Pittsburgh Fun Friend Trip

This summer, one of my dearest friends from childhood, Jennifer, and her husband Anthony packed up their belongings and moved from Memphis to Pittsburgh for an amazing job opportunity for Anthony.  While their friends and family were happy for their good fortune, we still miss them terribly! Jennifer is a native Memphian and I am just waiting for a serious cold snap to send her back here:)  In the meantime, I flew up to PA last weekend to catch up with my old friends.

First off, it was 40 degrees in Memphis when I flew out - how cold was it in Pittsburgh you ask?  A balmy 70 degrees.  So far, not looking good for my fair-weather friends to head back South.  But, I digress.  Anthony picked me up from the airport, and we hung out until Jennifer got home from work.  I have always enjoyed spending time with Anthony - I like to pick his brain over medical conditions and the research he is developing.  We both share a love of research (and Law & Order SVU), and I even attempted to get him to work with me on a Health Econ project, but I couldn't get my hands on the data before they moved.  Jenn came home from work and we headed to La Cappella in their Fox Chapel neighborhood (Anthony and I always vote for pizza when given a choice).  The pizza was awesome.  Hanging out with them on a Friday night was just like old times (sans JD).  After dinner, we headed back to their house so Jenn and I could catch up on our girl talk.

Here's the part that is always funny - we have very similar tastes in clothing and decor.  Even if we wouldn't pick it out for ourselves, we can usually figure out what the other would pick.  Jenn came downstairs wearing the same pajama pants I have, and then proceeded to help me pick out nursery bedding that looked just like something I would have picked out (of course).  We hit up the outlet mall the next day where we ended up picking up similar sweaters and purses.  Afterwards, we cruised through IKEA to pick up a bookcase for their guest room.  Jenn knows how much I like a good project, so I convinced her putting together this bookcase would be a snap.  It was, and it looks great!

That night, we ate at the Walnut Grill restaurant near their house.  The temperature had drastically dropped, and the rain from Hurricane Sandy began to move in.  I managed to stay warm with a little apple cobbler:)  On Sunday, I was ready to experience the touristy Pittsburgh.  Jenn took me to the Andy Warhol museum.  I've always enjoyed Warhol's style, and saw a traveling exhibit of his at MoMA a few years ago in NYC.  Warhol is a native of Pittsburgh and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, so I knew this museum in his hometown would not disappoint.

Jenn and I perused six floors of exhibits, then headed to the Strip District to check out the local wares of Pittsburgh's native retailers.  It's basically this one-half square mile area near downtown that features local vendors with amazing produce, beautiful flowers, any kind of meat you desire.  Retailers also line the Strip, selling Steelers paraphernalia and other higher-end handmade items.

Jenn assured me that no trip to Pittsburgh was complete without a trip to the Primanti Brothers for a true Pittsburgh sandwich.  Apparently, this local favorite features sourdough bread, coleslaw with vinegar and fries served on the sandwich with any kind of meat/cheese you select.  Here's my roast beef selection:

I can say the meal was fun, and tasted interesting.  Definitely worth the experience!  Sadly, my weekend was coming to an end, and Jenn dropped me at the airport.  Hurricane Sandy was moving in, and most of the flights after mine were cancelled.  Luckily, they let my flight through, and I headed to Atlanta...to wait for three hours before heading to Memphis. Sounds boring, right?  Not when your sister, her husband and your niece make the trek to entertain you!

While I wasn't able to treat them to a nicer meal for making the trip (Atlanta Bread anyone?), they were good sports about the cafeteria food and I enjoyed seeing them.  Emma decided to explore my suitcase during dinner, so she looked like a cross between her Aunt Katie and a disturbing bag lady:

I'm always thankful to have such wonderful siblings who love each other and genuinely enjoy spending time together.  I hope that, one day, JD and I will be able to have a large family with children who enjoy hanging out together like Megan, Kevin and I do.  Even though Kev is in Afghanistan, he sends witty emails and likes to participate in our group banter often.  Emma's fourth birthday party is in a few days, and I know we will all have a good time together!  In the meantime, here is some major cheesiness from me and Emma:

Thankful Thursday

Sometimes we get so caught up with accomplishing our to-do lists that I forget to stop and be thankful for the many blessings in my life.  With that in mind, I am going to start posting what I am thankful for on Thursdays (hopefully every week!).

What I am thankful for this week:

1. Preston Class

Our Sunday School class at church has many members that are our closest friends.  Last Thursday, we all had a wonderful time having dinner together at a Mexican restaurant.  They are even sweet enough to give us a baby shower in January.

