Basketball and babies!

March is supposed to come in like a lion and out like a lamb. This year, it came in with a Lucy Ann Bohannon, who was born on March 1 in Raleigh, NC. Mom and "frynde" Adrienne, Dad Patrick and Lucy are all doing well. Isn't she a little cuddlebug?

March 1 was actually our friend Carolyn's due date, but her and husband Ryan's son Blake Thomas Becker decided not to make his appearance until the 10th! But wasn't he worth the wait? We visited them yesterday and I'm completely in love. He looks like a little man - so much like Ryan. What a sweetie. I offered to set up Blake and Lucy in a few years.

Speaking of births, we celebrated mine a couple of weeks ago with a trip to Napa and an awesome dinner here in the city. It was low-key, relaxing and fun - exactly what I needed.

And then there's basketball. It's no secret that - other than Christmas - March madness is my favorite time of year. Selection Sunday started off a little dicey with the Cats almost losing to Mississippi State in OT in the SEC tournament, but the scrappy Cats pulled through and got that #1 seed in the South region. Here I am doing the John Wall dance.

Too bad their second round draw was Wake Forest (provided that Wake could be Texas in the first round). Almost surprisingly, given Wake's tournament performance in recent years, Brian, college friend Julie and I were able to celebrate Wake's success on Thursday night.

Everyone always asked who I'd cheer for if Wake and Kentucky ever played each other, and I had always been able to successfully evade the question until yesterday. Let's be honest. My bracket had Kentucky winning, but then again my bracket was already jacked because of Louisville and Kansas (oh well!). And I want the team that wins to actually have a chance at winning the title. No offense to the Deacs, but they haven't exactly been consistent. But at the end of the day, while I love Wake, I grew up bleeding blue and my love for college basketball is because of Kentucky. Having said that, I did my best to represent both.

We watched the UK-Wake game in a Kentucky bar that surprisingly exists in San Francisco, and I found my emotions surprisingly split! The UK fans totally welcomed me - WF Tervis tumbler and all - although they took every opportunity to give me stink eye when Wake scored. Unfortunately for Wake, it wasn't often enough. No more feeling torn until potentially the NCAA finals when Brian hopes for a Syarcuse-Kentucky rematch from 1996. Now THAT would be a good game!

Valentine's Day and Stuff

February has really flown by and we've been busy, though I'm not sure it's all worth blogging about tonight. How is it already the 21st though? Not that I'm complaining!

Last weekend was Valentine's Day, and my Valentine carried on our normal tradition of cooking dinner for me. It all started seven years ago, when he served up salmon, crispy broccoli and undercooked rice. You might recall last year's post, when Brian nearly set the kitchen on fire.

This year, he made a delicious pasta bake with turkey sausage, tomatoes, bell peppers and cheese.

It was delicious and I have to say, I was really impressed by his culinary skills. I told him he could cook anytime. So far that's not going so well.

And per our tradition, we dined on heart-shaped plates. He also took me to see the movie Valentine's Day, which was fun and cute. I know he must love me if he's willing to endure a romantic comedy in the theater!

This week I babysat Kelly and Matt's daughter, Ella. She is about 16 months and absolutely adorable, even if she is putting on a fake pouty face here.

Actually she was really lively and spunky most of the night, even though she had a little cold. What a sweet face!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Sorry for the delay in between blog posts! I've been busy the past three weekends with baby showers and Capitola 3.0.

Two weeks ago was Carolyn's baby shower in Sacramento. So fun! Audrey and I rode up from the city to celebrate Baby Becker. Here's a pic with the girls.

Last weekend I flew into Raleigh, where Emily and I hosted a baby shower for Adrienne. It was such a great weekend! I miss those girls so much and wish we could all live in the same place (maybe someday I'll make it back so we're at least in the same state - here's to hoping!). We immediately went to Sonic, and later headed over to the old Wake Forest campus in ... Wake Forest!

Here we are on the main quad. I couldn't believe how similar the Winston-Salem campus is to the original! All the buildings looked exactly the same, especially...

...the original version of Wait Chapel. We wanted to go in, but as you can see, some people were taking wedding photos so we kept our distance. It was so neat to see where the university before it moved to Winston-Salem until the 1950's. The old campus is now home to a theological seminary.

Adrienne's shower was on Sunday. Here we are ready for the guests to arrive!

Here's Adrienne with Emily's cherry limeaid punch (not from Sonic, but tasted like it!) and a red velvet baby booty cupcake. So cute!

Adrienne's grandmother couldn't attend the shower but she sent this beautiful handmade heart-patterned blanket for Lucy. It has a label in it that says "Handmade by my great-grandmother Joann Smith." Isn't that sweet? Lucy received many wonderful gifts - she's going to be all set when she arrives in about six weeks!

This weekend was our annual girls' trip to - as Lisa Marie would say - "a town called Capitola." LMB had a client event in the city on Thursday, so she took the Capitol corridor train into SF Wednesday night. She came to book club with me, stayed Wednesday and Thursday nights with us, and we just hung out, relaxed and caught up on some much needed R&R together. It was great to have company on the long, rainy and windy ride down (Lisa Page was with us too) to Capitola where we met the other girls. We always rent a condo of a friend of Carmen's, hang out, drink wine, laugh, and do whatever we feel like. Unfortunately for Facebook and the blog, much of our lounging around happened in pajamas that first night, so I'm just posting this photo of us from our trip into town.

Capitola 3.0: Lisa Page, me, Jen, Carmen, Katy, Veronica, Lisa Marie, Carolyn and Baby Becker

This was the first time all eight of us were able to go, and it will be the last time without kids in our lives. No matter what changes take place over the next few years, I'll always be grateful for the moments when we can sneak away from the rest of our lives and just enjoy each other. I have wonderful friends.

Go Big Blue!

California's a blue state...and so is Kentucky. To show our support for the Cats' big game against the Cards today, we broke out our big blue today.

From our veggie trays...

...to our t-shirts and Snuggies...

to our tennies! With 3:44 left, they're up 10 but this game is far from over...fingers crossed!

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Syracuse's undefeated streak, which ended with an upset by Pitt at the Carrier Dome today. I am not prepared to mourn the loss of two undefeated teams today, so GO BIG BLUE! A loss by Louisville would also mean that I can remain friends with Mike Watts despite his blatant distaste for the wonderful Coach Calipari. He's still bitter that he went to Sac State.