Baby Shower

This weekend friends and family traveled from all over to attend Natalie's baby shower. What a fun weekend! The Saturday events included brunch at Providence Cafe and yummy Edible Art Cake...who seem to think my child will spell her name GWYN :-)

Corbin's mother's side of the family included Susan, Aunt Lynne, Aunt Anne, Aunt Emily, Cousins Page, Rachel, Emily, and Clay. Corbin's father's side of the family included Grandma Iris Gary, Aunt Nina, and cousins Megan and Caroline.

Natalie's mother Verna and Aunt Pat fly out from Arizona. And last but VERY not least Natalie's friends Jess and Parrish flew in from New England, Heather from Baltimore, from Cary/Rocky Mount were Allie and her mother Lorena. From Charlotte were Melissa, Michele, Kristin, Brenda, Linny and who can forget Janet. A special thank you to Janet, Allie and Verna for planning the shower, Jess and Ashley (who could not attend but was missed...Happy Birthday!) for making the cute favors and Parrish, Melissa, and Heather for the cake. Click here for pictures from the weekend

On a side note...another very special thank you to Lynne, Faryn & Kamryn for the huge box of clothing & gear!!

I can't believe I am saying this...

I can honestly say I LOVE this stroller. We don't even have a kid yet and this thing seriously is pretty amazing. For those of you who haven't gone through the mortal hell of heading to a baby store to check out strollers, let me enlighten you...Corbin and I folded, unfolded, shook, tried to break, dropped and tested all of them. Then we went home and read consumer reports and were even more confused, then we got sucked into the latest new thing (www.orbitbaby.com very cool strollers but still weren't sold on them) and finally decided to pull the trigger and got the Bugaboo Frog.

As you can see we immediately put it together and starting driving it all over the house. I even went so far as to try to get the neighbor's kid (Crawford...who immediately said "No nanni, baby stroller, I big girl!") and the dogs to try it out but nobody would have any part in it. Guess we will have to wait for the little poop to arrive in March!

Christmas in Arizona and the Crib Project

Happy New Year! For the Christmas holiday we traveled out to Natalie's parents place in Goodyear, AZ. Corbin's mother Susan joined us in our week and overall a great time was had by everyone. Natalie, Corbin, Susan, Verna, Mel, Aunt Pat, Uncle Frank and Natalie's cousin Chris all enjoyed a week of food, food, football and more food. Susan was the only active person in the bunch and managed to go on a few hikes in the area, what a trooper! We also visited the Heard Museaum, enjoyed Mexican food and Susan bought a new pair of authentic cowboy boots to bring home with her.

Once we got back home, by some stroke of luck, one of the Microsofties happened to be selling his almost new baby bedroom set so we decided it was a great purchase. Luckily the crib, changing table and chest of drawers (not pictured since the nursery is so teeny...for now Natalie is enjoying her new dresser!) are a beautiful cherry wood that match the glider Mel and Verna gave us for Christmas! As small as the room is, everything fits well, there's space to walk around and we even have a spot for the small white bookshelf at the end of the crib for future baby readings! For pictures of the AZ trip and the nursery, click here.

Oh yes, and a special thank you to Clark Spencer for sending Ginger and Ruby the yummy smoked bones!

Lake Christmas Weekend

It's that time of year again! We headed down to Lake Bowen for the Webb family Christmas. Which now includes 2 new Webbs....Gini and Alexandra Webb! Russ Webb married the wonderful Gini (and is now a step-father to her awesome daughter Alex) on December 1st. And promptly told his sister Rachel and mother Eileen to keep it a secret!

So we get there, meet Gini and about 2 seconds later I hear..."wife, where are you wife" and find out they were married in Hawaii (BTW..they live there) on the beach. I'll post pictures of their wedding soon enough.

Overall it was a great weekend, lots of fun and a good time for all. Click here for Clay's pictures from the weekend.

Hi Mommy...Ho, Ho, Ho!!

It's that time of year again. Crawford headed over to the Charlotte Country Club on Wednesday for pictures with Santa and to show off her new dress. As you can see, there was lots of other fun things to play with including decorating trees with stickers, face painting and LOTS of food (of which Natalie, Janet and Andrew made sure to get plenty of). Click here for pictures from the party

On Thursday Crawford then was a huge hit at the Little Church on the Lane Nursery School Show....Her mommy and daddy were very proud!

Watch Out Paris!

