Preschool Graduation

My baby boy graduated from preschool last week! I can't believe it! He has gone to Kids First Preschool since December 2006, so the staff there are like family. They helped me through Roan's dress-wearing phase, and through his speech problems. He's learned a lot there!

Here he is after getting his diploma! On the left is Ms. Karen. Roan LOVES her. On the right is Ms. Betty Jo. She makes him "do hard work".

On his way back to his seat with his diploma and "Jesus Loves Me" coloring book.

Is he the cutest kid ever? I should have gotten a picture of his outfit... plaid Bermuda shorts, a yellow polo shirt with a navy sweater vest. Too handsome! He's pretty proud of finishing preschool...but he's having a hard time understanding that Kindergarten doesn't start until August!

Is it wrong to love a shower head?

On our trip to Memphis, we were lucky to find a wonderful hotel! It was a Holiday Inn and Suites on the East side of the city. It was clean, the staff were friendly and the room was AMAZING.
We were in Room 121...betcha couldn't guess! ha

This was the room. You can't see everything, but we had a fold-out couch, a kitchenette with a fridge/freezer and a jacuzzi tub. I never knew how much I would love a jacuzzi tub. The bed was absolutely fantastic. It was incredibly comfortable and they had GREAT linens. I'm kind of a bed linen weirdo, anyway. More on that below.

Here is the best part of our room. The shower head. No kidding. I don't have the words to describe the fantabulousness of this shower. The water pressure was perfect; and the actual flow of the water nearly made us melt. This shower was so amazing, the first shower I had when I got home just made me mad. Shannon and I are now on a quest to find one just like this to install in his bathroom!

I travel with pillows. I always have. Now, I've converted Shannon. This is our pile of 4 pillows we took along with us. What's funny is that the pillows on the hotel bed were so awesome, we could have slept on them alone and been fine. Yes, I'm picky about my bed. Certain sheets, made a certain way; certain pillows arranged just so. I love having "the perfect pillow moment" and that happened a lot on our trip. Luckily, Shannon is patient with me.

We will definitely stay at this hotel again when we go back to Memphis in May!

Hunka hunka burnin' love

When I was a little kid, I'd listen to the song "Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love" and sing like crazy into my hairbrush. Hey, I was an only child. I had to entertain myself somehow, right? I like to joke and call Shannon my "hunka hunka"....well, because he is. While we were at Graceland, we strolled through the gift shop. They have all the standard tourist-y items, but if you go on through, they have kind of an alcove that has higher end items. Guitars, art, jewelry, etc... Shannon found this.....

A black leather jacket in his size. Of course we had to try it on. Of course, I nearly came unglued. We thought seriously about buying it until we saw the higher end price tag. Gulp...it was $500. Yikes! So I just took pictures of him wearing the jacket at every conceivable angle. Maybe I'll wall paper my room in them... lol.

More Graceland...

After we toured the inside of the house, we moved along to an outbuilding that once housed Vernon Presley's office. Once we passed through there, we came to a room that had once been an original smokehouse...Elvis and his friends used it for target practice... Actual bullets recovered from the floor and walls...
The target they used...

This was a replica of the house in Tupelo MS where Elvis was born. Very cool.

This was taken from the backyard where the horses are kept. It still amazes me that Elvis LIVED HERE. Wow.

Muffins with Mom

Roan's preschool hosts "Muffins with Mom" on the Friday prior to Mother's Day. It's so cute! They decorate the lobby and serve muffins, fruit and juice. Today was Muffins with Mom! No one could ever dispute that this boy belongs to me, huh? We had blueberry muffins and water (Roan won't drink OJ); Roan filled my cup, carried it to the table, then announced that I am "the best mommy [he's] ever had!" That's my sweet boy!

Remoulade and special seasoning...

Welcome to my first blog post dedicated to remoulade. How silly is that?Like I mentioned in the last post, Shannon's meal came with a remoulade sauce. I think it was the best thing I've ever tasted. I'm kind of a dipper when I eat, anyway, so this was right up my alley. Usually, I'm a ranch dressing dipper, but this sauce was the cat's meow!! I thought about asking for a quart to go. I even tried to talk the recipe out of the waitress. No luck. Saturday, we met a guy whose wife works at the Half Shell. I tried to talk him into getting the recipe for me. Again, no luck. So, it's now my mission in life to perfect this recipe.

The other awesome part of this restaurant was their special seasoning blend. I think you can guess which one it is. It was so good, I almost cried. It's kind of like Lawrey's Seasoned Salt with a MAJOR spicy kick...oh and about a thousand times tastier. I considered sliding the whole shaker in my purse, but figured that would be frowned upon at the least. I was actually afraid they'd chase me out to the car. So, I put on my best charm and asked the waitress about it...and guess what she did?

She brought me a little container of it to take home!! We decided it wasn't full enough, so we poured a little extra in from the shaker on the table!! Hey, I have to make it last until we can get down to Memphis again!

The Half Shell...

