It's a Hard Life

This past week I have been at my parents home in Andalusia Alabama and since then I have been living the hard life.
- I've been shopping with my sister.
- Hanging out with my family.
- I have traveled to Auburn for a day to spend time with Jeremy and Abbi and Morgan.
- I had to go to the beach for the day and I got a sunburn!
- I've spent time with my grandmothers and I have been visiting with a few friends.

Okay, if you have not caught on to my sarcasm yet then please note that I am joking here. My life is far from hard. This coming Saturday is my sister's wedding so I have decided to take advantage of my non-employment time and spend a few weeks with my family and help with the wedding. Zac will be flying down for the wedding then on Sunday we will start our drive up to Pittsburgh where I will stay.

Also, I have some great news on the Pittsburgh home front. I have a job! I will be working at American Eagle. It is a good thing too since we now have a mortgage in Pittsburgh. All that we need now is a renter in Nashville and we are set. (If you are interested click here.)

Here are a few pics from this weeks high-lites.

The house. It is so beautiful here, spring is in full bloom now.

Cotton wants to play with Callie, but he doesn't understand that she hates him and wants to scratch his face.



A day in Destin.



We went to Hilltop Meat Co. to eat crawfish with the family and a few friends. Our waitress was informed that it was mine and Morgan's birthday so they brought us a pack of sausage and a teddy bear. The odd thing is that the teddy bear smells like the meat store.

New City, New Home

We are not even a quarter of the way into 2011 and already Zac and I have enough changes to last us a few years. So to summarize in 40 words or less: Zac has a new job with American Eagle, which is in Pittsburgh. He has been there since the end of January and I have been in Nashville finishing up at TSC and preparing the house for the rental market.
Which brings me to where we are this week. We bought a new house! Well actually we are under contract for a new house. We decided to live in the city because we wanted the urban experience where you can walk to the store ride your bike to work. (Well, maybe, we will see. I will 1st have to figure out not to have helment hair at the office.)
Now that we have this place we want visitors! We now have space for guest and want our family and friends to come spend some time with in our new city.

Here are a few pictures of our new place.

Cotton vs. Snowman Ornament

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Zac and I did.
We went to his parents home in Paducah, Kentucky and had lunch at his uncle's home with nearly 30 of my new relatives. It is amazing to be in a room with 30 people that you are related to and barely know a soul. Everyone was so welcoming and I felt at home.
We came back to Nashville just in time to see the Iron bowl game. (I don't need to narrated the results of that, if you are reading this then I know you have internet access and probably a TV and I am certain that you are well inform.) I all I have to say is "Woo-Hoo! War Eagle!.... BCS #1".
We spent the rest of our time just relaxing and catching up on the things that we have been wanting to do. Such as finishing putting up our Christmas decorations.... which brings me to my story.

Cotton as added a new nemesis to his list, right behind squirrels, birds, and his reflection in the mirror is the snowman ornament.

Last year we received as a gift two small snowman ornaments. I recently discovered that these ornaments have a light switch on them, so today I decided to turn them on for the 1st time. Immediately Cotton did not like this at all.
As you can see:

** Note: I tried to publish this posting a few weeks ago but I could not get the video to upload. I have tried again now, but still no success. I will continue to try and let you know when it is up loaded.

Oh well. (sigh) Sorry guys. **

I put the ornaments back on tree. But as soon as I was uploading this video guess what I saw Cotton capture. 

The flash makes Cotton blink.



Cranksgiving

On Friday Zac stumbled across a Twitter posting about bike ride/food bank charity called Cranksgiving. This event was a organized bike ride all over the downtown area where bikers gathered groceries for the area food bank, Second Harvest.
Saturday morning we packed up the bikes and set out toward Downtown to participate. What a fun event! Not only were we contributing to a great cause but we were able to see Nashville in a way we have not seen it before. Seeing and touring the city on bike was a brand new experience for me. I felt like I was being re-introduced to Nashville.

