Visiting Aunt Whitley ("Wiwi")

August has been a +/- month for me in terms of my work schedule. I'm either in the ER all the time or not at all for a few days. It's one of the few months I get a chance to go out of town and I finally grasped the opportunity to visit my former roomie Whitley in Lexington before she leaves the South again.

Aunt "Wiwi" is one of Lucas' absolute favorites and spoils him like no other so of course we had a great time. I'm not sure Lucas wanted to come home with me, but luckily I'm still stronger (for now).

Whitley is known for her baking skills and is always keeping everyone well fed so of course a warm batch of chocolate chip cookies was waiting on us when we got there. Mmm. Not to mention that Whitley baked more cookies for us on day #2 while Lucas and I were both napping. I think I'm going to trade in my curent roommate for my old roommate... no offense Matty, you just need to work on your baking skills.

Cookies, new toys, and Muppets on TV (life does not get much better for a 1.5 year old)

Whitley's muppet collection. Missing is Lucas new favorite Beaker (known as "Mee-mee")...he was napping. Lucas loved these!

Pool Time!

Rocking the sun glasses ... child you look like a goober.

Post swim

Trip to Keeneland

Lucas now thinks tractors race here

Lucca w/ Mommy

Gambling starts young

Loving the Playground

Yes, he attempted to climb that. Glad I was there to catch him.

Bath ...

...and Story before Bed

Exhausted on our way home

Animal Sounds

July Fun

Some pics from last month to catch everyone up on life in Nashvegas.

Summer sprinkler fun:

Our big puzzler:

Roadblock!

At Centennial park's free summer concert with our friends' son Ben:

Morning at Cheekwood

On our last day off we visited Cheekwood, Nashville's Botanical Garden, for the first time. It was a very hot day but the gardens were beautiful. Currently there's a special Chihuly exihibit at the gardens which gives it a nice extra touch. Dale Chihuly (for those of you unfamiliar with him) is a famous glass sculptor from Seattle. Matt and I are still trying to get the chance to check out the lit up exhibit at night. It's supposed to be beautiful.

One of the glass sculptures in the lake

Checking out the pond

Family photo op for the Osgoods. How cute are the twins?

No, let's not jump in...

Since we can't cool off in the lake...

Christy with Anna and Lucas

More Chihuly art

Water Play

Splashing Fun

Racoon Baby

Summer Weddings

The summer of 2010 has been a wedding filled season. We were not able to make many of the weddings due to our continued tough work schedule but I do want to congratulate our friends Anna & John and Teddy & Dorothy whose weddings we had to miss. I also hated to miss my cousin Hannah and her now husband Stefan's wedding on June 26th. I really wanted to be there since we have always been close and essentially grew-up together but between the 20 hour flight and the work schedule in the PICU it wasn't able to happen. Congratulations also to them and stay tuned for pics from her wedding at the end (I'm living vicariously through pictures).

Luckily and with much advanced planning we were able to fly out to Los Angeles to celebrate our friends' India and Britt's wedding day! I love that our college group has made it a priority to stay in touch and to be there for all of each others' important events. I could not miss the opportunity to cry at first seeing the beautiful bride and dancing at her wedding. The bride was gorgeous as expected, the groom handsome, the food and company excellent, and we had a great time. We also got visit Dean Joel's and Professor Morgan's brand new beautiful downtown L.A. apartment and got the royal Beverly Hills tour prior to the wedding. Thanks for the hospitality and congrats to the newlyweds!!

The church service which included the bride walking in to "Sweet Child o' Mine," a reading from part of a court case, and a dad who almost refused to give his daughter away (who can blame him :). Loved the personal touch.

Ducks on the wedding cake -- what a wonderful India touch!

Hanging out with some of the college crew

Being silly with the bride

The Vandy crew

The Whitley, Emma, me, and Erica

Fun on the dance floor

And a few pictures from another wedding I wish I'd been at. At least my mom and sister represented the Weikard family.

Herzliche Glueckwuensche zur Hochzeit Hannah & Stefan!! Wir waren so gerne dabei gewesen. Ich hoffe es macht euch nichts aus dass ich ein paar von den Bilder die Eva mir geschickt hat hier Teile. Was fuer eine wunderhuebsche Braut du bist Hannah! Wir wuenschen euch alles, alles Gute!

The bride & groom

The flower girls (and my sweet cousins)

It's useful to have your own personal family band.

A German tradition

My cousins (and my sister) ... wish I had been there!

Moving on Up

Today was Lucas' last day with Miss Angie and Miss Debbie. Tomorrow is his first full day in the Toddler classroom! He practiced today... he spent most of the day there with his new teachers, slept on a cot, ate at a little table with chairs with all his friends, and most importantly was not allowed to have his pacifier for nap time. They do have a fish tank in his new classroom which he supposedly loves. His new teacher says he did great even though he missed the first three "practice" days this week. Our little boy's growing up!