Weekend in Chicago

We had a great time in Chicago this weekend. The whole family was able to make it up to celebrate all the May birthdays and Mother's day together. We didn't have a big agenda planned but had a great time! Lots of walking and shopping, a trip to Navy Pier, drinks at the Signature Room at the Hancock, dinner and a show with Tony and Tina's wedding, and catching up with some of my old friends up in Wrigleyville. It felt good to be back in the city again! Here are some pics that highlight the weekend:

Mom and Dad on Mother's Day:
Mom with all her children...and grandchild on Mother's Day:

At Tony and Tina's wedding:

Fun with the "Bean":

Ella trying on some Christian Diors at Nordstrom Rack. That girl loves her shoes!

Meeting up with the girls in my old neighborhood:

Shelley's Visit

We had a fun weekend with Shelley in town! Unfortunately it rained the ENTIRE weekend, but we made the best of our time. Some highlights of the weekend:

* Exploring the Opryland hotel with Shelley, complete with a boat ride around the atrium.

* Shelley got to experience life in the inferno first hand. It was too cold for carpenter bees to be out, but she did get to see how we deal with flooding when it rains hard, as it did every day she was here. Fortunately we were able to show her where we are moving, so she will still want to come back and visit!

* An evening at the Grand Ole Opry. We had a blast! The show itself is definitely geared more towards the older crowd, but we enjoyed ourselves. The GOO is an event that everyone should experience, at least once.

* Spending Saturday morning exploring Andrew Jackson's plantation. It was like stepping back in time, complete with characters dressed in period costumes.

* Boot shopping! Will, Shelley, and I took advantage of a "Buy One, Get 2 pairs Free" deal. We all got new boots to wear honky tonking on Saturday night.

* Honky tonking at the bars along Broadway. It was my first official time going out to the honky tonks, and Shelley had never been either. We had such a blast, despite the rain. It is so fun to be able to bar hop and see live music at every bar. Shelley and I also had to take a shot every time we saw a Canadian tuxedo (denim jean jacket worn with denim jeans). The night started strong- 3 shots at the first 3 bars, but luckily we didn't see any more at any of the bars that followed.

* This pic of Shelley was taken at Trailer Park Resort. This bar is a riot! There are old parked cars in there that people literally stand and dance on. The floor is made of astroturf, and they use outdoor plastic patio furniture instead of regular tables and chairs. It's a real classy joint.

* Coming home from the bars to a power outage in the apartment, and proceding to try to eat the contents of our fridge in the dark, so the food didn't go bad. This was hilarious to us for some reason. We found out the next morning that the power outage was due to a car accident, not the weather.

All in all, a great weekend. It was so fun to take Shelley around and show her our new town. After spending Saturday night downtown, we are even more excited to be moving closer to the action. Just a couple more weeks!

First Communion and Ronald McDonald

We spent Saturday up in Bowling Green, KY with Will's family. His nephew, Luke celebrated his first communion. Luke looked so adorable in his little suit, and you could tell he enjoyed dressing up like the older guys. Unfortunately his dad, Pete, was unable to join in the festivities. He caught a stomach bug and was quarantined to the bedroom for the whole day. During mass the entire family was able to join Luke when he received communion for the first time. I had never seen it done that way before, and thought it was neat that the family was included in the celebration. Luke looked so nervous right before he went up- I wonder if I was as nervous the first time I had communion?

We had a little party at Sue's house following mass, feasting on the guest of honor's choice for dinner- Chick Fil A. :) And, as evident by his smiling face, Luke seemed to enjoy adding all the money he received to his own bank.

On Sunday Will and I attended a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. It was a nice networking opportunity for Will, and an excuse to wear a dress 2 days in a row for me! Will bid on and won 2 luxury suite tickets to a Cardinal's game in September- happy birthday to me! I can't wait to go back to St. Louis, and I'm especially excited to check out this suite- apparently it is directly behind home plate. If only there was a show at The Fox that weekend. I so miss working there and was really hoping I could take Will to see a show. As it stands right now, we might just have to settle for the Saturday morning tour with all the retired folks.

This week we are both recovering from not feeling well yesterday, and looking forward to our visit with Shelley this weekend. We have our walk through of the loft tomorrow to fill out our "punch list". Hopefully we don't find any major problems that will prolong our move-in date. We are also getting estimates from some painters. We are REALLY hoping that they aren't too expensive to hire. With 18 foot ceilings, we would much rather leave the painting to the professionals. However, we aren't afraid to tackle the project ourselves if the price isn't right! May 14th is just around the corner- I'm looking more forward to that date than I am my birthday!

Updates...