Yep...Mrs. Janet Fisher is giving Paris and Britney a run for their money. Sorry the pictures aren't any better, they were taken with a camera phone

Janet decided it was too much work to grow long hair so she took a page out of the Paris Hilton handbook and had her hair dresser put extensions in. As you all know I (this is Natalie ofcourse...Corbin does not keep up on hair lingo) couldn't keep my mouth shut on this and for the last two weeks have been calling Janet's upcoming hair unvailing "ho hair."

As you can see the finished product was much better than we anticipated.

Football at Notre Dame

Well, we went up to watch the beating of UNC vs. Notre Dame on Saturday and were pleasantly surprised. Yes, the Tarheels lost by 19 points (45 to 26) but compared to the Clemson slaughter, this was fun to watch! I think we confused all the Notre Dame fans when the entire Tar Heel section would start clapping when we actually held the Irish to a 3rd down and you should see what happened when they had to punt!!!

Most of the conversations of the weekend talked about the new UNC Fooball coach - Butch Davis- but overall it was a fun time. Joining us up in Chicago were Matt &Michele Kislowski (Happy Birthday Michele!!!) and Kristin & Mark Bordeaux. 

Happy Halloween!

As you can see from the picture, Crawford Fisher was showing us where Nani's baby is (and wondering why the baby seems to constantly want chocolate!). After weeks of worrying that she wouldn't wear her costume, Kim her trusty BFF nanny just plopped her into the outfit and by the time momom (janet) came home she was ready to go trick or treating!

Before going house to house we walked down the street over to Carter and Mary Royal's for a kid party. Here's a link to all the madness.

Hallloween

'>Party Pictures

Corolla Light

Last week we took the girls out to Corolla, NC in the outer banks for a nice vacation. This is a picture of our beach house. Our friends Clark and Nancy Spencer met us there and everyone enjoyed the time away from work. Clark, Nancy and Corbin went offshore fishing on Wednesday and caught 5 yellowfin tuna ( about 100 pounds). The girls also enjoyed their time away from Charlotte. Ruby played in the ocean whenever possible and Ginger is now a master swimmer in the pool. She jumps right in after the tennis ball and can't wait to go back next year.

On our way home we stopped by at Allie and Harold Pine's new house in Rocky Mount, NC. They were having a bbq Saturday afternoon with a bunch of friends (Bobby, Wendy, Austin, Deb, Matt and Eric). Harold had crabs shipped in from Maryland that were delicious! We then moved on to hot dogs, hamburgers, salad and peach pie. The new Pine house is absolutely AMAZING!!! Corbin and I have such house envy! Ginger and Ruby love the big back yard and had fun playing with Beni, and Titan (Bobby and Wendy's new yellow lab). Great vacation...too short!

Ari Spencer Eisgrau

On Tuesday Natalie headed up to Baltimore Maryland to meet the newest member of the Eisgrau family, Ari! He's quite a bundle and keeps his parents Alan and Heather on their feet. Ari also had his Briss Ceremony on Wednesday afternoon. Overall Ari did very well (so did his parents and grandparents). The day couldn't have been nicer and the weather was absolutely beautiful! Great food, great people and a overall a great day!

So Far So Good...

For those of you that don't know. Corbin and I are expecting a new face in the house March 17th. Yep, that's right, there is a bun in the oven. A lot of people have been asking whether we are going to find out if it's a boy or a girl. Well, to answer all of your questions, yes...we just found out.

We are having a girl! Here's a picture of her all scrunched up, she's only about 6 inches from head to rump and weighs about as much as 1/2 of a can of soda.

Clemson 52, UNC 7

Yep...that's right, Clemson put a hurting on North Carolina this weekend. Luckily a majority of the family are Clemson fans so they were very happy with the win. Everyone bunked out at the Clemson condo on Friday and Saturday night for a big sleepover that included Lulu, Susan, Eileen, Richard, Lynne, Kamryn, Faryn, Corbin and Natalie. In addition to that Brandt, Clay, Rachel, Parks, Page, Jeremy, Sarah, Mike, Emily, and Bill all came over Saturday morning to tailgate with us. We all feasted on breakfast casserole, ham bisquits, fruit salad, Krispy Kreme donuts, cookies and ofcourse Calabash Chicken until around noon when we headed over to the stadium. The pre-game festivities were great, Clemson fans really get into the game including watching the team run down the hill onto the field. Corbin and I knew early this was going to be a beating!

About7 minutes into the first quarter Clemson scored its first TD. Then all of 5 minutes later they scored again. At that point Eileen, Susan and I were all roasting in the sun and we had seen enough of the slaying. Yes...we lasted all of 15 minutes into this game and decided it was time to head back to the condo for some A/C. Not 20 minutes later did everyone else come back at the half because at that point I think the score was 35 to nothing.

