Nashville

After 2 days at the cottage, we drove a couple more hours to Nashville and we had a blast! (we're seriously trying to figure out a way to move there) We arrived Thursday afternoon and checked into our hotel in Franklin and then headed downtown. We had dinner at Demo’s Steak & Spaghetti House after a couple recommendations from friends (thanks Katie & Amber!) and it was delicious. After stuffing ourselves with lasagna, steak, shrimp, and their yummy rolls, we went down to The District where we walked up and down the street listening to the live music streaming from all of the clubs. I had myself a genuine honky-tonk experience!

On Friday we spent the day in Opryland. We toured the beautiful Opryland Hotel, which is definitely a sight worth seeing! And then spent a couple hours at the Opry Mills, a huge outlet mall, where Bobby got a pair of cowboy boots! Friday night was dinner & a movie in Franklin.

Saturday we had a southern dining experience – the breakfast buffet at Shoney’s. We were fortunate enough to meet up with my friend Tracy that worked with me back in my days at INTRAV.

The three of us spent the afternoon touring other sights around Nashville, and then rested up for our big night at the Opry! But first we stopped at Otter's for their amazing chicken tenders. (another great recommendation)

Going to the Grand Ole Opry is sort of a can’t-miss-opportunity if you’re ever in or near Nashville. Even if you don’t love country music, you can still enjoy for what it is… a legend! We were privileged to see Loretta Lynn and Gretchen Wilson, as well as a bunch of other performers.

Loretta Lynn

Gretchen Wilson

Bobby and I after the show.

Sunday, our last day, we went to church at Christ Community PCA and had lunch with Kelly & Isla, a couple of Bobby’s friends from Pensacola, before driving back to the Lou. What a great vacation!!

FishUn Time

Bobby and I spent a couple days at Kentucky Lake for some r&r&f (that’s rest, relaxation, and fishing). Kentucky Lake is about 3 hours from St Louis and is one of the lakes that makes up the Land Between the Lakes, which is a national recreation area. We stayed in a quaint little cottage at the Kings Creek Resort.

It wasn’t luxurious by any means, but was just what we needed – two bedrooms, a kitchen, near the water, boat rentals available, and equipped with cable tv. The weather was a little uncooperative, chilly & cloudy, with rain threatening the entire time, but when we woke up Wednesday morning, the sky was clear so we threw on our fishing clothes and jumped in a boat. We did get rained on briefly, but it only lasted a couple minutes.

The highlight of the boat trip was our friendly fishing competition. I jumped way ahead early, beating Bobby 6-0! But he quickly caught up and we finished at 11 fish for me, and 12 for him. Not bad for 4 hours.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Number 4 - March 15, 2007

It’s a Revolution!

A Dance Dance Revolution to be exact! I’ve always been fascinated by this game, and even though I’ve never tried it, not even at an arcade, I mentioned that wanted one and Bobby bought it for me! It’s been a lot of fun so far, even though I’m still trying to figure it out. So even though I’m not good at it yet, I definitely am still getting a good workout. So all you Atherton girls (and guys?) out there, c’mon over if you want to try it out!


Yes, the Griffiths are big kids… Bobby got Country Music Karaoke on the same day. It looks really fun, but I’m still way to scared to do it. I tried, but I can’t even bare to sing in front of Bobby, let alone in front of people that I’m not related to!

Here are Bobby & Currie on open-mic night. (see me there, on the couch, looking very comfortable as a spectator)

How was your weekend?

My long, agonizing week was followed by a short week – I love short work weeks! When I work on a Saturday, I automatically get the following Thursday off, so then I decided to take of Friday too so that I could have a four-day weekend, and it was great. My parents also took the time off of work and came out to visit us. Here’s a recap of our weekend…. Thursday we ate hamburgers grilled by Chef Bobby and then when he went off to work, my mom and I went shopping at the St Louis Mills (outlet mall). When we all got back home we watched Talladega Nights (the third time for Bobby and me). On Friday, Bobby had to go to school for a little while, and my parents & I packed up some boxes in the basement – I think we have total of about 30 boxes packed now! Then we got cleaned up and drove towards the MO/IL state line and stopped at the Chain of Rocks Bridge. Here’s a short history of the bridge…


The Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River and was the most famous crossing of Route 66. It is a mile long and has a 22-degree bend in the middle. The name is derived from the “chain of rocks” in the river just below the bridge. It was built in 1929 as a toll-road and closed in 1967 because the NEW Chain of Rocks Bridge was built. The reason I became interested in it was because I read a book called “A Rip in Heaven” a couple weeks ago which tells the story of the murder of two girls on the bridge in 1991. It is now part of a state park and carries walking & biking trails (aka, it’s safe… supposedly…) When we arrived, the parking lot, which usually has an attendant, was locked, closed off by a chain. But we decided to park just off of the road and get out a walk over to the bridge to see it anyway. Well, just as we were getting out of our car, another car pulled up, then as we were getting further away, another car, then another car, to the point that it was getting really sketchy! So rather than be a victim of a car jacking (and yet, another chain of rocks bridge crime), we decided to skip the walking tour of the bridge and run back to the car and high-tail it out of there! Besides, it was really cold and windy. We do hope to make it back there another time before we leave the Lou.


After that excitement, we went to another St Louis landmark, Fast Eddies Bon Air in Alton, IL. We’ve been hearing about this place on the radio for nearly 4 years now and we finally made it. To be honest, it wasn’t at all what I expected, but it was still fun. The fascination stemmed from the fact that they haven’t raised the prices on food in 19 years, so I was excited to try the 99 cent ½ pound burger and 99 cent order of French fries, and Bobby was excited to get the 29 cent shrimp and $1.99 Big Elwood on a Stick. But when we got there, we found out it’s a bar, with a food line! It was kind of funny, we sat down and the only things the waitress could get us were drinks, and we tried to order food, the waitress said, “you have to go up and order at the food line and get it yourself.” We were a little concerned, but once we got the food, we were hooked - it was AWESOME! And our bill for 4 people with a ton of food was $12!!! You certainly can’t beat that!


After dinner we went and saw Wild Hogs, which was hilarious! My parents are casual bikers so I think they could easily relate with the guys in the movie, but even Bobby and I really enjoyed it.

Saturday we ate at St Louis Bread Co and attempted to go out shopping at Crate & Barrel, Target, and Trader Joes (we felt so urban) but it was miserably cold, snowy, and windy, so that was a short trip. We were happy to come home and enjoy the comforts of our space heater. Bobby and I were invited over to celebrate our neighbor Aiden Hathaway’s 3rd birthday. It was a really cute party and we've loved watching him grow over the last couple of years – I can’t believe he was only 5 months old when we met him! I feel like he has always been running around Atherton and charming us with his funny little quotes. (His family’s blog is listed in my links.)

After the party, the four of us had FONDUE! Most of you know that I love fondue (we have 6 fondue pots) and now, thanks to an anniversary gift from my parents, we now have a chocolate fountain too! We cooked venison steak and chicken in our wine sauce (yum), dipped bread & pretzels in the Melting Pot’s recipe for cheese sauce (very yum), and then dipped anything & everything we could find in the chocolate (super YUM)! Following dinner, we nearly all passed out in the living room because we were so pleasantly stuffed, but then decided to peel ourselves off of the couch & floor for a vicious game of Sorry! It was a great way to end a very fun weekend.

Long week

I have to work 6 days this week, it's going to be torture, plain and simple. Our department is on a 6 week rotation to work on Saturdays and this is my week. Now, it may not be too bad on a normal week, but lately work has been draining! I work 11:30-8 Tuesday thru Friday (9-5:30 on Mondays) and most nights I've been staying until nearly 9, if not later. The travel agency I work for is a "travel redemption agency." So you know when you see commercials for credit card companies that you can earn points towards travel if you use their card? Well, once the points are earned, the cardholders call me to redeem them for travel. Fun stuff, huh? It's actually a great way for us to earn business though, I mean, if they want to use their points, they HAVE to book their travel through us. Guess it is a pretty good idea... Well anyway, we also offer service to some companies that offer travel awards for their salespeople, and in one particular instance, an unnamed pharmaceutical company. Well, these overachievers have a bunch of points expiring at the end of the month and so you can imagine how extremely busy that makes us. But hey, I guess I shouldn't complain, those pill-pushers are paying my bills.

