Introductions

This past weekend Kyle, Sienna, Mother, Louise and I all traveled to Charlotte for some pre-Christmas family time.  Kyle has never met my mother's mother, nor my aunt/uncle/cousins, so it was pretty overdue.

Now, my grandmother has Alzheimers, and was never the nicest grandmother in the world to begin with, so I was a little concerned how she would be meeting Kyle, but both Kyle and her were on their best behavior.  My grandmother was cute, friendly, and welcoming to Kyle, and he was charming, so I was ecstatic with how their first meeting went.

I had big plans for Saturday, but they fell through just a bit... We had brunch with my grandmother, her two wonderful friends Bruce & Reggie, and my aunt, uncle, and one cousin.  It was great, and at a French style bistro, so I had a delicious little macaron dessert at the end, which always puts me in a good mood.

After brunch we went to the Charlotte mall, Southpark.  I'd ordered some wedding bands to try on from my favorite jewelry store, Van Cleef & Arpels, because they have a little booth in the Neiman Marcus there, however the woman I was in communication with dropped the ball and didn't follow up on the delivery of my rings, so they had not yet arrived.  I was very displeased because I'd been excited and was let down.  I already really dislike Neiman Marcus, and this did nothing to improve their image in my eyes.  Instead we went and tried on some bands at Tiffany's which were nice, but I just want something sort of unique, which is not really their forte.  We wandered around the mall some more and Kyle was super sweet.  I love love love stationary (like more than is normal) and I was admiring some adorable holiday cards in Kate Spade, and he sneakily bought them for me and I never noticed!  He carried them around for like ten minutes before giving them to me because I was totally oblivious and didn't notice and he didn't want to carry them anymore.  It was so nice of him! I love love love him tooooo.

3 French Hens

We finished out the day eating dinner with Bruce & Reggie at one of my favorite restaurants in Charlotte, Rooster's!  There was lots of good food, wine, and good conversations.

On Sunday, we began our second round of introductions - Sienna met my grandfather!  It's been long overdue, and I wanted him to see her, because she is colored similarly to one of the dogs he had in the past.
She was her normal wild self, but also sweet and happy, so I'm pretty sure he liked her.  My grandfather recently got a new dog, so we tried to introduce them.  Sienna was fairly well behaved, but Georgia is still working on her training, so they ended up being a little too excitable together to go on a walk.  A big thank you to my grandfather for a great brunch of bloody marys and killer blueberry french toast!

Sienna and the Christmas tree at my grandfather's!

It was a great weekend in Charlotte, and I loved having so much family time close to Christmas.  Plus any time I can spend a whole weekend with Kyle to myself makes me happy!  We are both busy a lot, so it doesn't happen frequently.

Side note - I made a KILLER coconut curry soup on Sunday night.  Kyle said it was one of the best things we've made yet (added bonus - shrimp from right in front of my grandparent's house in Gloucester, that I had frozen from a month or two ago.  Shout out to my auntie Mary for giving us the shrimp!)

Recipe here: Coconut Curry Soup