Vacation 2010

The grass is burnt, the flowers are loosing the battle with the summer heat too, we have spent nearly the last 4 months outside and we have just returned from vacation.  What does it all mean? Summer 2010 is nearing it's end...

This summer we trekked north again to our family vacation spot on Cayuga Lake, one of the finger lakes in upstate New York.  Not much changes there, the people come and go, every year the family number seemingly gets lower and that is in a word, tragic. It is however a known reality.  Regardless, our time on the lake and IN the lake is always relaxing and fun!

This year we were lucky enough to work with Chevy and they provided us with a free ride there.  Chevy loaned us a 2010 Traverse LTZ.  This SUV was fully loaded with XM Radio, OnStar Directions and Connections (navigation), a ceiling mounted DVD entertainment system complete with two wireless headsets for the back seats(!)*cue angels singing*, and a TON more! Wow, what a ride this was, the DVD system alone made the trip so peaceful and enjoyable with our two toddlers that I've decided a portable dvd player is a must have before vacation 2011. 

While at the lake we did the usual eat, swim, play and swim, eat, swim, nap, snack, swim, eat, swim/play routine nearly every day! It was glorious!  I got to run on the lake road (awesome view the entire time and wow cooler temps really help... this muggy hot crap we've had for the last 6 weeks NEEDS to move on... my running is suffering)... The kids had fun, Chris and I had fun, the Grandparents had fun and so did the aunt and uncle even though they are lucky to still be able to pass said crazy toddler back to said responsible parent when things get a little out of control.  Everyone lost a bit of their hearing due to said crazy toddlers but in the end I think everyone enjoyed the company of each other.  The kids became much more comfortable in the water, although proper swim lessons are in order next Spring! 

One afternoon the grandparents suggested that we take a few hours and hit up some winerys alone!  Yippee! The kids were napping and Chris had done a little googling and found an interesting place to check out called Three Brothers Wineries & Estates.  It featured three wineries and a brewery!  Jackpot!  We called the OnStar navigation operator, gave her the street address and she beamed the directions to the car! We listened to some hilarious comedy on the XM radio and the navigation system broke in when it was time to change course.  It was GREAT! I had never used OnStar navigation before and I was quite impressed.  It's easy to use and 100% hands free.  That's a big plus! 

The wineries were a HUGE hit!  Three Brothers features three wineries as I mentioned already, there is the top of the hill, high end winery, there is the middle of the road, having some fun in the back seat winery which featured sweeter wines that would easily get ya tipsy if you split a bottle with your husband and there is Bagg Dare.... fashioned after a backwater town on the bayou complete with pirates(?), hoochies, rusted out trucks and misspelled words (lol).  This was some hooch!  but good hooch at that!  I usually like a fairly dry red wine and these were not even close, but who doesn't like sweet cold alcoholic beverages on a hot summer day?  We enjoyed it and had some fun trying new wines and talking with the folks that work there.  We even bought a few bottles to bring home.  Let's just say that stuff is pretty dangerous!

We also stopped at  Americana Winery on the way back to the house and it offered very good dry wines that we also enjoyed.  We had a good time talking to a guy there too - he reminded us several times that "this is America you can do anything you like!"  Love it!


One morning we took the kids blueberry picking - it was super fun, here's a little video you can watch from that adventure:



Picking Blueberries from StartPoint Media on Vimeo.




By Friday it was time to pack up the car, take one last swim in the lake, have some lunch and hop in the Traverse for our trip back home.  On our way out of town we stopped at Lively Run Goat Dairy where we took a tour and tasted some cheese!  They had some kids who were 13 weeks old - SOOO cute!  We brought home some YUMMY French Style Chevre goat cheese too!

 Our drive home was a little less enjoyable due to toddlers and their potty habits and the monkey see monkey do mentality of a JUST potty trained 2 1/2 yr old... let's just say a 7 hour drive with 7 stops... NOT the best combo.