Am I a redneck?

Bobby asked me the other day, "Are you a redneck?" We both laughed and agreed that I probably wasn't, but it got me thinking. So let's review the facts: according to Wikipedia, rednecks are largely descendants of Scots-Irish, which I am, I listen to country music, I go to Boat Shows, I own a Bass Pro shops hat, I enjoy fishing every once in a while, I'll be spending my anniversary in a cabin on a lake in Kentucky or Tennessee, in the next couple of months I may be moving to either Arkansas or West Virginia (enough said), and I'm married to a guy who currently has a semi-mullet. Hey, maybe I just married a redneck! What do you think?

Only in America

As all of you know, yesterday was Super Sunday, which is a day of food, fun, and football in nearly every household in America, and you can bet that we wouldn’t let a day like that pass without a grand fanfare! Bobby got to make a variety of “dips” – red salsa, salsa verde, and guacamole – I heard they were good, I could smell them too, but that’s as close as I got. We made some other yummy snacks and of course, I made my semi-famous Super Bowl cookies. And this year I added a Super Bowl cake. The cake wasn’t my best work, but I really did put some thought into placing the spice drops. As you can see, I have the Colts on offense so that I could have Peyton Manning on my cake, and the Bears are on defense, in a 4-3 formation (or so I’m told) – I just made sure I had 11 for each team! We all really enjoyed the game, halftime, and commercials. We need to get better about taking pictures of the people at the party, but once again, we only took shots of the food. Congrats to the Colts, Tony Dungy, and MVP Peyton Manning!!!

(the palm trees are for Miami - where the Super Bowl was played last night - I guess I should have made rain drops instead)

Blessings in hard times

You know how people say that they never would have experienced or received the blessings they have if they hadn’t gone through trials and hard times? Sounds like a bunch of bunk, doesn’t it? Well, you heard it here… it’s true! Most of the readers of this blog know that just a little over a week ago, I had a miscarriage. I am happy to report that physically I am healing just fine and as far as we know, I have no reason not to believe that I won’t go on to have a perfect pregnancy in the future, which is wonderful. Emotionally, the healing is taking a bit longer and I expect to grieve over this for a long time, maybe even forever, even if just a little bit. What I’m trying to say is that I’ll never forget it, and I know that is normal.

But what I’d rather focus on in this blog post is the love of our friends & family we’ve received during this tragic event. We really debated whether or not to share the news about this, but in the end, we decided we wanted our good friends to know and we needed the prayer support. This is a corporate thank you to all of you who have been thinking about us and praying for us, your kind words in your emails, and for those special few who sent cards, flowers, and made meals for us. You are greatly appreciated!!

And even more important than our dear friends, is our loving and caring Heavenly Father. Through this He has been faithful to us, comforting us, healing us, providing us with hope and grace. I know that we as God’s children experience these things daily, but they seem to be much more evident in difficult times like these.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (look it up!)

Ringing in the New Year - in Oklahoma!

This past weekend we got to celebrate Christmas #2 with Bobby’s family in Oklahoma. We arrived late Friday night and came back to St Louis Monday afternoon, so it was another quick weekend getaway. The plane tickets may have been $314, but being with family on New Years was priceless. How about that for cheesiness!?! It is true though.

Saturday afternoon we got to eat lunch with Bobby’s aunt, uncle, & two cousins at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Ted’s. Ok, so normally I don’t really get that excited about Mexican food, but even I love that place – they completely lavish you with chips & cheese dip (and salsa, but who cares about that?!) and keep refilling them to your heart’s content. The service is great and the food is better. And to top it all off, we got sopapillas! Yum!! Saturday night we had a big turkey dinner and opened presents. Sunday morning was a wonderful church service at Heritage PCA, followed by family portraits at Walmart. The rest of the day was spent eating, visiting, playing games, and of course watching the ball drop in NYC at 11:00 pm central time – that anticlimactic event I’ve had to deal with for 4 years now.

Monday afternoon we were all dressed in our official Fiesta Bowl t-shirts

but Bobby and I had to fly back to St Louis to watch the game. And that is what we did – until after midnight! I still can’t believe OU lost, but wow, what a game!!