Corbin, Rachel, Parks, Page, Jeremy, Sarah and Mike all spent the next 10 hours tailgating around campus while the rest of us watched all of the crowds and grazed on leftovers. Around 8 PM we decided to head over to Mellow Mushroom for some pizza.



Here are some pictures I took from my camera phone this weekend. As you can see Kamryn and Faryn just love the camera!!! Click here for Lynn's Photos

August

Wow..talk about a long pause...sorry everyone, we really have been slacking on updates. Here's a recap of the last few weeks.

August 21st Natalie headed up to Boston for work and stayed with Addie and Ryan. We all headed to California Pizza Kitchen for Dinner with Parrish Blaszka. Great food and even better company.

August 23rd Natalie headed up to Baltimore for Heather Eisgrau's surprise 30th birthday party. As you can see Heather is about a month away from delivering. Her real birthday is in September but her husband Alan didn't want to push the envelope so he planned her big bash for the month before just to be safe.

In attendance were Heather's inlaws, friends from Hasa, Scottie too Hottie (pictured with Heather) and his parents, Heather and Alan's friends from Owings Mills, and Peggy/Keith from DC also drove up for the event. Everyone had a great time and we all were pretty stuffed from the amazing Italian food by the end of the meal.

Afterwards Heather and Natalie and Heather's inlaws drove back to the Eisgrau Casa to open presents and give Niko some leftover cake! Sunday Natalie, Heather and Alan tested out "Bling" the new mini-van and drove around, shopped, had some chicken from Cluck-U and then ended the day with a trip to the Maryland State Fair to pick up some of the best caramel apples EVER! Natalie brought 2 home to Corbin with proceeded to be eaten within a few hours.

Last week we finally decided to redo the porch so our handyman Artie came over and tore the floor out of the front porch. Turns out the porch was pretty old and rotting so we have to do some serious replacement work to get things back in order (and to make the floor level).

Here'a a picture of the current state of our front entrance. as you can see its still a mess but hopefully by the end of this week we can start using the front door again.

Over the labor day weekend we headed up to Chapel Hill with our friends Mark, Kristin, Matt, Michelle, Jeff, Keeley and Big Joe for the UNC football game against Rutgers. Tailgating was really fun. Big Joe (I'll take a picture next time so you can see what I am talking about...Big Joe is about 6' 6" and could have been a line backer for UNC) and his friend Duke were the grill masters...they can really make a good burger and london broil sandwich. Here's a picture of the fans walking to the game.

The game itself was another story...could have been better. UNC lost to Rutgers 16 to 21. We also had some roudy UNC fans that needed a talking to...Jeff, Duke and Big Joe scared the pants off of these kids for berating some Rutgers fans sitting near us. Apparently last year the same 2 fans were pretty mean so Joe put a quick stop to that. I said I would love to come to next week's Virginia Tech game to see these guys try something with the thousands of Hokies sitting next to them...Corbin is heading up there this weekend and said he would report back on the "2 lame UNC fans".

Today was a big day at the Fisher house..Crawford went to her first day of Nursery School! Here she is with her new Ladybug backpack ready to head off. Janet reported back that she did pretty well. Apparently one of the other boys there had a few trains so Crawford decided this place was OK if there were trains to play with.

Weekend...

This weekend was rather busy. Saturday we celebrated the Webb/Duncan lake weekend with family (and some rain). Here is the link to the pictures. Overall it was great to see family again. Congrats to Dan and his new soon to be wife Abby...they are planning on getting married in March of 2007.

Saturday night we met up with friends for BBQ and Bowling. Corbin was all business and schooled everyone. Keeley and Natalie pretty much entertained everyone with their lack of skills. I think by the 8th frame Keeley had the impressive score of 6. Somehow she rallied back for a 21...way to go Keeley!

Sunday the boys played golf and the women enjoyed brunch at Pewter Rose Bistro. I highly suggest the lobster bisque....it was delicious!

Driving, driving and more driving....

For our vacation we sent the girls to the dog spa and jumped in the car to see some friends. Wednesday we headed up to Owings Mills, Maryland to visit Heather, Alan and Niko Eisgrau. As you can see, baby Eisgrau is ready to make an appearance soon. Heather went all out for dinner. We had blue crabs, corn, watermelon and salad for dinner followed by apple pie, and chocolate cake for dessert.