Here's an update on some things that have been happening lately:

• Ale had a beautiful baby girl on April 1st. I've chatted with both her and Francisco a couple times online since Isadora was born and she has been sending us pictures of Isa. So far, everything is going well with both Mama and baby girl. Isa is about the cutest stinkin' thing I've ever seen! I can't wait to meet her when they are in the states for Andy's wedding.
• A good friend of ours from Chicago, Shelley, is coming down to visit us next weekend. We are pumped to have her come down. She will be the first of our friends to stay with us since we've lived in Nashville. We have a busy weekend planned, from visits to the Grand Ole Opry to hitting up the honky tonks downtown. I'm really looking forward to doing "touristy" stuff around town. And I can't wait to have a girlfriend come visit!
• I am meeting the family up in Chicago over Mother's day weekend to celebrate Andy's 30th birthday, my, Molly, and Shaughn's May birthdays, and of course, Mother's day. It will be the first time since Christmas since we've been together, and an added bonus that I get to head back to Chi-town for the weekend. I can't wait!
• Will and I went on a home tour around downtown Nashville on Sunday. The idea of the tour was to promote "urban" living. There were about 10 buildings on the tour, and most of them were right downtown. Some of the buildings were brand new highrises that have started defining the Nashville skyline, but there were several older buildings that have recently been renovated into lofts. We were especially excited to see this building...
  

...because it is soon to be our new home! Yes, the big news on this blog...the home search is finally over! It was quite the whirlwind weekend for us. To catch everyone up on the happenings: we have had a lot of disappointment on the home search lately, especially after our offer on the townhouse we liked fell through. It's very disheartening to get excited about living somewhere and then lose it.

For the past month our typical day has gone something like this: work, eat dinner, look online for a place to live, and repeat. On Friday night we were keeping with the trend, when we came across a new listing for a loft unit right downtown and within our price range! We knew better than to get our hopes up, but we did get in contact with our realtor right away. The unit was scheduled to be on the home tour, but we didn't want to wait until then to see it. LOTS of people were going to see it then and we wanted to be ahead of the game.

So we saw the unit on Saturday morning, put an offer in on Saturday evening, and it was accepted on Sunday morning! YIPPEEE!!! We're under contract! What a relief! We were in a competition with someone else who put in offer in on Saturday as well, and we won (barely)!

The building is called "Art Avenue Lofts" and it is truly right downtown, in the heart of everything. The building itself is part of the "art district" that's becoming popular in Nashville- the first floor of our building is an art gallery, and they decorate the main entrance to our place, so the artwork will always be changing. We are so excited to be living downtown! And I am especially looking forward to being in a walkable neighborhood again. I've decided that I'm just a city girl at heart- I'm happiest when I can walk to where I need to be. This place meets all of our major criteria: great location, unique floorplan, stainless appliances, and lots of potential.

Since our unit was already scheduled to be on the downtown tour it was too late to take it off, but I must admit, it was a fantastic feeling to walk into the building and hear the people who direct you on where to go announce that the unit on the 4th floor was just sold. Seriously, like poetry. We "toured" our new home and really enjoyed listening to the other tour-goers giving their approval (without knowing that we were the future homeowners!).

So, that is the exciting news! So long as everything goes smoothly with the final negotiations, we are set to close on May 14th! I know this blog is long, but really we can hardly contain our excitement, so if you're still reading, thanks for sticking it out! I don't want to post any interior photos until the walls are painted and we are more or less settled in. So, stay tuned! More pictures to come!

We are looking forward to starting a new phase, and are especially excited to host visitors as soon as we're settled in! We have lots of room, so all are invited! :)

Easter 2009

Here are some pictures from our Easter celebration yesterday at Will's dad's house. The kids helped decorate a bunny carrot cake I made- it was quite an interpretive cake (lots of sprinkles and interesting placement of the eyes, nose, and whiskers), but it still tasted good!

When you run the local McDonalds, you become something of a local celebrity. Some celebrity perks include throwing out the first pitch of the season for the Madison Little League. The Madison baseball complex was really nice, and run by volunteers. It was a fun way to spend a beautiful Saturday morning. You could tell that the kids were excited to get their season going. Check out Will's form!

We had a relatively laid back weekend. Aside from his first pitch duties Will had the weekend off, which was a nice switch. He and Cari spent Saturday morning out in the yard, clearing out bushes and old railroad ties while I gave the apartment a thorough spring cleaning. We spent the rest of the weekend out at Will's dad's house, visiting with his aunts and uncles who are in town from Michigan.

We are still searching for the perfect condo. We put an offer in on a place last week, but just learned today that the seller has decided to take it off the market. So, it's back to square one...again. House hunting is exhausting. I suppose now instead of looking for furniture deals to fill our new townhouse, it's back to looking online every night for new listings. Sigh. I'll be happy when the search is finally over.

Voy a ser una tia!

Translation- I'm going to be an aunt!

Ale just called me about an hour ago- she is having Isadora tonight! They went to the doctor for a check-up this morning and he decided that today is the day, even though she's not technically due until April 9th. Isa doesn't have enough room to turn because Ale is so small, so she is having a c-section this evening.

From talking to her, it doesn't sound like it has quite sunk in yet that she is going to have a baby tonight...but then again, does it ever feel real until you actually hold your child for the first time? Obviously I don't know from experience, just guessing.

Ale's mom and sister, and Francisco's parents aren't going to make it to Puerto Montt in time for the birth tonight, but they should be around tomorrow. I hope that abuelos and tias present = fotos para nosotros!

Keep Ale, Francisco, and baby Isadora in your prayers tonight!

And congrats to my Chilean familia! I love you guys! No puedo esperar cumplir a Isadora en octobre!