2. Happy Fall Y'all!

I love fall decor, pumpkins and pansies, even more so when they adorn our front door:

3. Yard Work

I never imagined that I would like yard work - when we first moved into our house, I used to look out the window and just hope the weeds would stop growing so I wouldn't have to pull them out by hand.  Now that I have developed an interest in gardening, I love getting out in the yard and cleaning up flowerbeds, planting new flowers, instantly seeing the fruits of my labor.  Our neighbors in the cove are even sweet enough to compliment our yard efforts!

4. Time with JD

This has been a rare Fall week because JD has been in town everyday!  We've managed not only to eat out a few meals together, but cook at home as well.  Last night, JD made his awesome fajitas that are always a fun meal - too bad I can't have a margarita!

5. Sweet Baby Kicks

At 21 weeks, I'd always thought that the baby kicking was too "internal" for it to be felt externally - but the baby was doing his/her nightly kicking the other night and JD was able to feel it!  He got pretty excited.  I feel bad I wasn't more excited when I felt it for the first time!

Buenos Dias!

We just returned from the most relaxing 5-day Caribbean vacation.  That's right - nothing but sun, sand, water, siestas and five-star resort service have left us a little blue to be back home in Memphis.  We stayed at Secrets Maroma resort - outside of Cancun, near Playa del Carmen.  It's one of those all-inclusive resorts.  From the moment you arrive, you can leave your wallet in the suitcase. No tips, no cash needed - food, drinks, alcohol, room service, etc. are all included.  If you haven't tried a vacation like that, you should definitely look into it.

I am terrible about taking pictures.  Seriously, someone needs to come up with an alarm to make me take a picture.  On the last morning, JD took photos around the resort, so this post will have a mix of his photos and photos I ripped from the resort's website.

In addition to the all-inclusive amenities, I selected this locale because it was an adults-only resort.  Why?  Even though we will have a little one of our own in a mere 20 weeks, I don't want to spend my last vacation alone with JD listening to someone else's kids whine at the pool.  I'm sure that will be our kid one day, but not today.

The pool was huge and meandered throughout the property, with a swim-up bar and personal waiters while you lounged:

Same story at the beach - there was a bar with swings for seats and waiters bringing food to your beach umbrella:

The rooms were very comfortable with well-appointed bathrooms and balconies.

We came back to the room one day to find that the concierge had decorated our room with "Happy Birthday" balloons and banner for me:

There were maybe seven restaurants on the property, each with a different cuisine.  They were all delicious:

Another couple took this photo of us at an awkward angle:

 You know you picked a good resort when the staff wakes up before dawn to pick the seaweed off the beaches:

This was the site of the Graffam World Championship of Ping-Pong.  You might not have caught all the action on ESPN in the States, but JD and I played about 15 games of ping-pong trying to determine the winner until he won out by exhausting me.  The table actually sat in water:

Each evening there was some sort of entertainment - either a movie or a show.  Our last night we got to see a really cool breakdance group and witness the world champion of beat-boxing in action.  It was a memorable experience!

Lots of wildlife too:

And creepy photo shoots in the morning:

We did try to book a snorkeling excursion, but a storm right before we arrived damaged the reef, making visibility too low for snorkeling.  They offered scuba diving, but that's another no-no for pregnant women (in addition to hot tubs and drinking - which were in abundance).

Overall, it was a relaxing and fun trip.  We bought a few silly Mexican souvenirs, tried new foods and managed to come home without any stomach bugs or sunburns.

Silly Economist Moments

When you spend every waking moment with your nose in an Econ book or processing data for regression equations, you tend to forget that the rest of America doesn't think like you.  For example, I was walking out of church the other day and spied this bumper sticker on a fellow parishioner's car:

My first thought - I'm not kidding - was that R-squared is a measure for goodness of fit in a regression equation.  And then I wondered, what could be going on with R-squared in 2012, is a new measure coming out?  This is really going to be something to talk about in my Econometrics class.  Oh wait, never mind, that's a campaign sticker...

It Just Got Interesting

In case you missed the social media posting, JD and I are having a baby in early March.  These past  13 weeks have been exciting and overwhelming, with every emotion in between.  We have prayed for a long time to be blessed with children, and it is still hard to believe the time has arrived.  As far as the first trimester went, I count myself fairly lucky in the symptom department.  Besides a little fatigue and food aversions, I never experienced morning sickness or weight gain.  In fact, all this baby wanted to eat was salad and fruit for a very long time, so I am ten pounds lighter thanks to this picky eater.

In the meantime, I am trying not to stress too much about the due date.  Isn't it every PhD student's dream to have a baby in the middle of the semester?  Ideally, I would be able to find a nanny to take care of the baby at our home for the last few weeks of the Spring semester, and then I will have the summer to be home with the baby.  Once the Fall semester hits, we would put the baby in day care.  I have a few leads on nanny possibilities, but it seems like such a big decision.  I don't even know how to take care of a baby myself, how am I supposed to hire someone to do the same?