Thursday morning we headed to the mall for a movie (Superman Returns) and then drove up to Bel Air to visit Clark and Nancy Spencer. They had a full house with Clark's parents, us and his daughter Morgan all spending the night. We headed to the coast for drinks and dinner. Here's a picture of us at the restaurant. Great crabcakes!
Friday morning we drove to DC to watch our friend Dave Dixon get sworn into the DC bar. It's official....Dave is now an attorney! In addition to us, Dave mother Pat, sister Katherine and brother in-law Gary drove up. We spent the day walking around DC with everyone. Here are the pictures from the weekend. As you can see, Missy and Dave's new addition Henry was the life of the party. He's 16 pounds of pure loving.

Carl Rosenbaum

Yesterday we attended the funeral of Carl Rosenbaum. Carl is Nancy's father (Nancy is Corbin's step mother). This picture was from Christmas when he and his wife, Betty Rose, went to see the decorations at the Pine Hurst hotel. Carl was a whiz at digital photography. He actually superimposed them onto another picture of this tree!! Carl and Betty Rose called Corbin their oldest Grandchild which was so nice....we really loved spending time with them.

The funeral was very touching. There were atleast one hundred people there; which does not include the folks that payed their respect on Tuesday. As you can tell Carl was a loved person in the community. We also loved him very much. He had an amazing way with people (and dogs...Ginger adored Carl). Even though I only spent a handful of time with him, I realized why everyone thought so highly of him.

I think what touched me the most was the number of family and friends there to pay their respect. Carl's best friend from years past and his newly wed wife drove up from Charlotte, Carl's sister commonly refered to as "Winnie" attended from Atlanta, and even Betty Rose's 2 college friends and bridesmaids from their wedding 54 years ago attended as well. Betty Rose and Carl celebrated their anniversary on Sunday when Carl died...very touching that he held out until then. Small goals, that's what Carl set for himself, even at the end he succeeded in making it to that date. 

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Bordeaux

That's right....Kristin and Mark are officially married! It took months of flights between CLT and ORD (not to mention a few early morning flights to Canada) but this weekend Kristin and Mark celebrated in style.

Although a little chilly to start, the sun came out long enough for a beautiful wedding ceremony at The Eaglewood Resort. About 200 family and friends joined them in great food, some tears and loads of fun on the dance floor.

Kristin and her father pretty much blew everyone away with the best Father-Daughter dance EVER. She then topped it with a touching dance with her grandfather, by the end of that dance there wasn't a dry eye in the tent.

The rest of the night all of the NC husbands seemed to tear up the dance floor. The rest of us couldn't keep up (as you can see, I am behind the camera all night after eating my fair share of dinner and wedding cake). Click here for pictures from the rest of the weekend.

Weddings, Friends and a Birthday

Another whirlwind weekend! Corbin and I traveled up to Boston for two weddings and to catch up with friends. Unfortunately we were not able to make our friends Ryan and Laurie Miller's wedding but we wish them all the best in their new life together.

Jessica and Rich Christenson are officially husband and wife! Here are the pictures from their wedding .
We attended their rehearsal dinner which consisted of chowder, steamers, lobster, corn, potatoes, and finished off with Boston Cream Pie. Everyone sort of rolled home and slept off dinner in anticipation of the main event.

Saturday afternoon Corbin and I had brunch with our friends Erin and Alison at Tremont 647. Since it was raining we decided the best thing to do was to keep drinking! Alison surprised us by telling our friend Sue and her daughter Fiona to stop by. Sue happened to be in town at a Funeral so we headed out to the "packy" and bought some Bloody Mary Mix. Fiona entertained us with her amazing wit and humor...already a comedian at 1 and a half! As you can see from the picture my cell phone got some usage....sorry everyone she called!




While we were gone, Ginger and Ruby went to Doggie Camp at their local doggie daycare. Ginger turned 1 on Saturday so they threw her a party!

Memorial Day Lake Weekend

Happy Memorial Day!
This weekend we took the dogs and a few friends down to Lake Bowen for some sun and water sport. The dogs seemed to get the most out of the lake. For more pictures, click here. The yellow lab is Aunt Lynne and Uncle Bill's dog Belle, the black lab with the red collar is Clay and Brandt's dog Goose, the Chocolate lab named McCauley and the black lab/chow mix named Tarleeh belong to our friends Matt and Michelle. Ginger and Ruby are also in a few of the pics. McCauley, Goose, Belle and Ginger seemed to be the swimmers while Ruby and Tarleeh wer much happier on land. Matt and Michelle's pictures are on Snapfish.

Crawford's New Ride

Yep, that's right...Crawford (our neighbor next door) rode her first Bicycle today. Now she can make her mother even more nuts with all of her energy! Crawford seems to enjoy having people push her around rather than riding on her own but give her a few days and she will be cruising around the neighborhood on her own.