Well, this has been quite the hiatus! In my defense, October has been crazy town. Stay tuned and you'll see…

Let's start with Natalie's birthday (aka Naturday) in Charlotte the weekend of October 3.

ACTUALLY, we need to rewind to the night of October 2… Kelly, Vann and I went to see the first showing of GONE GIRL!! We all read the book, so we were super excited to be among the first to see it.

Ok, back to Natalie (as always). It's our tradition to eat pizza, drink wine and watch Katy Perry on Friday nights together (because we're old and can't handle going out two nights in a row). This weekend was no exception. Added bonus - Natalie got us these matching Katy Perry shirts for my birthday.

The plan for Saturday Naturday was to rent a party bus, go to a haunted house and then to a bar. I do not like scary things, so I was really going out on a limb with this whole "haunted house" plan, but I survived.

Taco Cake for Taco Nat

DLT, please.

Natalie's newest roomie and my love, Whittney.

Party bus fun!

The whole night was so fun. I'm so glad we live within driving distance so we get to see each other pretty often. Happy birthday, princess!

After a weekend of fun in Charlotte, I headed home Sunday morning because Adam and I were babysitting JUDE for the first time!

I love the look on Jude's face - ha!

Passed out little munchkin.

Eeeeek! He's the cutest, ever!

After our fun little babysitting sesh, Adam and I headed to Atlanta Eats Live (work perks!). Before finally wrapping up a very busy weekend.

And now, for the recipe of all paleo recipes. I made this Tuesday night and have officially found my new favorite meal! We've made just the Cilantro Lime Cauliflower "Rice" before, but adding in the chicken carnitas made it the perfect mexican fiesta!

Without further ado.... Chicken Carnitas Burrito Bowl. (I left out the black beans and greek yogurt to make it paleo, and it's still my favorite!)

Go Dawgs (I guess?)

This past weekend Adam and I had been planning to attend the UGA vs. Tennessee football game. I didn't go to school in the SEC and I'm not a huge football buff, but I was excited to go for the whole experience! We were supposed to go with a couple friends who actually went/played for UGA, but at 10pm on Friday they had to bail. Yikes! We weren't able to find anyone to use the extra tickets, so Adam and I were up bright and early on Saturday and headed out to Athens at 6am. We arrived before traffic (the game was at noon - boo!), so we bought some beers and a cooler and headed out to make friends.

Tailgate #1 - Awkwardly standing near an unwelcoming group. 

Anyone? Anyone?

Tailgate #2 - Old man who walked away when we asked if we could be friends. Let's make it more awkward by taking a selfie!

It took us three tailgates to finally find some southern hospitality. Chris (on the left) and his wife, Brittany, were just hanging out by themselves under a tent when we walked up. They were the first people to actually strike up a conversation and were super nice (they even forced us to eat their Chick Fil A). They had a huge group of friends that met up with them, but it worked out because they just thought we were new people of the group. BINGO.

Woo! We did it!

We sat way up high, but it was actually nice because we were seated almost the whole time and could see the whole field! I even used the word "lateral" correctly and Adam was super impressed.

Go Dawgs! (And Adam's whistle!)

No day is complete without sending some kisses to our Jude!

We've heard horror stories about the traffic after games, so we headed out in the 4th quarter and breezed back into Marietta. The day went from potential disaster to super fun day date - and I'm glad it was with that goober husband of mine!

Speaking of Jude... (because when are we not?). Adam and I visited the little munchkin and his parents on Sunday afternoon. 

Here he is, ready for a diaper change because he peed on Adam!! I knew I loved this kid!

And then he was super embarrassed for peeing on his favorite uncle, so he hid in his shoulder. Just kidding. (But how adorable is this picture?)

Look, I'm back on the recipe track! It's happening, people. I made these the other night, but used ground turkey instead of shrimp. I made the mistake of using (way too much) ancho chipotle chile powder instead of what's listed here. It was a little spicccyyyy. (Which I love, but poor Adam was dying.) Definitely a keeper, but maybe next time I'll actually stick to the recipe.

JUDE SAMUEL CAUSEY

Ok, I totally rushed through that last post because the only thing I want to talk about is my NEPHEW! Jude Samuel Causey made his debut at 9:22pm on Saturday, September 20! After an insanely long labor, Meagan ended up having to get a c-section - and she was a total rockstar! (And yes, every sentence in this post is going to end with an exclamation point!)

The midwife finally came out and gave us a thumbs up! Cigars for everyone!

Wendell, I mean PawPaw, is quite the cigar connoisseur and was so excited about these!

Nathan finally came out to personally deliver the amazing news, and told us we would have to wait another 10 minutes or so to see Meagan and the bebe. Of course, at this point it's about 11:00pm and we're all dying of anticipation!

