Livin' it up in Lexington

A few months ago, my dear friend Cecilia sent me a message asking me how far Lexington is from where we live. I quickly google-mapped it & then contacted her to find out why she was asking.

She lives in Texas but was flying into Lexington to do a presentation at UK (she is working on her PhD & is quite the translation scholar...) & so we made plans to get together! The last time we saw each other was 3 years ago--it had been too long! Cecilia & I were roommates during our BYU days...I love this girl!

Here we are in downtown Lexington on Thurs night:

I brought out the sling for some hands-free walking (Baby J didn't mind, he likes to 'hang out'...hahahaha get it??)

After walking around, asking each other all kinds of questions, we were hungry. We stopped at a restaurant and enjoyed a delicious meal --including a classic southern side dish--fried green tomatoes:

After that we walked around some more...went to two parking garages before we found ours (or was it just one?), we don't need any alcohol to get confused!! We drove back to our hotel & then talked in the car for about an hour (later we realized we could have enjoyed the rocking chairs on the front porch of the hotel...) and then grabbed the 'bundle o' joy' and went inside.

Baby J was having a hard night. He was feeling some teething pains, runny nose, watery eyes, and overall not-feeling-so-great. Here is a pic of him before we went to bed (about 12:30am)

Lucky for Cecilia, we had separate rooms (she had already booked a room with her colleague before we booked ours)--J woke up at 2:30, 4:30, and 5:30 and then was up for the day at 7:30--*phew*!

Here he is (feeling somewhat better) saluting the morning* after such a crazy night:

I found a list online of 70 free things to do in Lexington. VERY COOL. Unfortunately we could only pick a few things with our limited time. One place we went was Gratz park (cool thing # 15 on the list). It was a gorgeous day to walk around, enjoy the sunshine & the houses in the 1800's era neighborhood.

Of course, we had to get a few Mama & baby shots while we were out:

(And Cecilia learned how challenging it is to photograph a 10 month old...)

Then we got lost...and THEN found our way to the Lexington Shopping Center, right by Rupp Arena (cool thing #9). We wanted to take a tour at Old Kentucky Chocolates (cool thing #24), but the tour hours didn't mesh with our schedule, so we went to the shop instead. We both purchased some chocolate treats and then were on our way.

We passed Keeneland racetrack (cool thing #1 & 23) which was crazy-full because of the races going on during the week, and on my way back to the 1st of 3 Kentucky Parkways I would take to get home...I passed cool thing #27 (this website shows some pics of the castle & shares some details).

The 2 day, 1 night trip was fabulous. I got to know my way around Lexington (*sort of*) and enjoyed some quality time with a favorite friend! Thanks for a fabulous visit, Ceci!

Thankfully, Baby J is a pretty easy going baby. He doesn't mind going on long drives and is great about being toted around every where I go. Even though he wasn't feeling 100%, he still did SO GREAT. I appreciate his flexibility with me, and that we can go on fun trips together!

(As always, we miss Daddy! WE are so excited for the semester to be over in just a few more weeks!)

Tomorrow we leave for our next adventure: Utah trip 2009

*I didn't notice, until after I posted this that it could appear that J is showing off his 3rd finger...but I assure you he is not. How could you think such a thing!? He is holding ever-so-delicately a star puff treat in his hand. This was his pre-breakfast treat.