the holiday season

Well, the holiday season is among us.. and hotel Macdonald has just started its busy season. With the birth of our child, I never knew that we would have family members visiting so often but I guess that we should have expected it. We are having a great time and are adjusting to life together with ease. Savannah went to her first holiday party this afternoon for CIS of Atlanta and is going to see Santa for the first time tonight in the neighborhood holiday party. Will post pictures later, promise. And we are going to cut down our Christmas tree tomorrow at Sleepy Hollow Tree Farm. Should be fun!

It is day two without my mom or other family members here at the house. It is just me and Savannah. I will admit I was really scared about doing it all myself after my mom drove out of the driveway on Monday afternoon, but I just kept telling myself that if all I did each day was make sure that Savannah was okay, then I had a successful day. Everything else could wait until Rian and I were both at home. Around 4:30 on Monday afternoon when I expected Rian to call and say hi before he went into BBQ to work, he called to let me know that he was on his way home; Carroll had found a replacement for Rian at BBQ, thus he no longer had to work nights. YEAH!!! It could not have come at a better time. We were able to just be a family, slightly different than before, but a family.

We are so grateful to have the support of our families during this time. I am especially grateful to have the support of my parents. I think that becoming a parent myself has truly made me appreciate and understand my own parents so much more than I did before. They are always there for me to call when things are just not going right or I just want to share a special moment with them. THANK YOU!

Scottish Heritage Day

Well, Little Savannah has certainly been busy lately. On Sunday we were invited to participate in the Scottish Heritage Day with the rest of the Macdonald clan. Although participating in the church services seemed out of the question, we were able to make it to the brunch at Rays on the River after the services. Believe it or not, Savannah was perfect! She slept through most of the brunch, however woke up just long enough to meet her cousins. It was great to get together with family, we do not do it enough.

Looking forward to the holidays when I hope that we will be able to see more of the Macdonald clan.

Savannah is HERE!

Well, not much time lately to update this blog since Savannah's arrival! Savannah, Rian and I are doing well. Rian is still working 18 hour days, at least for the next 2 weeks. He is going to stop working at BBQ soon since it is just too much, maybe not for him, but at least for me. It's not a minute too soon since my mom will be leaving on Monday.. it is going to be so hard to say goodbye to her since she has been such a HUGE help. Although she has really tried to not do much as it related to Savannah, except for holding her and just being grandma, and has let me figure out how to take care of her myself. She has been SO helpful in getting things done around the house, such as cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry etc. It is going to be interesting learning how to do it all myself, but I guess I just have to keep telling myself that even if I get nothing else done during the day except for taking care of Savannah, that I have accomplished something. Totally not in my nature to not get a million things done each day, but I am just going to have to adapt.

Was due today

Well, it seems as though today, my due date, is coming to an end quickly and we are still waiting for our little one to decide to join the world. Maybe she just knows that Rian has a HUGE event at school tomorrow and has secretly been asking her to wait until after the event to join the world, or maybe she just wants to be a Halloween baby. Who knows?! All that we do know is that if I do no go into labor myself, the doctors are going to induce me on Saturday morning. Of course we have mixed thoughts about having to be induced, but in the long run it will probably be best since I will be past due and I am getting slightly uncomfortable. It seems as though my stomach just keeps growing, but the scale keeps dropping each week I go to the doctor. I guess it has to do with the fact that I don't have that much room left in my stomach since she is taking up so much room! Well, the next time that I post, Rian and I will be parents!

Counting Down

Well, things have been interesting over the last few months. As our due date continues to grow closer, we continue to find more things that need to be accomplished around the house, as well as things that we want to do outside of the house.

Since we were not going to be here for Suzie's 30th birthday, we went away to north Georgia to a cabin for Labor Day weekend. We had a great time relaxing, playing games and just hanging out. Of course Rian out did himself with each meal he prepared. Suzie also agreed to take our maternity pictures that weekend, and we could not have picked a more beautiful place to capture such an amazing time of our lives. Suzie did a great job, especially since I told her we were not taking any pictures of my bare belly; but I guess she got me back when she told me that I was going to get in the creek fully dressed to take some pictures! Looking back, it was probably not a great idea, but the pictures turned out terrific. It is so great to have a professional photographer as a friend; I am sure people say the same thing about having a professional chef as a friend too!



We went to Taylor and Samantha's wedding in Baltimore on September 11th, yeah I flew at about 35 weeks pregnant and survived an entire weekend at the wedding, including staying out with partying with the wedding party, we the groomsmen until 5am the night before the wedding. What was I thinking?! Both Samantha and Taylor looked so happy; it was a great location, beautiful surroundings and weather.

We thought that would be our last big event before giving birth, but my family and friends had a baby shower in store for me the next weekend. Q and Suzie threw such a terrific baby shower, especially in light of me not wanting one at all! I was able to see so many people and catch up with them since getting together with people I don't work with has been tough lately. Thank you to everyone!

Also that weekend, my dad worked his butt off getting the nursery ready for us to set up. It was sure a tough job and we GREATLY appreciate all of his hard work. We would not have been able to do it without his help or that of my mothers. Over the course of the weekend, the nursery got painted, many items were purchased and replaced around the house and lots of excited family members spent time together. Rian's mom and sister were also in town that weekend for the shower, but as it turned out Rian had a cooking event that weekend too! He did a demo at Live Healthy and Thrive Summer Social with Marvin Woods.


It seems like EVERY waking moment that we are not working, we are either setting up something for the baby's arrival, such as finding a pediatrician, or putting something together for the nursery. It is a good thing that Rian actually likes following the picture directions to get everything put together correctly. Here are some pictures. I will try to get some more posted as we add things.

Well, as it turns out I am REALLY bad about posting every week like I originally planned. And now that school started it is only getting worse. Things seems to be going well, despite the constant on-the-go between Rian's new job (which he loves!), my job, getting ready for the baby, me turning the big 3-0 and just regular life, it seems as though there are not too many hours left at the end of each day.

It is hard to believe that down here in the South we are already in our 2nd week of school... which means that Rian has been a teacher for 8 days now and is actually loving his job and his students. I never thought that the two of us would both be working in the education field... but hey it works.

It has been an interesting start of the year for me... students are continually asking me if I am pregnant.. I have started responding "no, I just gained a lot of weight over the summer"... I guess that is just me being sick of students asking silly questions. It is going to be a very different year for me since the graduating class is much larger than last years class which translates to many more students to keep track of and many more transcripts to memorize, especially with a "prego-brain". Despite the larger number of students, I am excited to be working with this group of seniors, they are already showing a concern about their education this year, and what their future plans entail.

In the middle of our 1st week back at school, my parents came into town to help work on the nursery and to celebrate my birthday. It was great to have them in town! This time we were able to get some work done, but were able to have some fun as well. We went out for dinner at Canoe... it was super. It is always nice to have a husband who has connections in the culinary world. Well now that I have a new camera (along with came a new cord to import pictures)and I can import my pictures from my old camera and post them.

Many Overdue Updates

Oops... thought I actually posted this back in July....

Well, before Suzie tells me one more time that I need to update my Blog, I am going to use my time sitting in a back-to-school training, to update what I can.

Things are going well with the pregnancy... We found out in June that we are having a little girl and are getting very excited about welcoming her to the world in late-October. We have been VERY busy since I last posted...

Rian left Le Cordon Bleu in mid-June. He felt it was time for him to move on in his professional career and it was perfect timing since a technical high school in DaKalb county was looking for a Professional Foods teacher to start this fall. The past few months have been stressful waiting for DeKalb to get all of his necessary paperwork together and processed in order to officially offer him the position. As we all know, Rian cannot just be doing nothing for too long, thus he found himself a "farmer Rian" position at a local organic farm located in Loganville to keep himself busy and learning while he waited to hear back.