Ok, this is a little out of order...but I realize that maybe not EVERYONE cares about photos of Graceland as much as I do... so I'll break it up a little :-)

After our gloriously wonderful day at Graceland, we decided to eat at a little place called "The Half Shell". The sweet lady at the hotel's front desk recommended it to us. Wow, was it GOOD! I don't mean 'adequate' or 'ok'. I mean slap-your-momma-good.
This was their menu. Oh, and Shannon's hand. lol It was primarily a seafood restaurant, but the menu was a little different than we expected. Shannon got the Half Shell Combo (I think was the name...). It had grilled fish, crab cakes, and shrimp. Yum!

Here is his magnificent dinner. I'm not kidding when I say magnificent. Oh, and please note the sauce on the upper right corner of the picture. This was remoulade. I've never been a big fan of remoulade...that is until I tasted this. I almost licked the ramekin. I think it deserves its own blog post. Stay tuned.

...and this is what was left of Shannon's meal! Even the crab cakes were to die for. We agreed that they had an odd seasoning that was a little overpowering after a few bites, but we won't hold that against them. Please note that the remoulade is conspicuously absent...

This was my dinner. Yes, it's a Reuben. And yes, I know we were at a seafood restaurant... The thing is, I was all ready for seafood, but there was really nothing that yanked my chain in the seafood genre... and I didn't want to be disappointed in my meal. Did I ever make a good choice. Now, I've had my share of reubens, given that it's my favorite sandwich on the face of the planet, and I can say without a doubt, this is the BEST one I've EVER had. I almost cried it was so good. And when I slathered it with Shannon's remoulade, I nearly fell over dead with pleasure.

Here's a picture of the outside of the restaurant. It was a beautiful night, our tummies were full and happy...so we just stood outside by the car and reveled in it. What an amazing day!

Graceland...part 2. The TV room and pool room

This is the TV room . It's decorated in bright yellow and navy blue. You can't see it, but the pillows are a couple of shades of yellow and covered in sequins and other glittery things. There were three televisions going, each showing something different. Evidently, EP liked to stay updated... One of the weirdest things in the room was the creepy monkey on the coffee table. It had weird possessed eyes. Elvis had bad taste, but I love him anyway.

This is downstairs in Elvis' pool room. The room's walls and ceiling were covered in hundreds of yards of fabric. It was amazing! The pool table still has a rip in the felt where one of his friends missed a shot. Again, no flash photography was allowed; sorry for the poor quality.

This was a shot of the ceiling of the pool room. That's fabric!

This was the rack filled with pool cues. Evidently, Elvis was a big pool player. It was amazing how small the house was, and especially, how low the ceilings were in the basement! It was all I could do not to bust through the velvet ropes and... oh, sorry. I lost control there for a minute. I still can't believe how lucky I am to have gotten visit... amazing!

Graceland... the Jungle Room

I have the most amazing man in the world. He took me to Graceland last week. It was almost more than I could stand! I've loved Elvis since I was a little kid. I had a pretty cool mom; she took me to my first concert (ELVIS!) when I was in second grade. In fact, we still have the ticket stubs and program stored in her attic somewhere. We saw him in the Spring, just before he died that Summer. I remember sobbing when I heard he passed away...

Shannon bought the VIP tour, which allowed us to tour the grounds at our own pace (rather than being herded in a tour group), see the car museum, the airplanes, and allowed us to return to the mansion as many times as we wanted. (and yes, we did return!) It also allowed the staff to treat us like royalty, which was pretty awesome, too! This is the sign as you drive into the parking lot. I almost had a panic attack when I saw this. I think my exact words were "I can't believe we're here...I can't believe we're here..."

Of course, we saw the Jungle Room. Honestly, it wasn't quite as gaudy as I anticipated. This was an arm of one of the chairs...kind of neat, really.

One of the fur chairs... we weren't allowed to use flash photography, so the pictures didn't turn out quite as sharp as I would have liked... to the left of this chair was a water fountain. Very cool.

The couch... again, sorry for the blur. It totally freaks me out that Elvis butt was on this couch.

The far end of the room... you can see the bar and barstools. The carpet was very green shag; the same carpet was on the ceiling!

Stay tuned for the kitchen, TV room and pool room...

Memphis!!

Last Wednesday, the Man and I headed to Memphis. We've been planning this trip since December, and happily, it went off without a hitch! Shannon getting the trunk arranged. He was amazed at what a light packer I am! It took us about 7 hours to get there from Jeff City; that included stopping to eat and one pit stop. We got to travel through the bootheel of Missouri...my old stomping ground. I was the Director of the Southeast MO Autism Project back in the 1990's, so it was fun driving through some of the cities I used to go to.
This was one of the first sites we saw as we came into Tennessee. I nearly fainted. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a HUGE Elvis fan. That's the reason Shannon suggested we go to Memphis... We got a little turned around trying to get to our hotel, but all in all, the trip down was wonderful! After we got settled in, we went to a place called "Buckley's" for dinner. We each got a filet; they were so good, we almost cried. On Thursday, we went to Graceland.... stay tuned!