By the end of the second trimester, I would like to have the nanny selected, nursery decor ordered (at least part of it - we are waiting on the gender!), baby registries completed and a few projects around the house completed or almost completed.  I tend to procrastinate, so I need to stay on top of this list while attending school, working a graduate assistantship and cultivating my research topics.  Here's to checking items off my ever-growing list in the next few months!

Temporary Goodbyes

Our family gathered in Nashville this past weekend to say a temporary goodbye to my brother, 1st Lt. Kevin Abel, as heads off to Afghanistan for nine months.  Thinking about all he is going to miss out with our family can be a sobering thought, but I know that what he is doing for the Army and our country outweighs family holidays and milestones.

This is Kevin's second deployment.  His first deployment was days after my wedding, where he was on his way to Iraq.  As happy as weddings can be, knowing I wouldn't see my brother again for well over a year made for a few tears at the reception (and again when he dropped us off at the airport for our honeymoon).  I'm not going to sugarcoat it - deployments don't get any easier over the years.  I don't know how these soldiers with spouses and children handle their sadness.  Kevin is my big brother, whom I only see sporadically due to geographic constraints; after three days, I am already feeling his absence.

Once May rolls around, we will all be ecstatic to drive to Fort Campbell to welcome him back.  In the meantime, please keep him and his unit in your prayers, that they are able to achieve their objective safely and quickly.

Here are a few pics from our family fun weekend:

 Megan, her daughter Emma and me

The Abel clan: front (l-r) Clint, Emma, Mom and JD.  Back (l-r) Megan, Kevin and Katie

Camp Katie!

It's mid-July and I'm still scratching my head, trying to figure out what happened to June.  I suppose that's the problem with having your summers off - a lack of required activities makes this blissful vacation fly by!  Two fun things that I did was visit my brother for a weekend in Nashville, and hang out with my niece for a few days.  Kevin and I wanted to spend a little sibling time together before he deploys to Afghanistan in a few weeks, so I packed up Buddy and we headed to Nashville to hang out.

Kevin and Buddy napping, equitably sharing the couch:

The other fun event was "Camp Katie."  I convinced my sister and her husband to take a mini-vacation and leave their three-year old daughter, Emma, with her favorite aunt.  Megan dubbed it "Camp Katie," and I know Miss Emma had a blast.

Day 1:  I met up with everyone in Nashville.  The girls spent the afternoon shopping while Clint finished up his work, and then Emma and I hopped in the car to head back to Memphis.  She convinced me that she needed an 8-pack of Oreos for the ride home, and then settled down for a long three hour nap.  We took a dip in the pool after dinner, and she slept all night.

Day 2: There's a great splash park in Collierville that neither of us had been to - Emma spent an hour or so running around getting sprayed and screaming, "Aunt Katie, watch me!"

A little blurry, but does it not look like she is having a blast??

We headed over to Target afterwards to buy Dora dishes after she declared that she didn't like my dishes.  She went down for her nap.  That evening, our friend Holly came over with her daughter Lila for dinner.  Lila and Emma hit it off right away and those little girls ran around the house with their purses and animal chairs pretending to run errands.

Emma is ready to meet her new friend, Lila:

Day 3: I had the stupendous idea to have a picnic in the park.  During a heat wave.  After packing the cooler, we arrived at the park to find all the slide and swings ON FIRE from the sun.  A quick assessment of the situation showed that Chuck E. Cheese's was a MUCH better choice.  My mom joined us for a pizza lunch and games.  I made dinner, which Emma declared "gross," then we swam in the pool before bed.

Riding in the princess carriage:

Going on a "roller coaster" with her Mimi:

Slide city, to be repeated a thousand times:

Day 4: Emma rode her bike on the Germantown Greenway with JD and I jogging behind her.  That quickly wore out because it was too hot for her to wear her helmet, so poor JD had to carry her bike while we walked back to the car.  Emma and JD headed to an afternoon matinee of Brave, which gave me a much-needed break.  We met up with our friends Mary and Randy for a hibachi dinner (Emma calls it the "fire place"), and Emma spent the night hamming it up with them, doing Mary's hair and having Randy pull quarters out of her ears.

Proof that nutritious breakfasts are served at Camp Katie:

Day 5: Emma was so excited to wear her "Easter dress" to church and play in the nursery while we went to church and Sunday school.  Emma joined our gang for lunch at Chili's where she charmed the whole table.  She screamed "Uncle Deeedle" so many times to get JD's attention that the whole table started calling him Uncle Deedle.  Her parents drove in and woke her up from her nap, she was so shocked!  I don't think she knew what to make of it all.  She was certainly my precious side kick, and we enjoyed our time together.  Hopefully we can do this again next summer!

Emma insisting on sitting in the middle of the table:

This was a few days later after her parents arrived - Emma thought she would drive the boat down to the dock for us: