One for the Record Books

Fall Saturday's mean college football and that means the Holden House headed a little South for the day to watch GT take on Kansas. Dad played chef and manned the grill...

And Carter served as the taste tester.
After breakfast, we headed to Jacket Walk to cheer on the team before the big game. The Wreck was there ready to lead the players to the stadium and the kind driver let Carter take a spin behind the wheel.
We also grabbed a quick pic with Kyle and Charlie (GT class of '33).Carter and dad wished the team luck and then we headed back to the tailgate.
While our morning might look like a typical GT tailgate from years past, looks can be deceiving. Our original Tailgate kids are all grown up...The drink selection has a new spin... Tossing around the football looks a little different...And there are adorable babies everywhere!

Despite all the changes, it is still wonderful to get to hang out with all our friends and their babies!). Unfortunately the game conflicted with Carter's nap schedule so we fed Carter a quick lunch and handed him to Grandmommy.

So mom and dad could head to the game. And what a game it was! It all started out like with normal with the team taking the field.
But when GT took their first snap, things changed a little.
For the 3rd week in a row, GT scored on the first snap. And that was just the beginning! Tech set school and conference records including 12.1 yards per carry with 768 yards total and 604 rushing yards. Needless to say Tech won easily and it was a fun afternoon!

Carter's New Shoes

Carter has long been a fan of hanging out in mom's closet and taking all the shoes off the shelves. He also has fun giving mom various shoes and having her put them on. And when he gives them to dad, things get really silly!

But Carter took his interest in shoes to a new level this week. Carter finally got the interest to on mom's shoes himself. So dad helped him put them on...
Mom and dad were very surprised at what happened next. Carter stood up....and decided to walk around.

It was really funny. When he walked out of them, he would pick them up and bring them back to mom/dad to put them back on. Too cute!

Wedding Weekend in New Hampshire

With the boys under control in Atlanta, I headed to New Hampshire to see my college roommate, Michelle, marry our other roommate Eric ;) I was really excited to spend the weekend with my college girls especially in such a beautiful setting.

The wedding was at the Mount Washington Hotel and while it was a hike to get there, it was so worth it when we did. The view from the hotel was beautiful.
And the hotel wasn't half bad looking either!We took full advantage of the beautiful scenery and squeezed in a wedding morning girls photo (that's me on the right with the NYC girls Ali, Hill and Jodi).After a little more time admiring the view from the wedding location...We decided to get in one fun activity before the wedding.... the zip line. Unfortunately they don't let pregnant ladies "zip" so I stayed on firm ground and took a few pictures of the fun. Here are the future Kimpler's ready to go.

Due to time, everyone just did the racing course. From my vantage point, it definitely looked like a lot of fun!

After cleaning up (which doesn't take long with these lovely ladies!), we headed off to find the beautiful bride. Michelle looked gorgeous, as expected, and we were fortunate to get to spend some time with her before the ceremony.
We got in a few laughs too ;)After the ceremony, we got the boys in on the photo fun and took a group pic.

We chowed down at the cocktail hour while waiting for Michele and Eric to make their fairy tale grand entrance.

After a long night of yummy food and lots of dancing, we headed off to the after party at the Cave. Very appropriately named don't you think?
It was a great weekend and definitely too short (as the best weekends always are). The wedding was perfect and we're so happy that Michelle and Eric finally made it official!

Weekend with Dad

Last weekend, Mom headed to New Hampshire to go to a wedding for her college roommate.  Due to our recent and frequent travels, Dad decided to stay home with Carter and make it a boys weekend.  Mom left around 11:00am on Friday and promptly 2hrs later, Dad received a call from daycare that Carter may be feeling ill and that he should get picked up.  We are starting to wonder if Carter is learning to game the system, because he showed no signs of distress or discomfort and just wanted to play as soon as Dad picked him up.  So to kill his pent up energy and enjoy the nice afternoon, Dad and Carter decided to make a late afternoon Zoo trip.  Being at the Zoo in the late afternoon meant some of the animals were sleepy, but others were up and moving that normally are not.  One of these animal groups was the Warthogs.  Every time we have been to the Zoo prior they have been sleeping, but today they were out and about and giving Carter a good deal of entertainment.

One of his other favorite animals to watch is the River Otters.  Carter watched them swim around for a good ten minutes before trying to scale the railing to join them.

Unfortunately by the time we made it to the petting Zoo (our trip around the Zoo was much slower as Carter actually walked almost 80% of the time) the animals were already in the farm pens.  Luckily the pens still give him good viewing.

It was then time to go home and get in a good night sleep.  Morning came quick, here is the motley crew bright and early on Saturday morning.

It was another great morning, so before the football fun started, it was off to Piedmont Park for fun and exercise.  Carter first had a good time walking through the Farmer's Market then it was off to the lake dock where he promptly chased all the sunning ducks into the water.  As we made our way around the lake, Carter kept stopping as the ducks he had chased kept following us around (pretty sure they get a lot of bread crumbs from more charitable park visitors than the Holdens).

It was a beautiful day, Carter really enjoyed the sites downtown

We continued around the lake and made a fun stop at the small children's playground.  Carter was immediately in heaven as he has really started to enjoy climbing all over the place.

Quite the proud Yellow Jacket fan

Before lunch was needed, we were back home to watch Wisconsin and Georgia Tech pull off some big number wins, then off to bed... Sunday proved to be a fun one as well as we were off to the Botanical Gardens.  Carter really enjoyed the canopy walk.

However, he quickly slowed as he marched through it as the walk was dirtied by leaves.

Upon careful inspection, the leaves appeared to be loose and could be removed from the pathway...

So Carter decided to spend the next twenty minutes removing as many blemishes from the path as he could.

After our walk in the wooded area, we happened upon some blooming bushes.  Carter found the flowers fascinating.

It also turned out to be a chocolate celebration day which meant Dad heard the three most dreaded words ever... "today we have CHOCOLATE FINGER PAINTING in the main lawn".  Carter was ready and went to paint with Chocolate.  However, we were unable to get any pictures of the activity as it was all Dad could do to keep chocolate from getting all over Carter.  Here is Carter enjoying the spoils of his art afterwards, Yummy!

We continued our trip around the gardens, interested in all sorts of sights.

The Children's Garden was the most fun as it was fully interactive

He really liked the bee hive

So much so, that he kept going back under the drapes to catch another look

Overall it was a great weekend for Dad and Carter, but both were very happy to see Mom come home late Sunday evening

A Long Weekend in Wine Country

Labor Day weekend means the Holden's are on the move again! Mom and dad left Carter with grandmommy for a long wedding weekend in Sonoma, California. We started our vacation with a little piece of home...

Yep our rental car was from our home state and county - Cobb County, GA. How funny? Once we picked up our wheels, we headed into San Francisco for a quick lunch with Julie Luker! It was nice to see the newlywed and get caught up on life in SF. Hopefully we will have more time to chat when she makes it to Atlanta for the holidays.  Here is the view from there hopeful new home in San Francisco.

After lunch, we jumped on the road and headed across the Golden Gate Bridge....
yep, we couldn't see it either. And watched the fog roll in as we headed North to Healdsburg.
That evening, we met up with a bunch of old friends to start the celebration of Lindsay and Mike's wedding. Lindsay was a sorority sister of Jordan's and also went to Tech with Colin for a few years.

Mom and dad hit the bed early and woke up ready for the main event on Saturday. That morning Colin golfed while Jordan went to a ladies brunch.  Soon it was time to freshen up for the wedding. But first, we made a quick detour to the Coppola Winery to check out the memorabilia and the wine (dad only).
After a few tastes, we headed to the Trentadue Winery for the wedding. It was a gorgeous setting with vines in the foreground and mountains in the back.
Lindsay looked beautiful (her mom made her gown)! And the ceremony was really sweet.

We were lucky to grab a quick picture with the glowing bride (and Bride-to-be Kati!).
Colin enjoyed the winery's finest and was particularly excited that Lindsay had located a very rare vintage, he had been searching high and low for...
We danced the night away and slept in Sunday to make up for it. Once we got going we decided to spend the day driving around and checking out the sites and wines. We started the day stopping at a few places in the Alexander Valley.
Including the Jordan winery.We then made our way over to the Dry Creek area for a few more stops (aka tastes for Colin).
Most of the wineries had picnic areas, where people were relaxing with a bite to eat and bottle of wine. A lot of the wineries even sold local cheese and meats which sounded like the perfect afternoon bite to Jordan. The scenery was really beautiful every where we went.
We grabbed an early dinner and hit the bed early to try and work ourselves back onto Eastern time. We woke up early Sunday, grabbed a bite and hit the road back to SF. Things were slightly less foggy this time so we stopped to grab a few pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.
It was a really nice trip. Hopefully we can come back again soon for a longer trip when mom isn't pregnant! Congrats to the Van Syckle's! It was a wonderful weekend and we're thrilled for both of you!