This past weekend was spent at my Mom’s house in metro Detroit….the house I grew up in. My old stompping grounds, near so many of my friends, my boy’s family, my family.

My friend Michelle asked me what I was most looking forward to about coming “home” and I knew instantly it was the food. ha. The food pretty well sucks in Houston…sorry Texans! It just does. I had a whole list of food places I wanted to hit up last and this past weekends and we hit almost all of them:

* Sweet Lorraine’s - a local small chain of awesome recipes and dishes you will never find anywhere else. This is the first restaurant Tony and I took Noah to when he was only a few days old. We’ve celebrated many many life events here. We ate our two favorite dishes: pecan-crusted chicken and pasta with chicken and dried cherries. Sounds boring but OMG, you have no idea! You have not lived until you’ve had either of these dishes. If you are ever driving through Detroit this is the best place ever.

* Almond Boneless Chicken at our favorite chinese dive, Lim’s Palace. They knew us by caller id here back in the day I grew up on this stuff and had no idea until I moved to Houston that Almond Boneless Chicken is a detroit thing. It really doesn’t exist elsewhere, it’s totally native to the metro Detroit area and to die for!!!!!! I HAD to have ABC while we were in town.

* Bangkok Cuisine - my favorite thai joint. Again, so much history. Thanh was friends with the family who owned this small chain so we went often and it was a long time before I realized it was by far the best Thai restaurant ANYWHERE. Eventually a friend we grew up with opened his own store and it had the best ambiance ever. Tony and I ate there often, too. It was just our go-to spot for Thai food and nothing else has ever come close. They even have a cookbook but no one makes it like they do.

* Mongolian BBQ - there are lots of places like this one all over the place but this is the original and it is soooo yummy.

Of course I had lots of Einstein bagels - every morning in fact! haha. And I also had some not-so-regional favorites that we don’t have in Houston like Baja Fresh and Slurpees. The one thing I did NOT have was Olga’s Kitchen but Tony did, that rat. I am so jealous. If you don’t know Olga’s, I can’t possibly describe it to you. You just must go.

Ok now that the food portion of this trip is covered, I can get onto the more meaningful portions.

Saturday we celebrated my Mom’s birthday, a few days late. We took her to Mongolian BBQ and ate like pigs. My brother and his woman, Karen, met us there and later came back to hang at my Mom’s house. It was fun hanging out as a family - a rare treat. The kids were nuts, Joby (my brother) does that to them. He’s the Fun Uncle who is just insane. They miss him so much!! Happy Birthday Mom!

Sunday the boys went with their Dad and his family for the day, Tony went with his kids for the morning and later in the afternoon we went to a potluck hosted by a bunch of my local friends. OMG I miss them so much!!!! They are like family to me. We’ve all been through so much together. Of course it also reminded me of how lonely I am in Houston but of course you all knew that….anyone who would drive 60 hours across the US to hang out with her various friends must be pretty desparate! LOL I just really never appreciated fully my awesome group of friends here in Michigan. Part of the problem was that we lived really far out the last few years and everyone is SO spread out in Detroit….not unlike Houston! Ugh. Anyway I doubt I will ever have a big group in Texas as close and awesome and grounded as my Michigan buds and their awesome kids. At this point I’d settle for a small group

So goodbye sucks. We had to say goodbye to my Mom, Tony had to say goodbye to his kids, my boys had to say goodbye to their Dad (which I hear was very emotional) and I had to say goodbye to all my friends. Sob. It sucked so bad. I hate hate hate goodbyes. These same friends talked about having a bon voyage get together when we first moved and I totally convinced them not to because I just did not want a goodbye. So yesterday sucked but at least it was just one day - ripping off the bandaid fast and all at once, right?

So now we are in Youngstown, OH where we stayed the night last night on our way to North Carolina tomorrow. It was SUCH a long drive so we drove 4 hours last night to make it four hours less for today. And then I threw in a new activity today becuase I’m super-spontaneous (not!) like that. More about that later, though.

one big announcement before I’m off to North Carolina: Yesterday at the party, Noah lost his very first baby tooth. He had two teeth pulled that had an enamel defect but those were pulled a long time ago. This was his first natural loss. It was not without drama (mostly for me). It fell out RIGHT in front of me (and I can not even tell you how long I’ve been dreading exactly this and how much i had hoped he’d lose it when I was not home or something) and more or less screamed in a panic “My tooth chipped!!!” while holding a huge chunk of tooth in his hand. that’s a visual I will NEVER forget. If he could have lost a tooth in any more of a “ping Nicki’s tooth phobia” way I would be curious to know how. That sucked, I almost threw up and instead just drank heavily! LOL The weird thing about all of it is that WE knew his teeth were SUPER loose for a LONG time, he had no idea. I have no idea how he was so clueless. I knew enough to bring the tooth fairy pillow I bought him last month along with us on our trip! But he was so totally freaked out! But then he was excited and proud (thanks to my more level-headed friends!) and sure enough this morning he discovered the tooth fairy found us all the way here in Youngstown and left him $1!!! He’s so sweet. But again, he is his mother’s child and it is not without drama. The neighbor tooth is SUPER loose and it is making him CRAZY and he told me last night he was going to refuse to both shut his mouth AND sleep until it fell out because he is PETRIFIED of swallowing it (and choking and dying) in his sleep. He was really freaked last night and Tony tried to pull it, twice, and Noah tried to wiggle it out several times but no go. I am anxious for him to get rid of this second tooth so the drama will end for awhile. Meanwhile, at almost 6.5, I am glad I haven’t had to deal with this sooner Congrats to my big boy who now has three gaps and soon to be 4. His top two teeth are also loose but hopefully they won’t come out until the bottoms start to grow in or he won’t be able to eat (with six missing front teeth)! ha.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 7:17 am and is filed under Holidays & Vacations, Milestones, Things I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.