We will actually be signing our final lease to end July 31, 2010 this week... crazy. I know some of you are thinking, "but andrea you don't graduate until the second week of August!". Thankfully, we will live with our dear friend Geoff for a couple of weeks until I finish up, although we haven't asked him yet, no biggie. I'm sure he won't mind :)

So, this comes to my favor. We solicit all of your prayers as to what God wants us to be doing, going, etc... Matthew has been looking online for various post docs (sort of like a residency like med students) and industry jobs. Locations? Anywhere. We have mostly been looking in San Diego, San Fran, LA (we may or may not know some cool people there), Denver, Boulder, possibly Texas, Emory in Atlanta, and Vandy. Although I'll be honest, as of right now, it seems that the conversations tend to circle more around California than being back in Nashville (although I would love this as well:) To our family and friends. No worries! Post docs are only 2-3 years, then we would be free to move back to the South. I can only live so long where they don't serve sweet tea!

The ideal situation is Matthew finding a great job in a place where I can work and go to Nurse Practitioner school at the same time. But it really boils down to this, we want to be where God wants us, where we can really be used by Him in ways we never have, and where we can be a light to people who don't know Him.

I think that's BIG enough news, right?