Black and White Wednesday: Couples Weekend in NYC

These two Texan love birds flew into town to celebrate

a long St. Patrick's Day weekend in New York City.



On Friday night, JR* and I met Marla and Derek smack dab in the middle of Times Square.

We took them for a whirlwind NYC tour though the City on our way downtown

for a wonderful evening of tapas, sangria and lots of laughter.

There were only two things missing that night...

and luckily they showed up on Saturday afternoon!

These two couples share a very special bond of friendship.

Not only do they have a slew of gorgeous kids between them;

one child in particular, Baby Reagan, prompted Marla to leave her 4 children (and her hunky husband)

for 2 whole weeks to travel across the world with Lisa to China to bring Lisa's daughter home!

JR and I have been fortunate to spent lots of time with Lisa, Pat and even with Marla
but this was the first time we met Derek in the flesh.

(and the first time Pat and Lisa met him too!)

Take if from me....the man did NOT disappoint!


Oh what fun we had together.

The weather was unseasonably gorgeous making it a great day to just walk around and explore.

Watching Perfect Pat, Dynamite Derek and my own Hot Colombian (HC as Marla has dubbed him) together had us scratching our heads wondering if perhaps they were long lost frat brothers.

(Cherries anyone?)

The playful, easy way they interacted seemed as if they'd known one another for years.
There's no question our "boys" could get in quite a bit of trouble together.

I hope they don't decide to do a guy's weekend 'cause I don't think we'll be able to afford the bail!


We ate and drank ourselves silly (not necessarily in that order)

and though there's no doubt we all adore our children;

I truly don't remember us speaking about the kids at all.

We had so much fun together as couples....just what the doctor ordered for all of us.

And, if you need proof of that...it is evidenced by the fact that even Lisa barely took out her camera (a real first!) and told us to put ours away!

(Yeah, lucky for YOU I didn't listen!)


Our sweet friends from Texas and Pennsylvania are back home but we will remember this weekend as the very special one it was....until the next time!



It's Black and White Wednesday!

To see more of our NYC weekend and some wonderful images from

so many fantastic photographers,

click on over to

The Long Road to China

*Special shout out to JR for being such a good sport and joining us both nights despite the issues he's had with his eye this past month. He told me he wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Everybody's Workin' For The Weekend.....

It was a long week despite the fact that Labor Day gave us the gift of a 4 day work week. It's always so hard coming off a great vacation and leaving all that precious relaxing (and food and drink) behind.

This week brought us back to school, back to work and back to normal everyday life (or at least what passes for "normal" around here). Judo resumed its old 3 day a week schedule, soccer practice/games are also 3 days a week, ballroom dancing lessons (which I lovingly refer to as "Dancing With The Stars" to inspire compliance from a certain macho 9 year old) are about to start along with CCD, monthly orthodontist appointments, daycare for the baby 3 days a week, and the onslaught of a slew of Fall party invitations and events that seem to line up like dominoes.

That's why the weekends mean so much to us. This weekend we'll have John's mom visiting overnight. The kids love having abuela over. It's a little difficult for me though because she doesn't speak a word of English and I don't speak a word of Spanish. We do get by with lots of charade-like antics to get our respective points across though. It's been working so far and, of course, I count the the extra activity as points for exercise.