Last Thursday while in Atlanta we attended a wonderful concert at Chastain Park. My good friend John had given Erik and I tickets for our Birthdays (because he is a super sweet and generous friend!) WE celebrated Eriks Birthday, Johns Birthday and Dodi's birthday with a fabulous picnic put on by me! ha with Bev's chicken salad, a fruit and cheese tray and pistachio nuts.
BeBe King was great as always and Al Green who is one of my all time favorites was amazing and funny and a great performer. Perhaps I will post a video clip....
Here is a pic of our spread!

While in ATL Erik & I finally visited the Georgia Aquarium and that place is totally amazing! VERY CROWDED (which makes it hard to see displays or walk) but very beautiful and cool. They also have a download-able narration for your Ipod, but we didnt know about this ahead of time. DANG! I recommend not getting there before your "entrance time" and I also highly recommend the 4D theatre experience. We had bubbles fall on us and jellyfish tentacles tickle our face etc.. while watching the film in 3d. How cool are we wearing 3D shades over our real glasses! HA

Uncle Lulu had a birthday Wednesday! Happy Birthday Lu! He got lots of licks from his doggle niece & nephew and some Mexican Soccer Shoes from Erik & I. We had a great dinner with Lu, his brother Steve and Steve's girlfriend Beth.

One of my best friends from College, Emily Jones Kinley is 7 months pregnant with a mystery child (they are not finding out if its a boy or a girl). She is our first friend to have a baby and its been very interesting! I imagine she is the envy of all pregnant women in ATL b/c she has managed to only gain the weight in her stomach.
Because of our schedules and the distance this weekend is the 1st time I have seen her since she got pregnant.

There has been alot of speculation lately about why my dog children have such fiesty attitudes... and why they bark and carry on when Erik is around.. and time and time again I try to tell him that was self induced b/c he just annoys them to death tossing them in the air, pulling their fur.. you name it..
As luck would have it I ran across this video last night when I was working on my auctions.. it explains alot!!
WATCH IT

Hooray Hooray Hooray! I have been saving coins in a jar to buy a new Fall Handbag with and thanks to a recent trip to Monroeville (where I robbed my dad of all his pocket change scattered through out the house..sorry dad (didnt get yours mom )! ) I have reached my goal.. kind of. I also got quite a collection from my brother, who has taken over my bedroom and completely wrecked it! (Consider this your rent money bro) & then a small donation from my snuggle husband. ha I had enough money to but this beautiful Black Leather CLassic Tote by Juicy Couture. Nordstrom is having their anniversary sale right now and had it marked down considerably. It FINALLY arrived today and I am SUPER excited!! Love it!!

Today, was a very interesting day in Dogland. Stevie & I decided to take the dogs in for a hair appointment so that they would be super sharp when they see uncle Lulu on Wed. I have not had them groomed in quite some time! Mostly because Flossie is like a 10lb bag of attitude wrapped in fur, and I knew it would be disastrous. Must have been my muggle mom intuition because it was a full on circus. Thank Goodness Stevie was with me! Ralphie figured out about half way there where we were goin and went to shaking. As soon as we walk in the door to Petsmart Flossie starts howling and barking and growling incredibly loud for such a small creature and she definitely got EVERYONE in the stores attention. We finally get in the grooming room where ralphie couches and shakes in the corner and Flossie tries to eat up every dog in there, who, incidentally were all literally 10 times her size. (she was still barking and growling as well) The attendant (who was super non friendly, and made not ONE comment on cute and precious my dog children are) told me to buy her a muzzle , and that the next time i bring her in looking like that they would shave her. I mean... WHATEVER , I take better care of her hair than my own!!
Stevie was so upset about leaving them there, because he had never seen them carrying on like that. He said he was scared Ralphie would think he was a bad person. I told him he could buy them a surprise when we picked them up and that they would be sooo glad to see him that they would forget about the drama. He chose 2 kind of tie dyed balls which have been a huge hit. Ralphie is the next David Beckham! I have a video which i will be posting shortly to show off his skills, but I had to tell all this story to explain the pictures below. They are of the heinous afro they gave ralphie and Floss's 1st Haircut!! Also a pic of Ralphie passed out on the couch from the pure mental and emotional exhaustion he had been through today!



This is seriously how he was sleeping. I didnt pose him... He is just that dramatic

Oh, and Speaking of Haircuts.. ha Matt I have to tell you here , b/c I am too embarrassed to say it to your face, but I got bored in the car when Erik and I were coming home from Ky and I cut myself some Nicole Ritchie bangs...well they were supposed to be Nicole Ritchie bangs... HA and they are "Major" let me tell you!!