The happy endorphins were in high gear in combination of charity contribution and exercise. :)

Auburn Football Experience 2010

Right now I'm home recouperating from a weekend trip to Auburn. Since I have moved to Nashville it has been difficult to attend Auburn games on a weekly basis, so I have resorted to pick at least one good conference game to attend each year. This year Zac and I selected the Arkansas game. It and what an amazing game it was!

The stands are still full, even at the end of the 4th quarter.

Along with watch some great football we also spent some overdue quality time with family and friends. 

Zac and I with my parents, my sibilings and their fiances

 

Victory visit to Toomer's Corner

 After any Auburn victory fans roll the trees on Toomer's Corner. It is a great opportunity to take in the excitement and energy of the day and it provides for some great photo opportunities. Yesterday evening while out on Toomer's Corner we encountered a "Tall Bike." Now may of you may not know what a "Tall Bike" is; but it is not hard to figure out because the name isn't too clever. It is just a bicycle that is extremely tall (approximately 7 feet high). Is it constructed from two bike frames that are welded together. When I first moved to Nashville encountering a "Tall Bike" was about as elusive as encountering a popular musician: it wasn't an unexpected occurrence but when you did bump into one you had to tell all of your friends about it. However over the years the "Tall Bike" species has become endanger of extinction in Nashville. Therefore I was so thrilled to see one in Auburn I had to ask for a photo. As you can see they may have talent for mastering a high center of gravity, but they are a bit awkward in front of the camera.

Happy Trails to my Auburn "Tall Bike" comrade. Live long and strong and WAR EAGLE!

Diamonds and Campfires

Recent Facebook walk postings
Morgan Weant: i read your blog :)
Lynn Steller: you have a blog? what's it about?
Kelly Weant Cook: Nothing these days. I'm doing a crappy job at updating it.

True true. I'm not doing a great job of blog updating. In my defense it is time consuming. (Excuses, I know.)
These past 2 weeks have been great!

Last Friday my little sister got engaged! Tentatively they plan to have the wedding in early April. That means that my brother, sister and I will all be wed within 12 months.

Two weekends back Zac and I went with our friends on a camping and biking trip. It was a perfect fall adventure. This was my 1st time in my adult life I slept in a tent. Sleeping was alright, the ground was a bit hard and Cotton was a bit restless in the tent at times; but I was warm and as Zac says, "a cold Kelly is an ornery Kelly." 

This past weekend we were in Atlanta for Heath Hinds and Leslie O'Byrne's wedding. 

Mr. & Mrs. Hinds




Sporting my new shorter hair do.

Katie, me, and Laura



Nima, Zac, Blake, and Erin



PBR

The weekend before last Zac and I went with our friends Matt and Bethany Bratcher to the PBR event. Now for many PBR stands for Pabst Blue Ribbon but to a cowboy the true PBR is the Professional Bull Riders.

It was a last minute affair; we decided on Friday night that we wanted to go. Saturday we searched for decent tickets at a reasonable price, which lead us all the way downtown to the arena to purchase the tickets at the box office. Now, I may be dating how young I am but I have never had to go to a box office to pre-purchase tickets. I felt like the kids on Dazed and Confused, driving all the way to the city to buy my summer concert tickets the day after school gets out. 

The four of us put on our cowboy hats and boots and "pre-gamed" at Jim 'N Nicks Bar-B-Q (one of my favorite restaurants, which Zac refers to as "Kelly's Happy Place"). Then we moved to the arena to see the "Toughest Sport on Earth." It was so much fun. If you haven't seen the PBR you should check it out sometime on the VS. channel. It's hard to describe but fun to watch. 

Afterwards we tried our hand at doing a bit of honky-tonking a 'la tourist style, but we only went as far as the front door of Tootsies when we realized that this heat wave was way too hot to enter inside a over crowded bar. -- You know you are getting old when you start to reason whether it is sensible or not to enter a bar. *Sigh* So to recap: young enough to only know of Ticketmaster, old enough to rather drink wine at home rather than Jack and Coke in a dive bar.

Zac got a kick out of this: it's the PBR zamboni.