We took at trip to Maryland in June to visit Rian's family and to see Chris Robinson graduate from the police academy in Salisbury. It was great to see everyone since I had not seem most of them since the wedding, which was two years ago. Hard to believe huh?! It was great to see Jordyn and get to hang him; he has grown up so much since we last saw him. Him and Baylee got along so well, chasing each other around the house and playing catch outside in the backyard. Sometimes we wish that we lived closer to family, it would make visiting so much easier.

After we returned, we entered getting ready for the baby mode. We wanted to have wood floors installed before she arrived and to get the rest of the renovations in the basement finished. Thus we had our work cut out for us. We picked out the wood for the floors, scheduled the install while we would take our last summer vacation to New Hampshire to my parents lake house, and starting preparing the list of items we need to purchase in order to welcome our new one to the world. And the list continues growing...

Over the July 4th holiday, Rian's mom came to visit for a week. While we tried to relax some, Rian had us going to the farm to see what his new summer job entailed, and working at the Powder Springs Farmers Market, which actually turned out to be fun, despite the extremely high temperatures. Towards the end of her visit, we put her to work, helping us pack everything in boxes so the furniture could be moved to install the new floors. Thus it was a jam packed visit.

We were able to finally relax when we boarded the plan to Boston on our way to New Hampshire! We had a great visit with my parents and sister. My mom planned a surprise 60th birthday for my dad, which was pulled off without any problems, the weather even cooperated! Just being able to do nothing for a few days was terrific. There is something about being at "the lake", that makes you just relax... the view from the house overlooking the calm lake and the fresh air. If only it was not in New Hampshire where it snows A LOT in the winter!

Although it was hard to come back to reality after a few days of peacefulness, it was nice to come home to new floors, ones that I do not have to steam clean almost every week in order to keep the white carpets clean. It was not too nice however to have to spend the last few days we had of vacation unpacking all our stuff, and cleaning all of the dust from the floors being installed.

Try it again

After last summer with our unfortunate situation trying to start a family, Rian and I decided to put it in the back of our heads for a while and let destiny and fate take over in that department. So much was going on for us professionally that it was not hard to do. We concentrated on our jobs and continuing to get Chef Mac, LLC established instead. We must have done something right, since around Valentines Day, I knew.. I knew that I was pregnant again. I hesitated telling Rian until I confirmed it with a doctor, but I could not wait, what better Valentines gift could a wife give to her husband?! than a baby.


Things have just taken off and are going by VERY fast now that the first trimester is over and the concerns about me having another miscarriage are in the back of our minds. We are thinking about a nursery, cribs etc, but before all of that can happen we have to get our hard wood floors installed. Too much too quick if you ask me. It is good that we have each other to get us through this though, otherwise I am not sure how I would do it.

On top of all of this baby stuff, I was not sure if I had a job as a Graduation Coach next year, until last week when Atlanta Public Schools finally signed our contracts for the 10-11 school year. Yeah, I am employed again next year. And Rian is looking to make a move professionally as well. Don't want to jinx it yet, so will write when the ink is dry on the contract.

Now that school is over for the year and I had all but 5 of my 100 seniors walk across the stage on May 29th graduating, you would think summer was low key, but no... I am working the month of June back at South Atlanta. I am working with the other Graduation Coach, Rachel, my partner in crime lately. It has truly been a blessing to be placed at the same school as such an amazing individual. I LOVE working with her! We are working with about 50 students, some seniors who did not pass the graduation tests and/or classes to make sure that they are able to pass over the summer thus graduate in July as summer graduates of 2010, as well as underclassmen who failed classes this year. It should be interesting.

Once again, I promised Suzie I would start a blog when I was expecting so I would make sure to document everything along the journey, thus I am holding true to my promise. AHH, what have I gotten myself into? I also promised that I would post pictures along the way.. so here are two, not great quality, but what can you ask of a camera on a Blackberry?