Catching Up

How is it possible that it is already July?! I honestly don't know where the past month went. Well, I do - celebrating, traveling for work, and so on, but, seriously it went by so very quickly. The weekend before this past, was so much fun! Thursday night, the Norfolk food trucks kicked off their new business with a little celebration on MacArthur Square. Of course we had to go check this out, and neither the tacos nor the (overpriced) cupcakes disappointed! Also, we were fortunate to have my parents in town to celebrate my Mom's 50th birthday! They got in late Friday evening, which means we sat around catching up until everyone was ready for bed. Saturday, my Mom's actual birthday, we got up, headed over to the Bayou Bugaloo (yet another of the Norfolk festivals!), enjoyed some cajun food (including our messy attempt at crawfish - still not sure they are worth the effort), drank some strong Hurricanes and some dark, dark beer, took a boat ride around the harbor, and then headed home once our feet were tired and we were starting to get a little rained on. We then ventured out for a sushi/hibachi dinner downtown, and then came back home for more drinks and pie! How awesome of a day was that! I will share the recipe for the "Lime in the Coconut" pie I made my Mom (she requested a coconut pie rather than a cake for her birthday, but my Dad doesn't like coconut, and both of them love key lime, so this was a win-win!), but for now, here are some pictures.

Our yummy food truck tacos!

Do you see this excitement?!

Mmm...pb and red velvet cupcakes

The chocolate was a bit too rich for me, but hubs enjoyed it!

Lucy is ready for a visit from the grandparents!

Lime in the Coconut Pie! Recipe forthcoming

A little weirded out by its eyes.

This crawfish was as big as my Dad's hand!

Birthday girl in her birthday beads! And, we bought those - promise!

Mom & Daddy!

Hot, sweaty, but loving the festival life

Mom and Hubs on the boat tour

See those clouds rolling in? Yeah they opened up on us right after the cruise.

Daddy trying his first sushi

Isn't my Mom adorns?!

After the weekend of wonderfulness, I took a Sunday night flight to Dallas/Fort Worth, where my co-workers and I spent a busy, busy week in training, meetings, a conference, and so on. It was a good week, but it was exhausting! Especially when there are customers involved (which certainly was the case this week), our days usually start around 5am (if you have any hopes of getting a workout in), and don't end until about midnight. There is an ungodly amount of food and alcoholic beverages, and not enough sleep for the likes of this lady. Fortunately, I have some really awesome co-workers, so shout out to you guys for keeping me sane, and letting me pawn drinks off on you when I was too done to keep up, and the customer kept buying them for me :). Also, major shout out to the husband for not only holding down the fort, taking care of the Lucy-pup (who promptly decided upon my departure that she should definitely eat two chocolate protein bars out of Daddy's briefcase - she's fine, no worries - I am pretty sure they were imitation chocolate at best), and working his crazy schedule, but for also being kind and patient with me during my 972 rounds of "I just want to come home now!".

My one and only picture of the week -
a valet claim ticket because we lost our physical copy

Luckily, albeit not without delays and complications, I made it home late Friday night to a pup who was happy to see me, and a husband who bought me beautiful flowers, and was equally happy to see me when he got home from work Saturday morning!

Beautiful flowers!

I had grand plans of doing absolutely nothing on Saturday, to which I succeeded tremendously: Lucy and I laid around Saturday morning while the hubs slept - we watched some TV, movies, snuggled on the couch, took a walk, and otherwise did nothing. Glorious. After the hubs woke up, we snuggled and caught up on our previous week in more depth, which was even more glorious. I finally got out of my PJs around 5pm in order to shower and go pick up Thai food for an impromptu date night picnic in the park with Harris on his dinner break. Afterwards, Lucy and I were in bed before 8pm and asleep around 9. My body is thanking me! Sunday I did my "Saturday things" - groceries, some cleaning, and the like. Harris and I took in an afternoon showing of World War Z before he had to go into work. My thoughts on it? Meh. It wasn't a super scary zombie flick (thank heavens! I am such a scaredy cat), and as I told Harris, I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think it was good either. My vote is to wait until you can watch it at home. Save yourself a buck or two.

After all that, I am certainly glad that this week contains a holiday, and that, because of aforementioned holiday which then causes many folks to take vacation, it should (hopefully!) be a pretty tame week all in all!

All Quiet on the Ligon Front

Y'all. Last week was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. So please forgive us for the lack of post. We rounded out the birthday celebrations last Monday with a birthday dinner with some friends at 80/20 burger bar, which was, in short, pretty amazing. The place uses only local, grass-fed beef, and has some unique takes on classic and original burger creations. All in all, I would deem Harris' birthdaykkah a success! I hope hubby agrees (I think he does!).

Tuesday morning, I had a 7am flight to Dallas, afternoon meetings in Dallas, and then a 7pm flight to Newark. This is the life of a jetsetta (please to rap in the voice of Young Jeezy). I ended up leaving my Kindle on my flight from DFW to EWR, and I have to give a shout out to American Airlines for helping me get it back the next day (via Twitter)! I was in New Jersey Wednesday and Thursday, and then finally came home Thursday evening to a Tropical Storm Warning! Harris worked all last week (and was on full-time Lucy duty!), so when we had the whole weekend off this past weekend, we definitely took advantage of it!

This past weekend was the Norfolk 37th Annual Harborfest. I don't know about you, but I love a good festival - I think summer was made for festivals! Luckily for us, Norfolk is pretty much the mecca for festivals. There always seems to be some sort of festival going on. Harborfest was really pretty cool - there were a lot of booths set up, tours of tall ships (one of which looked exactly like a real pirate ship, in my opinion), yummy food booths, great music, and, most importantly, sunshine! Saturday was a little weird, just because the weather could not figure out what it wanted to do post-"tropical storm" (weakest tropical storm, of my life!). We hunkered down indoors for the first half of the day, and then, finally, finally, finally, the sun appeared from behind the clouds, and stayed out, so we ventured over and got the lay of the land. and drank fresh squeezed lemonade, of course. There was a cornhole tournament, Virginia wine, and popcorn, and peanuts. A James Bond-esque jet pack party in the water. Music, music, and more music. Everything a festival should be, and more! After getting our feet wet on Saturday, yesterday was just glorious! We headed over early, got a couple gyros (mmm Greek food!), and found just a perfect spot of grass for catching a ZZ Ward performance. We basked in the sunshine (I have the cool tan lines to prove it), and really enjoyed our day. All in all, a wonderful weekend! And now, a few pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Pirate Ship!

Is Captain Jack on board?!

Looking down

A ferris wheel!

ZZ Ward on the MainStage

Also, I know I mentioned that Harris would get his main birthday present sometime next month, but we just couldn't wait, so, ta-da:

We are so excited! We are previous Macbook users (like 1st gen). Mine was stolen when I lived in Dallas, and Harris' is just so, so old, so it was definitely time for an upgrade! Plus with the hubby becoming my cute little grad student next month, we knew we definitely needed something that could get him through the long arduous hours of paper writing that are sure to come! Hubs, I am so, so proud of you, but I do not envy you one little bit! Hopefully you will find this present to be handy as you start your new classes!