We finally got to the room and Meagan looked amazing! Seriously, I would have guessed she was on a beach vacation. AMAZING! After introducing us to Jude Samuel Causey, it was time to play Pass the Baby! I made sure Adam and I were last - after all, we weren't at the hospital as long as everyone else!

Andddd my heart burst!

 Proud Uncle Adam!!

We love you so much, Jude!!

And now for some other pics Adam snapped... 

Grandma (aka Big Deb) in the role she was born to play!

Aunt Kelsey!

I mean, really? He's so perfect!

The next morning, I walked the dogs and came back to Adam standing at the front door all ready to go and see Jude. We hung out at Starbucks for a bit and then headed up to the hospital to deliver some coffee to the new parents and get some quality snuggling time in before everyone else showed up!

Uncle Adam is kind of obsessed! Who can blame him??

Look who opened his eyes! It's crazy how much more like a little person he looks like with his eyes open.

LOVE HIM!!!!!! I was holding him when he sneezed for the first time, so I'll make sure to remind him of that every day for the rest of his life! Now Adam is determined to be the first one to make him laugh.

And because I obviously can't go longer than a day without seeing my favorite person, ever - I headed back up there last night to hang out with Meagan, Debbie, Carol and the babe!

Hey, Jude!

He has a little jaundice (am I saying that right?), so he had to spend most of the time in this little alien device, but that's ok because I still love staring at him!!

Life's hard!

I did get to feed him and burp him, which was kinda sorta the highlight of my year, so far! Adam was at bible study, so he couldn't join us - needless to say, he was beyond jealous!

How obsessed is too obsessed? The limit does not exist! YOU ARE SO LOVED, JUDE!!!

From Florida to Garth

As I mentioned in my last post, I headed to sunny Florida last week for our annual planning meetings. I flew in the day before to stay with Aunt Frances and see my old manager, Michelle. When I arrived at Frances' condo, I opened the door and there was dog. I totally forgot that Frances and Tom decided to adopt an 8 year old pup named Cooper, so that was kind of a shock.

Obviously, we immediately took a selfie.

I met Michelle for a quick drink at Red Bar before we headed to dinner at OTC in Mary Brickell Village. The food was really good, but the playlist was even better (think old school Jay-Z and Eminem). Gosh, I really miss Miami.

On Wednesday morning, I headed up to Sole on the Ocean in Sunny Isles to meet up with the rest of my team. Um, talk about amazing. It's off-season, so it felt like we were the only ones in the hotel.

We were welcomed with these goodies on our kitchen counter (yes, I had a kitchen in my room).

Living room...

...and my bedroom. I was able to wake up and look out over the balcony from my bed. Can we move here?

The first day we spent presenting Business Reviews over our territories. Being on the job for only three months, I was a little worried about how I was going to put together enough material for a 30 minute presentation. But I managed and my manager told me I did "freaking awesome". Yay!

We celebrated with dinner at the hotel's restaurant, Alba. The restaurant was actually closed (because it's off-season), but we have a great relationship with the chef, Ralph Pagano, so he opened it up and made us an Indian feast. I had never had Indian food before, but it was yum. Anything spicy is a-ok with me!

The team! (Boo for being blurry.)

Look at the fun decor along the wall!

On Thursday, we finished our planning a little early so we went ahead and covered Friday morning's material. Obviously, we decided to take advantage of "no work Friday" and had a great time on Thursday night.  We headed off to a delicious dinner at Sea Grill and then all headed down to the beach to drink some more wine. I tapped out at 1:30am and there was still a big group down there. Crazy, kids!

Me introducing some of the team to Uber!

On Saturday (back in the ATL), Natalie headed into town to prep for the GARTH BROOKS concert on Sunday!!

After attending Jill and Tyler's baby shower on Sunday, it was time to get ready for one of the best concerts, ever!

Every seat for his concert at Philips Arena cost the same - it was basically first come first serve. I logged in the second tickets went on sale and was able to grab 5 seats... on the floor! Fun Fact: My mom was able to get two tickets to Friday night's show and when she had no luck selling them, Ticketmaster let her swap them out for better tickets on Sunday - no charge! Great to note for future reference. That meant that her and Kathy sat together, and Adam got to join our group.

Totally didn't even notice Ruthie and Hank are in this - ha!

We ran into a college friend, Michael Chapin, in the food court!

Oh, don't mind us and our AWESOME seats!

I mean, seriously? This is with no zoom!

I didn't take any pictures during the concert because I was way too busy singing along, but he was an amazing performer! And so was Trisha! Ah, so much fun! Most definitely worth staying up late on a Sunday.

Sorry, no recipes this time! I can tell you that I had Lobster Linguine at Sea Grill that was amazing. Does that count?