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| NC Gang in FL |
Kentucky
We left home at about 3 in the afternoon and drove the ~5 hours down to Louisville. Dinner was veggies and hummus on the road. We arrived at the Hotel Distil and used two valet carts to get our stuff to the room. The next morning Keith left to visit three communities in the market, and on the way back to the hotel, he stopped by where he used to live during his pre-Shawna years, Mallgate Apartments (now Halsey Flats) by Mall St Matthews. Dinner that night was takeout from Merle's Whiskey Kitchen with a bottle of wine from the hotel (after we bought that we remembered that we had ~20 bottles with us!).
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| Dining Covid style - take-out in our room |
Carolinas
After a quick visit in Kentucky we drove the 8 hours to Raleigh - the last time Keith did this drive was when he was moving to Durham to go to grad school. While we used much of the drive to listen to the beginning of Obama's audio book, we were lucky to spend 2 hours listening to Phoebe's bat mitzvah over Zoom in the morning! It was great to listen to and Phoebe was incredible - very poised and confident. Lunch was cheese and crackers: we had stopped by Whole Foods in the morning for a gorgeous spread that Shawna "served" as Keith was driving. As a result, we made fantastic time and arrived at Chez Douglas on the Saturday night just after 5pm. We unloaded the car and Keith set up his mobile office in John's spare room and had a few beers with sushi for dinner. We stayed for a week with Shawna working out of John's house and Keith spent a couple of days down in Charlotte visiting properties. While in Raleigh, we:
- Went for a walk around the Washington Duke Golf course - Keith with Stephanie and Shawna going for a run
- Ate lunch at Fosters
- Cooked gumbo and made a few meals out of it
- Had a socially distant Asian dinner at Keith and Kates (with Phoebe and Ruby) around their outdoor fireplace
- Did a few more walks: around John's neighborhood and to the mall and back
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| Socially distanced dinner at the Artins |
The drive down to Atlanta was easy - more audiobook and cheese and crackers. We planned the trip to arrive by 2pm so Keith could secret shop a property on the Sunday afternoon. We checked into the Westin Perimeter North. We got a larger suite so that there was more room after the smaller space we had in Louisville. We had mediterranean for dinner than night (delivered to our hotel). On the Monday, Keith toured properties all day while Shawna worked out of the hotel. After property tours, Keith returned to the hotel, changed, and drove Shawna to a dinner in the private dining room of Ray's on the River where we had yummy steaks, joined by Kelly, JP, and Shuyi.
Louisiana
After the brief stay in Atlanta, it was time for the 8-hour drive to Shawna's mom's house so that we could be with her for a few days over Christmas! Keith drove half the way and was on conference calls much of the day. We arrived at the house early evening. While at Shawna's mom's we:
- Cooked and ate gumbo for Christmas Eve and several meals after...with enough leftovers to take to the beach house and have TWO full meals there!
- Ate fried turkey courtesy of Chet for Christmas day with some delicious sides
- Opened gifts on Christmas morning and gave Shawna's mom the Christmas gift of Shawna returning to the house for two weeks and being there to celebrate her 80th birthday
- Baked ginger cookies
- Ate pineapple cake that Shawna's mom made for Keith - we managed to eat the entire cake over four days!
- Went for walks along the bayou every day
- Watched cheesy Christmas movies at night
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| Celebrating Xmas Covid style |
We rented a house on the beach for the week over New Year's with the Raleigh gang (Joyce/Phil, Kim/Jonathan, and John/JoAnna). We left Moreauville on the Sunday morning with a lunch stop in Slidell for Keith to meet his colleague Tami for lunch. We made it to the beach house at 5pm: the rest of the crew were already there and had selected rooms which made things easier. The gang helped us unload the car, Keith set up his "office" for the week, and we warned up the gumbo for the first dinner. The house was great - it had 7 bedrooms with plenty of bathrooms and a nice sized kitchen / dining / living room area. It was located directly not the beach with great views of the water from each floor.
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| House Rental |
The week was quite lazy:
- In the morning, people either went for walks, read, or slept in.
- Every day was focused on cooking, eating, cleaning up, and of course a few drinks were had - including Shawna's cocktails of the day, Each couple had a day of cooking. Shawna's day was New Years Eve and included an amazing kale salad for lunch and roast lamb for dinner with two steamed puddings for dessert.
- The house had a pool that was heated. While it was a bit cool outside, it was warm enough to have a dip in the pool and drink a beer or five. It sunny the first few days of the week so we could sit outside and soak up a few rays during the day.
- Keith took out his kite once: since he brought it he had to use it!
- We played a few games around the kitchen table each day.
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| Hanging out at the pool |
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| Playing games |
It was ~7 hours back to Moreauville for Shawna, then two weeks with her mom where she:
- Worked out of her house during the week
- Cooked lots of healthy food for mom to try and give her ideas
- Went for walks/run along the bayou
- Watched more cheesy Christmas movies
- Baked cookies and a pineapple cake for Shawna's mom's birthday
- Chatted with some of her friends who Shawna had texted to come by individually and wish her mom a socially distanced birthday
- Looked at old photos and reminisced about old memories
Tampa / Orlando / Jacksonville / Nashville (Keith)
Keith's job the next two weeks was to haul all the stuff in the car as he visited properties and met some of his teammates. The next two weeks were all work, but he arrived home safely on Saturday Jan 16th, with Shawna flying home on the 17th.
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| JoAnna, Joyce, Kim and Shawna in FL |
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