The Girls

Alabama State Bar Annual Meeting- Part 2

The Annual Meeting's signature evening event was a carnival night. It was another great family event. The food and music were great (there was even a knee high buffet table with kid friendly foods). Some of the activities included temporary tattoos, carnival games, ice cream, and an obstacle course.

The night ended with a great fireworks show, which both girls (and Mom and Dad) really enjoyed.

Alabama State Bar Annual Meeting

The Alabama State Bar held its annual meeting in July at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama. Approximately 400 lawyers and their families attended this event. The Alabama Bar deserves a lot of credit for making the annual meeting a true family affair. Our girls were welcome at all events (and fortunately they know how to behave at parties and receptions). There was also a lot of down time for fun activities:

Kate relaxing near the pool.

Grace enjoyed the very nice pool.

Grace made some new friends on the beach

Unique Client Meeting

I had an opportunity to meet with two of my clients at their very nice home. I scheduled the meeting for a morning that I had the girls (with the clients’ consent of course) and brought them with me. My clients were almost too hospitable to the girls. While we were “talking business,” Grace enjoyed a homemade muffin and a tall glass of milk. My clients also turned on the television for her and she was able to watch one of her favorite shows. The only downside is that Grace now asks to go to all client meetings. I am thinking she assumes that Daddy conducts all of his meetings with muffins, milk and cartoon shows! How nice it would be if it that was always the case.

My Little Networkers

The Vestavia Chamber of Commerce routinely hosts ribbon cuttings, which honor and welcome new businesses to our area. These events are typically after work and are always quite fun.

I brought both girls with me to an open house at Altadena Dental. They had a great time and were very well behaved. Grace really enjoyed the chicken tenders and fruit. She even had two cookies for dessert. I had an opportunity to see some old friends and meet several new ones. My girls are never going to have any trouble meeting new people and mingling at a social event!

Friday Night Adventure

One Friday night I agreed to go with a client to an entertainment venue to discuss the terms of a contract for an upcoming event. My wife had previously made plans, so my two little legal assistants came with me.

At one point, Kate was sitting in my lap. I was holding a contract and listening to a discussion. I did not realize that Kate (who was being strangely quiet) was chewing on the document. I quickly ripped the paper from her hands and realize a little bit of the corner was missing. It is really professional to be asking about an indemnity clause, while picking out pieces of paper from your six month old’s mouth.

Grace quickly realized that we were probably going to go out to dinner and started immediately lobbying for “Old McDonald’s.” I’ll admit that it is not my first choice and I tried to take us by a client’s restaurant. However, that restaurant was extremely crowded (great for them!) and the wait would not have worked well with our bed time, so I ended up using the aforementioned fast food option.

I ordered a Happy Meal for Grace and when asked to choose between white and chocolate milk, I chose chocolate (I was feeling generous because she was so good at our meeting). I guess I did not realize that my wife has tried to prevent Grace from realizing that chocolate milk was even an option at restaurants. No less than five times for the remainder of the evening Grace would randomly say, “chocolate milk, mommy is not going to believe this.” Needless to say, before even saying hi, Grace informed her mother that she had chocolate milk for dinner.