Lunch and Drive-bys in Homewood

Since we are now both at home again, my sweet hubby decided that we should do a date lunch every week. I think that's a great idea. We pick a spot, sometimes close to home and sometimes further away and have a lunch date to catch up with each other. One day we went for a mid-morning breakfast to IHOP. This day we decided on a cute little Greek place in Homewood that we've been to before called Nabeel's. Great food, good ambience. We parked here and walked around the corner. This is a music shop that does repairs on musical instruments.
And look what is in the window...his 2 doggies taking a snooze. At first I thought they were stuffed, but at second glance, they're just napping. So cute! They didn't even budge when I took their picture outside the window.
Nabeel's Cafe...great little neighborhood place for lunch.
Cute ambience about it. It's owned by a Greek family and has been around a few years now.
The menu.

Bruschetta for an appetizer.
I got the grilled grouper sandwich. I can hardly pass up grouper sandwiches EVER! This one was delish. With a side of sweet potato fries...oh man!
Hubby gazing out the window.
Since he was driving, on the way back home, we went tooling through some side streets and he stopped to let me take pics. This area of town is Homewood, which I've told you about before. I just love all the architectural styles represented here.
I think I could live in any one of these beautiful homes.

Gorgeous! Spanish style stucco.
Not sure the style of this red one.
Love this quaint white cottage.
Another Mediterrean beauty. Hope you enjoyed lunch out and the drive-bys too! I just love these older parts of our city.

Lunch with the Empty Nesters

(left to right, me, Maureen, Renee, Sandy, & Tricia)

I've been fortunate to have made some friends with a group of ladies who all live in the same neighborhood. You remember our Southern Living lunch at Tricia's house? Since none of us have children at home, we have dubbed ourselves the Empty Nesters, and last week I had lunch with them. We ate at a fun girly-girl place in Mountain Brook called Olexa's. Good food, fun place to go for lunch, but leave the boys at home. They would not like the salads or the quiche! We all got yummy salads & yakked away. I was on my lunch hour, so had to get back to work. They, on the other hand, did not! We don't get together as much as we'd like, but it sure is fun when we do. I don't know what my right arm is doing, I think I was trying to scoot back to get in the picture...looks like I'm a spaz!

We actually met again this week after work for Mexican and brought our hubbies. That was so fun too, getting to meet each other's spouses. We're going to plan an evening real soon for all the couples to get together & go out to eat & socialize. That's always fun to do!

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My buddy, Willzmom at Lots of Little Things, has tagged me to post 5 Things I Remember, that start with I Remember When......so here goes:

1. I remember when I got my first car and promptly put in an 8-track player...I thought I was SO cool! Some of you will not even know what I'm talking about. That technology is something you've only heard about in passing. Others of you will be right on board, baby!
   
2. I remember when gas was 27 cents a gallon, back when I first started driving. Boy, have times changed!


3. I remember when we got our first TV, when I was 6 years old. It was a big black & white console and the first thing that came on was the old cartoon of the big rooster & the little baby rooster. I can't even remember the name of it. Anyone remember that one? The daddy had a deep voice & called the baby...Boooyyyy. Refresh my memory, please?!
   
4. I remember wearing clothes my mom sewed for me. She always sewed our clothes growing up and it was a big deal for me when I got to be a teenager and earned some money, so I could buy real store-bought clothes. Wooooo-hoooooo!


5. I remember going on family vacations and my sister and me making pallets in the backseat. Sometimes one would lay on the big bench seat (we always had HUGE 4-door cars) and the other would be on the floor, with lots of blankets of course to make the hump in the floor even. I would even lay back on the flat part under the back window sometimes. Seat belts were not a big deal back then. Can you imagine doing that today?

That's enough good ole' memories for now! Hope ya'll have a great weekend. I'm the Social Director for our neighborhood now & we have a Halloween Festival planned for Sunday. Hope we have a decent turnout. I've got the local fire department bringing out a truck for the kids to look at & we'll be doing pizza & dessert. I'll try to post some pics next week!