TGIF

ot much to talk about today. We installed a counter at the bottom of our blog and ate spaghetti for dinner. Matt was in first place in our NCAA tourney bracket, but judging from his results today, he's slipped. Gabriel spent a lot of time walking around, and Patty spent a lot of time replacing lost shoes and socks. We're in the middle of a movie and a game of Scrabble and haven't been able to finish either. Tomorrow is the Peachtree registration, so we're really excited about that.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patty's Day! We celebrated by going to Toast for some Irish whiskey after getting an attitude problem at Gordon Biersch when we told them that no, we didn't want a booth, we wanted to sit at the bar. They saw the stroller and couldn't put together a plan in their tiny empty peanut shells of brains that the stroller could sit in the corner and we could fit just fine at any of the tables in the bar area, which wasn't smoky, by the way. They seemed to think that they were crowded. There were about ten people in there; they should have welcomed the business. It was strange, because we've always had such great service there in the past. Anyway, we walked outside and saw our friend Tim Kreiner, on his way to the party across the street which definitely did not look kid-friendly. We went to Toast, where we felt very welcome. All of the people who worked there were very friendly and we had a great time with our whiskey and calamari. The breading on the calamari was amazing; it had caraway seed and was very light and non-greasy. Their bread was also very good; one kind had rosemary, our favorite herb.

Gabriel had his flu shot booster today and did great, despite a nurse who was not the best in the world. She took out the needle before dispensing the vaccine, so she had to stick him again. It definitely hurt, but he was okay, just a little groggy from the experience for a while. He weighs 17 pounds 15.8 ounces two days shy of his 8-month birthday.

The NCAA tournament started in earnest today (one game was played on Tuesday). So far, Matt is doing better in his predictions. We are both doing well in our group but not the best yet. There's still time.

The family for whom Patty tutors is the Doziers. Mom Lisa is starting a photography business and did a photo shoot here in December. Yesterday, she gave us a CD with all of the photos as well as two framed black and whites. Here are some of our favorites.

Playgroups

We had two playgroups today - one through Piedmont Hospital (Tender Spirits) that takes place at our church and one through the Virginia Highlands neighborhood association. This was our first time at Tender Spirits, and we've been going to the other one since it started in October. We had a good time at both. Gabriel hung out with Mommy at Tender Spirits but was more interested in the other kids at the Flemings' house, probably because they're all his age. In Vi-Hi, he ate his first non-organic food: Gerber sweet potato veggie puffs. He only ate one tiny little puff (about the size of a Cheerio), so it hardly counts.

We had a voice mail from Jack this morning. He said that he's fine and would maybe try to call later. He's going to be out on patrol for the next few days, so we guess he'll call after that. He sounded happy, healthy, and energetic. We're upset that we had the ringer off; we'll have to leave it on tonight just in case.

Speaking of people from other continents, Patty's in touch again with the British family with whom she stayed 15 years ago. It turns out that they had a place in Orlando for a while and have been closer than we thought many times. They sold the place after 9/11 but still have friends over here. We hope to see them again, no matter which side of the pond we're on.

We finished a movie the other night called "Yojimbo", which means "Bodyguard." We give it a 53 on our scale of 1 to 64. It is the movie from which "A Fistful of Dollars" was remade. It was an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's book Red Harvest and drew heavily on American westerns, so it was only fitting that it be remade as an American western. It was also an inspiration for George Lucas when he made Star Wars. It starred Toshiro Mifune, who was to Akira Kurosawa what Cary Grant and James Stewart were to Alfred Hitchcock. We love Kurosawa movies and have also seen Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Ran (which we own and is one of the most beautifully shot movies we've ever seen).

March Madness

Gabriel is getting more and more curious. While Patty was walking around the apartment doing something or other, she heard a noise that sounded like the cell phone vibrating. The phone was set to ring, so she went to investigate. She walked in on the scene above. Our little Curious George got bored with his toy keys, walked from the living room to the kitchen where he stopped to pull the towels off the stove handle, which you can see being dragged by his walker along with the keys, and play with a chain hanging off the refrigerator door. He then proceeded to the bathroom, where he learned how to open a drawer. Now, when his mommy was his age, her parents put a yardstick in the cabinet handles. We're not so sure that would work here. We're just going to have to step up the vigilance another notch.

Today was our second annual March Madness Starbucks party. This entails getting a drink at Starbucks and sitting down with articles about the NCAA basketball tournament regions and filling out our brackets. We both ended up with North Carolina winning. We have Oakland University making it to number 64 and Michigan State going out in the second round. Georgia Tech should put up a good fight but go out in the second round. We wouldn't mind being wrong on that one, though, since they are across the street and all. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, Michigan will not be included in the tournament this year.

While we were at Starbucks, Erica called. She said that she and Raul are doing well in Quebec and that she's getting more work as a tutor. Raul is working on his PhD and should be done in a couple of years. We've been thinking of them, since Raul's native Peru has been featured on "The Amazing Race" the past two weeks.

We bought our tickets to DC for April 13-19. We are going to try to get tickets to the first Washington Nationals home game ever for Patty's birthday. It's a birthday tradition for us every April. If we don't get tickets for that, we'll just go to the second game. Independence Air, with which we had a great experience the last time we went to Virginia, is having a sale right now. The tickets were $29 each way! It will be nice to see the family and explore DC a little more than we did last time.

AR7 Watch

Warning: spoilers ahead!

No, really - if you don't want to know what happened, look away right now!

This is your last warning...

Okay, so we were happy to see those two girls go. They will undoubtedly be much happier sitting somewhere adoring each other, without having to worry about pesky Roadblocks and Detours. We are really liking Rob and Amber more and more. They are playing the game well, and Rob is turning out to be really funny. How smart were they to convince other teams to give up the challenge? That was brilliant! Speaking of funny, the two brothers are great fun, and we hope that they stay in the game for a while, even though they're dumb as rocks and will probably be eliminated very soon. Has anyone else noticed that Ron really doesn't like Kelly very much? We like him, but she isn't a very good teammate and seems pretty annoying to boot. Argentina is one of the places on our "must visit" list, and today's show just reinforced its place there. What a beautiful country.

We came up with a few more rules today: when choosing between two tasks, never choose the one that involves searching for something or counting something, and always choose the one in which you have helpers, especially if they're professionals; also, Patty automatically does any task that involves eating.

Note: As of yesterday, our photos are now "clickable," so you can now click on them for a larger version.

Some Photos

Here are some great photos that Snapfish put online today from film.

Gabriel's first trip to the beach - Onslow Beach

Gabe-Luke and Uncle Jack bonding at Camp Lejeune

Laura at the lodge

Grandpa gives Gabe a bird's-eye view

Gabriel, Grammie, and Aunt Laura on Onslow Beach

A tree outside our apartment the day after an ice storm closed down Atlanta