Tales from the Crypt

The Phillips' family has enjoyed another splendid weekend filled with babies, men of steel, Jesse James, foodies, and a crypt. Intrigued? Read on, my friend..........

Thursday we joyfully welcomed precious baby Noah into the world. What a blessing this little boy is! We have been praying that he wouldn't arrive early and he was quite obedient and came at exactly the perfect time of 37 1/2 weeks gestation. This little boy has already brought such joy and happiness to his parents, grandparents, family, and friends in these first few days of life. Last summer we stood with these same parents as they walked through the valley of grief and it was something I hope no more of our friends ever have to experience. However, these friends have remained faithful children of God and haven't allowed such tragedy to make them bitter or resentful. Now they are holding precious baby Noah and basking in the glow of being a new parent. Congratulations B & C!

Sweet Baby Noah (whose own blog is coming soon!)

Proud Daddy

Isaac is thrilled about his new friend and future little brother in club!

Friday night I headed out with the girls for a time of fabulous food, conversation, and entertainment. We started the evening at La Madeline then headed over to catch "The Devil Wears Prada" at Grapevine Tinseltown (By the way, they have lowered prices to compete with new theaters in the area. You can catch a matinee for a mere $4 or a night show for only $6. Much better than the standard $8.50!). I loved this movie. Meryl Streep was excellent and the movie was not plagued by what I consider to be the "20 minute curse" (the 20 extra minutes thrown into the middle as an attempt to save a flimsy story line work). I would highly recommend this film. I even feel like you could take your teenage daughter to see it as well. There is very little cursing, a few indications of sex without any graphic details, and some lifestyle choices you would likely want to discuss after the movie. However, I think it is quite appropriate for viewing with your teen, especially considering the trailer we saw for the new upcoming teen flick appeared to only be about sex. I came home relaxed and rested from Girls Night, only to find a guest blogger had posted on this website. The amusing part of that whole post---the next day Tobe opened the Big Red he had used in the photo shoot with Isaac and it spewed everywhere because Isaac had shaken it so much while getting his picture taken.

Saturday we passed off the baby to the grandparents, packed the bags, and went on a mini-vacation. Our first stop was the local Tinseltown to see Superman at the early matinee. It was excellent as well! I really appreciated how they used the original opening sequence, the original music, and found an actor who greatly resembled Christopher Reeve (Sidenote: every morning Isaac and I cross over a bridge on our walk. For some reason, someone has spray painted "RIP Chris Reeve" I think Mr. Reeve was a nice man and did a great share of educating others about spinal cord injuries and promoting research, but I did not feel compelled to spray paint a tribute to him after his death. Obviously his death struck a cord with someone.). The only aspect of this movie that was less than stellar was the choice of Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. Her acting is quite flat to me and incredibly boring. Also she weighs about 95 pounds now and in this movie does some pretty amazing feats of great strength for such a bony person.

After the movie, we headed down to Granbury, Texas to enjoy a local bed and breakfast. We stayed at the Iron Horse Inn and were greeted by friendly inn keepers and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. We had booked the wine cellar room partly because it was secluded from the other rooms (we tend to be anti-social) and partly because it looked pretty cool on the website. The house was built in 1905, but the wine cellar was constructed in 1885. The original 20 room mansion burned and the current house was constructed shortly afterwards. However, the wine cellar survived the fire and has all the original stone walls, floor, and doorways. All of the furniture in the dining room, some of the living room furniture, and a chest of drawers in one of the other bedrooms were all original pieces from the 1885 house that servants were able to rescue before they were destroyed by fire. It was very interesting to sit at a table and eat a meal knowing that someone had sat there over 120 years ago doing the same thing. Obviously one has to go down a flight of stairs to get into the wine cellar suite. People were much shorter and had smaller feet in the 1800's because we had to duck down as we descended the staircase. The bathroom resides at the top of the staircase, which immediatly ruled out any nighttime potty breaks in fear of breaking my neck as I attempted to naviagate these steep and narrow stairs in the middle of the night. Despite the location of the bathroom, we highly recommend this bed and breakfast and especially the wine cellar suite.

The Iron Horse Inn

The entrance to the Wine Cellar Suite (looking from middle of world's most dangerous stairs)

Wine Cellar SuitePrivate sitting room of our suite

Yesterday we spent some time shopping around Granbury's historic town square and finished the day off with a late supper at a local pasta restaurant. The local cemetery is supposedly where Jesse James is buried but we never made it to that point to take a look for ourselves. We did have some drama when I was getting ready for bed and realized that the zipper to the skirt I was wearing had split open and I was unable to unzip it or remove the skirt. I tend to have a smidge of claustrophobia so the idea of being stuck in a skirt about sent me up the wall. Tobe tried patiently to get the zipper unstuck until I instructed him to just tear it apart, even if it ruined my frock. Sounds romantic, but it really wasn't because by that point I was almost hyperventalating. He ripped the zipper apart and it looks like our tailor will be able to mend the minor damage.

This morning we took our coffee on the massive front porch while we read our respective books and then made our way into the dining area for a gourmet breakfast. The innkeepers did a great job of starting the table conversation (the breakfast is served family style) and we were able to talk with some interesting people. Everyone had to go around the table and say the standards of name, residence, and profession. Another lady and I were both stay-at-home moms and no one addressed another question to us again after our introductions. Everyone else was quizzed about the intricate details of their jobs. This is incredibly frustrating to me. Part of me feels the need to say, "But I USED to do this..." to gain some respect back that appeared to be lost the minute "stay-at-home mom" came out of my mouth and then the defensive part of me wants to say, "I am raising a human being, which is much more worthy than your career of selling car parts to auto dealerships." I am finishing up the book "Mommy Wars" (I am not a slow reader---I have just been scattering my reading of this book among all my other reading) and will have a post soon about this whole stay-at-home delimina.

After breakfast, Tobe and I hit a few more stores that were closed the night before and then slowly made our way back to the metroplex. We stopped at my favorite place in the whole world--Central Market--to pick up some unnecessary food items (crayfish and andouille raviolli and foccacia bread, to name a few). We then went and retrieved our child, only to find that he decided to pull up to a standing position without us around. (He has only been able to get up on his knees so far). Isaac has showed very little interest in standing or bearing weight on his legs until recently so we are thrilled with this new development. However, I did tell him that he would be grounded if he accomplished another developmental milestone while Tobe and I are not present.

Tonight the three of us are back home and unpacked, ready to face a new week. Tobe has the next few days off of work so we get to have lots of family time. We knew Isaac was happy to be home again when he kept going to the closed bathroom door, attempting to get inside to take his bath. We finally put him in the tub early because he seemed like he really wanted in there.

Hope everyone had a great weekend as well!
Happy July 4th!