Goodbye Mayor Herenton.

Thank you for the 18 years of service and the legacy that you leave behind...

• 20% of 9th graders entering Memphis City Schools in 2001 dropped out before graduation in 2005.
• 66% of African-American children live in a single family household with 48% raised by a single mother with an average income of $18,000.
• In 2007, Memphis had the highest rate of property crime in the US and ranked 2nd in violent crimes.
• Memphis has the highest infant mortality rate in the US.
• 26% of Memphians live below poverty level; nationally, the statistic is 12.5%.
• There are 200,000 people without insurance living in Memphis.

Good luck with your Congressional race, Mayor Herenton. Be sure and use that "Shake the Haters" campaign slogan that works for you so well!

Visitors!

We love having visitors and this weekend was a special treat because we got to hang out with Sarah and then Poppa Willie and Dodie.

Caroline and I met up with Sarah and her choir tour gang at the Redbirds game Friday night. Here Caroline is clearly trying to plan her escape from Rocky the Redbird!


On Saturday we went over to one of our favorite eateries, Fresh Slices. Caroline tried almost every type of condiment there...honey mustard, ketchup, bbq sauce...she has mastered the dip and lick move. I'm not sure the nutritional value she recieved but Poppa let her get away with it...


Poppa Willie brought presents for us all! A new mower for Chris which was much needed since one of the old guys on our street cornered me last week and asked if ours was 'needin fixin'.

And a sprinkler ball which Ike seemed to take to easier then Caroline.

Caroline's away, Mom and Dad will play

Caroline has been vacationing with her grandmothers in Beebe over the past week. Chris and I missed her like crazy...but we also had a chance to hang out with our good friends for some adult time.

At the Peabody Rooftop party to see one of our favorite bands, Carolina Liar, with the Buskes and the Morgans.

On Saturday we headed to Hardy, Arkansas, to canoe the Spring River. The water was a perfect 53 degrees contrasting the 99 degrees the sun was sending down on us. I can boast that Chris and I didn't tump once!

We had a great time in the little town of Hardy! We found a cute little Italian restaurant downtown called the Garlic Rose. We'd recommend the chicken parmesan and checking out the swanky bathroom. Then we stumbled upon a bookstore/coffeehouse called Words & Afterwords that had a old-timers band cranked up. Two of the 3 bandmembers had on an "Arkansas" shirt (the ones you buy at WalMart) and a mullet. Nice folks though. And yes, we stayed here:

Celebrating Father's Day after we returned on Sunday. Much thanks to Ma and Gran (now NeNe?) for taking such good care of Caroline. We love you!

Happy Father's Day weekend!

Chris, we are very thankful for you and hopefully we let you know that everyday.






Chris and his Dad:

Sending Father's Day wishes to our Dads, Poppa Willie and Papaw Dave. We love you all and hope you have a great day! We're about to head out to the Spring River!

The Girl Ship Has Landed

The Groovy Girls have landed at the Nick house and Caroline has embraced being a girl head on. A while back my boss gave me a sack-full of "Groovy Girl" stuff that her daughters had outgrown. Being a new mom, and a mom that never watches TV, I still don't know what the Groovy Girls are but we now have at least 10 and a lot of accessories. It has been fun to watch Caro start to 'play babydoll': sharing her food, taking them for diaper changes, letting them ride to school with us. I think there's no turning back now (sorry, Chris)...we've entered the world of a Girl!

This is a Groovy Girl:


My Groovy Girl accessorizing her GG:

When we weren't playing dolls this weekend we were out and about downtown. Sat night I did the Gibson Guitar 5k and finished in a decent time of ~27 minutes considering it was a confined running area and a dense crowd of sweaty runners.

Caroline and Chris played outside the FedEx Forum during those 27 minutes...

I had to include this pic from today. She LOVES spaghetti! Mas, Ba Ba, MAS!

Elvis was here

A couple of years ago I was in Park City, Utah, for a few days for work. Park City is one of those types of places that Cottage Living (RIP) used to feature -- think of a Western version of Eureka Springs with less hillbillies and more hippies. I was out walking one night on this trail and noticed that lots of families were spreading out blankets and chairs in this little park to watch a projected movie. It was really cool and it made me think how rarely I see anything like that around here.

Last night I got a little bit of that experience. We went to the Levitt Shell in Overton Park and saw a funky jazz band. It couldn't have been a better night and it was great to see so many people out enjoying themselves. The Shell made a revival last year after being famous for featuring Elvis and Johnny Cash. Check it out, Memphians: Free concerts through the end of June. And take some cash -- the Crepemaker's crepe-wraps made us drool.

Trying to coerce Caroline to the car we ended up on the lawn of the College of Art which is even cooler at night...

Loving the Farmer's Market these days! Today we got a Plumcot! Every heard of it? It's the hybrid of a plum and an apricot. Small and tasty! We also picked up some fresh squash. There's a bit of a parking situation down there but other than that it's the place to be on Sat mornings.

Welcome, Summer

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."
-- Russell Baker

Tomorrow is June 1 but it seems that summer has begun. We celebrated the beginning of the heat with a new plastic pool and popsicles. A few pics...