My mother loves a book like I love a handbag and she has been telling me to take Stevie to the Brentwood Library cause she has seen their cool website. Well after much proding she finally got me to go check out their used "book" sale! Ha well that place is like a palace. For sure the coolest library I have ever been to and i got LOTS of fun books and even found a Pearl Jam CD for Erik. SO basically if I know you, you got a book! ha I got some great books on Online Businesses, Travel, & doggles!



And In other news, Erik is the proud new owner of a pellet gun. He has been using Stevie's BB Gun to terrorize the squirrels and birds in the yard, but it wasnt shooting far enough for him, so he sent me after a Pellet Gun with a Scope! This is what he does every morning when he gets home from work for about 30 minutes! (thanks dad! ha)

Gosh, SO many things to catch up on here. Last week Erik & I took Little Stevie to see Harry Potter the Pheonix or whatever in 3d at the IMAX, and it was incredible. Only the last 20 minutes or so of the movie was 3D, but it was super neat and very life like with all that flying and stuff. And i love the word "Muggle" its what they all call regular humans... I think I shall start saying that ALL the time.. " I am Ralphie's Muggle mom" HA

Oh I should also take this time to announce to everyone that "Little Stevie" no longer wants to be called "Stevie" he said he was too mature for that now and wants to have the name of his father, so I said what would you like us to call you and he said "Steven, or little bro" Ha because Erik calls big Steven "Bro" all the time.. so please everyone make note of his new mature name.
He has been saying some interesting things lately... must be his anticipation of starting 5th Grade! (August 13th!!) wow

That would be RALPHIE! I mean, I hate to disappoint you all cause I know you think your dogs are special, but The Ralphers, as Stevie would say , " is atleast 10% human" and so right he is!! Ralphie, like most humans loves all kinds of food, onions, brocalli, chicken, steak, sandwiches (right grum :) but his favorite is Watermelon. He literally will eat ANYTHING I eat. I have tested this theory time and time again. He will even eat SOUR candy! and come back for more! ha So his latest craze is pistachio nuts. He even knows how to shell them. Erik says this is no big deal, because a squirrel can shell nuts and eat them, but HOW does Ralphie know to do this? I give him the nut he cracks it in his mouth drops it all on the floor and then picks out the actual nut eats it and then comes back for more. I caught him climbing up furniture yesterday trying to steal some more! HA...

Continuing on with our KY weekend extravaganza... Erik made plans for us to go to the Sluggers Museum because he LUVS baseball... me .. not so much! I was totally acting excited for his benefit though! Turns out it was actually quite fun. We had a tour of their wooden bat making factory and Erik bought a bat with his name engraved on it which was cool! It was a nice place and a cheap way to entertain yourself while in Louisville.



Later that night we had dinner at this neat little Greek Restaurant that our bud Marty recommended. He is a great online researcher and only charges $5 for the 1st minute and $1 each additional minute! We had a nice healthy dinner on the patio of The Grape Leaf

Well, We started our KY trip by Erik waking me up at THE CRACK OF DAWN ha so that we could go to six flags right when it opened! I tried to tell him that we totally did not need 8 hours at Six Flags, but he is our trip planner so he makes those type executive decisions. So, we get to Six Flags in Louisville around 10am. RIGHT as we pull into the parking lot, Erik shares with me that the huge ride right in the entrance is the Super Man ride that cut the girls feet off a few weeks ago. Great! Now I am really excited! HA
So not too long into that $80 admission did we decide it was a huge waste of money. Not only b/c the park was pathetic, but also because we discovered that we may have out grown roller coasters! What's this you say? I know right, how can this be? Well we got light headed and dizzy and smacked around in those things till we were weak in the knees with major headaches. Finally, we decided to admit to ourselves that it was no fun and we could leave. HA So we smashed a few pennies , and i got a 2 Henna Tatoos by some 12 year old with a shaky hand. (My mom says this are "gross")

Well, our Niece Anna Catherine Chapman age 8 has been on a mission lately to have a pet rabbit, well at first it was a rabbit but in order to talk her brother into contributing (financially) to this idea, she had to change it to a Ferret. She reall really really wanted the ferret and is saving her allowance to buy one. I told her that if she would draw a family portrait for me then I would give her $10. Well, quite the little entrepreneur, she sends me not 1 portrait, but FIVE portraits !! HA She is very smart... Below are these portraits for your enjoyment.
Through the eyes of a child....

Last Night, Erik and I went to see the American Idols Live Tour! It was here in Nashville and it was pretty awesome. Should we be ashamed that we were sitting amongst a sea of 11 year olds? Ha yeah, probably... but instead we bought glowies and cotton candy and rocked it right out with all the kids. Right when we first got there, We met Sanjaya's mom. Most of you guys know that I loved him because I thought he was the next Michael Jackson (erik HATED him! ) so he was not so into me yelling across the room "Hey Sanjaya's mom come take a pic with us!" he was even less thrilled to see that he was gonna be in the pic! ha but she was super sweet and actually chatted us up for a while.


