Hey, Shorty...it's your birthday.

We gonna party like it's your birthday. I'm down with the hip-hop people... Yo!, MTV Rocks :) I dont even think they play that show anymore, but I digress.

I celebrated my 30th birthday on Sunday with fun food and friends. We revisited the scene of my 29th birthday at Cabana. It's a really fun place to go... It gets a recommendation from Mimi if that matters for whatever that is worth in your opinion.

Anyway... this picture is of my local birthday buddies.

Waterpark? I went there on vacation.

Here's a Saturday experience. After my hair stylist asked me what I had planned for the weekend, I mentioned I was going to Watermark for dinner. It's a well known, trendy but delicious restaurant in town... I got confused... b/c she replied... "my uncle went there on vacation." She proceeded to mention things that didnt add up to a dinner experience in Nashville... and I said (nicely), "What are you talking about? I was talking about the restaurant Watermark?" She thought I said waterpark...

Anyway...with that said... It was my first time at Watermark, and it was my birthday request to Hal. Via an exaggerated story when he made reservations, he snagged us a table with great views (I had a city view... he had a view of me...OK?) Nuff said.

The dinner was flippin' fantastic. I'll give you a food review verbally if you're interested in going there. I definitely recommend a visit if you're in Nashvegas.

To continue the evening, we walked next door to Sambuca for a post dinner drink. First time there, too... but I'll let you decide for yourself if you wanna go there. I wont make a recommendation either way. I'm like a politician in that sense :)

We came home after that and called a taxi to take us to Tribe. It was a fun time... I had a lot of Cran & Grey Goose... but a lady always knows when to leave (if you know Fried Green Tomatoes, you know that line) ... and that was the extent of my disclosable "pre" birthday.

Coincidence? I think not...

I went to a record store yesterday looking for two specific albums... this store was unreasonably priced for those 2 cd's... and I was ready to leave... but--seriously no joke--at the same moment, I looked over at another aisle and saw something prominently displayed that caught my attention...

Yep, a 3 cd Loretta Lynn collection... I glowed like the angel I am for the rest of the evening... I mean... come on, I seriously wasnt even looking in the country section and saw it on a quick-parting glance...

It was meant to be!!!

And "I Love You Too" gurl

I freakin love Loretta Lynn... and that's not a surprise if you've known me for a while.

Anyway, one of my best friends gave me a special tribute in celebration of this milestone to the tune of one of our favorite Loretta songs... yep, bitches... I'm 30 today and loving every minute of it.

Check this out & read Josh's blog regularly... it's one of the ones linked over in the right side of this blog. He has a really fun blog that is updated quite often.

I love tomatoes on the vine...and squirrels... AND Josh :)

Weekend Wrap-up

Ok... nothing too crazy / exciting to blog about that happened over the weekend. Saturday evening we went to a 5 year anniversary party for Hal's company. It was "kid kingdom" all over again when I first walked in... there were about 4 kids doing karaoke... Kinda cute and funny though.

I proceeded to have a few Oats & Barley concocotions to make that more fun :) Maybe I had a few too many though b/c after we got home, I managed to fall and hurt my back and get a big knot on my head. Oopsie, so I decided it was time to go to bed at that point even if it was 9:30 on a Saturday. I debated on whether I should publicly disclose this incident, but what the heck.

We stayed in most of the day on Sunday. Hal made a yummy brunch and I watched a lot of Sunday type television... documentaries on Dubai and those man-made islands they've built. Neat stuff... and I caught up on some magazines.

I did wake up to thunder on Sunday night... wow... it's freaking been forever since it rained at our house, so it was a welcome sound. I'm over this crazy heat wave and lack of rain.

So there ya go... my weekend... bumps, bruises, thunder and all.

Wow, Elvis left the building 30 years ago today...

Elvis died 10 days before I was born, but this clip makes me laugh. At least he was also able to laugh at himself at this point.

Kid Kingdom

I went to East TN on Saturday to visit my family. I also had some relatives in from Detroit, so it was fun to see everyone.

I got there in time for dinner Saturday evening. Wow, it was fun but like a daycare. My Detroit relatives brought their twin grandkids (4ish y/o?), my brother has three kids (9 & 8 y/o boys and a 6 y/o girl), AND my cousin has twins who are about 3 months old. All this, plus 8 adults in a small place.

All the kids are freaking adorable and it wasnt really that bad, but there's usually always something going on. After dinner, I took my great-gram back to her house. She's 91 and still lives alone. She had a broken hip episode last year, but she's doing fantastic and always makes me laugh.

After that, I went back to visit my brother and his kids. I hadnt seen them since February and it's amazing how much they can grow in that amount of time. My niece is starting Kindergarten this week and she's going to be the smartest girl in her school (I'm not biased at all).

I love seeing my niece & nephews. They (especially my niece) are very observant of me. It's cute to look over at her while I'm involved in another conversation, but I see her sitting there "studying" me. She always gives me a cute smile when I catch that. I'm so excited to watch them continue to grow up.

That's enough weekend babbling for now... I dont really have anything major planned this week / weekend, but I'll see what happens and definitely keep you folks up to date! :)