Best "Weekend" Ever!

Hello everyone! Sorry that I didn't have a chance to post something yesterday, but today I will catch you all up on my fun "weekend." I call my Wednesday/Thursday days off "weekends" in quotation marks because it's not the actual weekend--Saturday/Sunday. :-) I had soooooooooo much fun with Matt and Angie!! First off, the white chocolate bread pudding was a HUGE success. Doesn't it look tasty? I did a photo shoot of it in front of my kitchen. In the oven it rose about an inch above the baking dish, and it was just the perfect consistency. We decided that, though Magnolia Grill had previously been the solo holder of the title for the South's best bread pudding, Tiffany's white chocolate chip bread pudding is a definite contender for the title. Angie, Matt, and I ate the bread pudding warm with vanilla ice cream on the side--it was heavenly, if I do say so myself. On Wednesday, in addition to eating bread pudding, Angie, Matt, and I had dinner at the El Ranchero restaurant--Vicksburg's version of La Fiesta. I think that the same guitarist who sang "Happy Birthday" to me at La Fiesta last month was playing the guitar at El Ranchero. Maybe he makes his rounds among all of the Mexican restaurants in the area (which are pretty much just La Fiesta and El Ranchero, although there is a place called El Potro in Natchez that's pretty good too. Maybe he plays the guitar there sometimes). We had a fun dinner and then just hung out at the house for the evening. The three of us have great Civil War conversations.

On Thursday morning, I woke up with a cat on top of my face :-) Angie and Matt's newest kittie: Cali, is one big bundle of love, and she decided to come keep me company in the guest bedroom. She has quite the little purring motor inside of her, and she was making me laugh because she was purring so loudly. We had a relaxing morning, then we had the ultimate Mississippi lunch experience. We went to the Bovina Dina!! It's actually called the Bovina Diner, but you can't say "Bovina" without pronouncing Diner as "Dina." Bovina is a little speck of a town between Vicksburg and Jackson. Angie and Matt had told me about the good ol' home cookin' they serve, and we decided to stop there for lunch. It is this funniest little restaurant out in the middle of nowhere (although Matt informed me that the area around Bovina was critical during the Siege of Vicksburg--that's where General McClernand brought his regiment of Illinois troops as they were coming in from the east). It reminded me a lot of the Fourth Street Cafe that Mom, Dad, and I enjoy in Keokuk, Iowa, where they write all of their choices up on a white board, and erase things as they run out. I had some fried catfish, black-eyed peas, lima beans, creamed fresh corn, and cornbread. It was divine. But, the very best part of the entire meal was dessert: HOMEMADE SWEET POTATO PIE!!! Talk about a little slice of heaven! Sarah would have especially loved it--because she loves sweet potato/yam eats. It was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten. After our great lunch, Matt went back to the Burg, and Angie and I went on to Jackson for our shopping extravaganza. We literally shopped 'til we dropped. We started out over in the Lakeland area by the airport and hit some furniture stores there. Angie is working on decorating her house, and we found some great stuff to put on her walls. I was glad to stop at Bath and Body Works to load up on some of my favorite lotion.

After Lakeland, we went over into the downtown Jackson area to the big mall there. We also went to this cool shoe store where I finally bought some Crocs. I've been meaning to buy Crocs for a while, but haven't done it yet, so I found some cool blue ones that are super comfy. I also found my new favorite shoes in the whole world--they're some brown and blue Rocket Dog shoes. They are totally awesome! We decided to eat dinner at the mall before going over to meet Matt at the Western Sizzlin'--so as to save ourselves from the possibility of an upset stomach. It's a good thing we did that though, because we called Matt on our way over to the Civil War Round Table meeting, and he said that instead of having a Civil War discussion, it ended up that they were just going to have a business meeting to discuss the affairs of the Jackson branch of the Civil War Round Table club. So, Angie and I avoided the Western Sizzlin' all together and went back to the mall to find Angie some awesome shoes. We grabbed some smoothies and got home at about 9:30 that night and were happy about our great day. Probably the funnest part was just hanging out with Angie and chatting all day long. It seriously seems like we've been friends since birth.

This morning we got up bright and early and drove down to Natchez for a busy day of work. It ended up just being Angie and me holding down the fort at Melrose this afternoon because Nathan, Kate, and Tim took off for New Orleans for the weekend. Angie had so much work to get done, so I volunteered to give several tours in a row which worked out just great. As we were closing up this afternoon, some black clouds blew in. I couldn't believe how fast they were moving. Thankfully they weren't green, or else I think that would have been the sign of a tornado coming! Angie and I could tell that a nasty storm was brewing, so we hurried and closed everything up and ran to our cars. We made it out just in time--before the heavens opened and the rain started coming down in buckets. Luckily my car wasn't parked underneath the pecan tree at Routhland during the storm, because when I got home, there was a gigantic branch--similar to the one that bashed my windshield, only this one was much heavier--that had crashed down in about the same spot as the other. I am sure to park out away from the trees these days. I think sometime I should go outside in the middle of the night and chop the self-pruning pecan tree down. It's nothing but trouble. Speaking of trees, Tim showed me this morning that there is a fig tree right outside my door at Routhland! I didn't even know about it, but boy--I had some yummy figs today! I think figs are my new favorite fruit.