Then the show started and they were all great. They have pretty interesting wardrobe! It was good to see Gina the rocker again, I always liked her as well! and Chris the guy with the curly hair. They all sounded very good and looked very professional. It was impressive. They were also very into the show and spent time singing to every angle of the stage and looked happy to be there. Melinda Dolittle sounded awesome in person. I was never a fan of her on the show but she was impressive to hear in person and very powerful. She also got some extensions that helped her out with that neck thing.
Check out the pictures below and Enjoy! I recommend any AI lovers to go to a live show! It was super fun!! Now this weekend we are off to KY to see the Police. Bro is in charge of our furry rat pack! Good Luck Bro!

This past weekend we were in Birmingham to visit friends and attend Wiggs & Melanie's wedding. We stayed with the Brays who were brave enough to host not only us, but our wild furry (and LOUD) dog children as well. They have a beagle dog child, Charlie and it was quite a time! Charlie was glad to see us go! ha Thanks Bray's! We love you guys!
So here are some pics from the wedding. Melanie was beautiful, like always ... and we had fun if you cant tell from the pics!! (Thanks to Tiny E!.. we/I forgot our camera!)

We had a wonderful 4th thanks to our friends, family & neighbors. Erik has had to work on the 4th for the past 2 years so I was REALLY excited that he was off this year. We celebrated by having over our friends & family to cookout and then finished up with fireworks in the backyard. Neighbor Charlie said this was a yearly thing he did with Erik's parents and he sure knows how to buy fireworks! He inspired Erik to go big next year
That morning when i was out running errands for the cookout, Erik called me and asked me to get him a "4th of July shirt" (he knows me too well, as i was standing in line at old navy, shirt in hand when he called! )HA I was SO proud that he was getting into the spirit because he isnt into Holiday stuff as I am.
Pictures below of all the decorations and food. I had to take a picture of my dang 3 layer kazillion hours to make Jello Dessert that NO ONE touched! ha They all ate my 5 min. no bake American Flag cheese cake! Special thanks to Wooten for the yummy dishes she brought. Now that we know we have a cook friend we will put her straight to work during tailgate season, or as Erik calls it .. "Football Season" HA

More Art work by Flossie..



I asked her why she insists on doing this, and she said I should just be thankful that she has cheap taste! (When Ralphie was her age he was more into things like COACH, Pottery Barn, COH jeans.. UGG Boots.. etc.. )
So I said " Good point, carry on my dogchild"

Well, we have been quite busy these past few days! Erik had a few off days in a row and he used those to be very productive! We borrowed a pressure washer from Sandra and he has pressures washed almost everything HA. The sidewalk, porch, deck etc.. Little Stevie thought we got a new sidewalk.. he noticed it immediately. You can see the before and after in the pictures below.. most everything was green with pollen.



Great job Erik!!!!! Then, something really unexpected yet very exciting happened! We were running errands and I suggested we get some iphones to sell on ebay.. i was thinking they would be like the Wii... well I went to the mall and stood in a VERY long line that was wrapped all around the mall for several hours! Which sounds boring, but it was actually quite exciting. Everyone there was So excited for the phones to go on sale since it is the MOST ADVANCED phone EVER. Well the store opened at 6 and when it turned 6 everyone started yelling and cheering. All the employees came running out of the store and ran laps around the mile long line of eager customers and all the while they were screaming and cheering and giving everyone high fives! ha so i did get through the door before they sold out. I was customer # 252. I got 4 phones. My parents drove up saturday evening and spent the night so my dad could get one of the iphones , then as erik and i played with them we decided we really, really needed one too! ha So we have one each and we sold one on ebay. All in all it was really fun. We each have new numbers with (615) area codes so you may need to email us for a new phone number if you dont have it already. We stayed up till 3am playing with our new cool toys! Ya'll know I love gadgets!



We had a great time with my parents in town. We had a cook out and Steven and Lisa came over. It was really fun. The only thing missing was juju. :( Then the next day my dad took Stevie outside and gave him some lessons on his BB Gun. (he has been begging to go shoot guns forever ) My dad is the perfect person to teach him such things . He is as good with guns as most Americans are with a fork.

By the way

He is making his big debut on THE OUTDOORS CHANNEL soon. I will post later the date and time but he is on a turkey hunt .. its pretty cool except he is wearing 3D camoflauge outfit that makes him look like he is about 100lbs heavier than he is in real life! HA

Sunday night we attended a cookout for Sean E Bugs 30th Birthday in Anderson Land! It was very fun.





So there you have it. Our weekend in a nutshell! Oh and this is Sean's 92 yr old Rocket scientist grandpa from Germany. They call him Opa. He is really cute and sweet!