Fall is just a few weeks away, soon Max will be back in preschool (3 days a week this year), I'll be back in school for the semester and we'll have a normal schedule again.  I think we all are in need of a little structure after our summer of fun!


This post is a bit of a hybrid post, a round up of our family vacation and a review for Chevy.  They gave us the Traverse for the week with a full tank of gas and in return they have received some tweets mentioning Chevy and Traverse while we were on vacation. The opinions here are all my own. 

Vacation 2.0

This post is WAY overdue.... in fact really any post from me is way overdue... what can I say, we've been playing a LOT and enjoying the summer. That leaves me with little time to properly blog...

The last week in June, we packed up the kids and the car again and drove north this time to the finger lakes region of NY. Cayuga Lake to be specific. We've been traveling there since before the dawn of time (or at least that's what it seems like). We planned to spend a week with my family. We had some nice weather early in the week, then things got quite soggy... we did manage to get in a decent amount of swimming and water fun during the mornings and early afternoons... then almost every day after dinner things turned gray and either rained or threatened to.

We did have a LOT of fun though, here are some photos to prove it:

In this photo, you are seeing silly towel hats and fart noise instruction.


In this photo, this is what you would call a Toddler Burrito with a side of Silly Sunglasses.


Lots of family fun.


And even a photo shoot with a "supermodel" for a centerfold. Courtesy of my brother, Jesse.

More photos can be found here.

Beach Vacation and Language

We spent last week at the beach. This is the 3rd year in a row that we traveled there, it was the 2nd year that we spent the week with Chris's family. We travel to Lewes Beach DE and it's about a 7 hour drive including lunch stops and such. Chris's Aunt and Uncle from Denver travel there as well and they usually bring 2 grandchildren. This year they brought Elias and Andrew with them, both boys were 12 years old. My kids learned a LOT from the boys :) Max's language and sentence structure exploded while there. He's speaking in nearly full sentences and it's just hilarious. Andy also has had an explosion of sorts, his words currently consist of the following:
cup - which means cup and also water in terms of water in the bathtub and water in the ocean
help
up
off (he tells us to turn lights and ceiling fans off - however off also apparently means ON)
cat
puppy
hello
buh bye
bike
book
ball
uh huh
boo boo
sheep

He also understands everything! Including his brother. Max has started to instruct Andy during play, Andy sometimes listens. And this results in a lot of 10 minute play sessions where they are playing with the SAME toy (the fisher price farm for example). No one gets mad, screams or cries. i call that progress! Max is also really learning to share. This is a great change as well :)

Here are a few photos from vacation:


Max enjoying a banana ice cream cone - while eating this, he bit a whole in the cone and started to 'hoot', I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Looking for an owl." Since the topic of ice cream flavors seems to be a popular one these days, banana might be a good one to try, this was outstanding!


This was taken the evening we got there, after dinner we headed to the beach in our regular clothes... I should have known better... I tried to keep the kids from getting completely soaked but slightly damp turned into wet pants, and wet pants turned into damp shirt and damp shirt turned into completely soaked. I threw in the towel at wet pants... LOL they had fun and so did we and frankly i'm pretty sure that is all that matters.

More photos can be seen here.

In crafty news, I knit a few more washrag's the circular ones from MDK, I just love those. And, I started a project requested by my cousin. She requested a beach bag. I had a hard time finding fabric that I loved... and that I knew SHE would love. Until Monday.... It's a large floral print. I've started sewing the Everything Tote from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. Examples can be found here. Photos to follow soon.

this is going to be a long one

ok, cleaning house a bit, a few lists:

andy stats:
he's sitting unassisted for a minute or so at a time.
he's up on all fours doing that thing where they sway back and forth and he sometimes does a little crawling in the backwards direction.
he's eating a load of cereal.
he had fresh zucchini from my cousin's garden while on vacation and fresh picked blueberries and some banana.
he will go down for a nap or to sleep at night without being asleep, i can put him in his crib and if he's sleepy enough he'll fall asleep in about 10 minutes. if he's not, he lets you know by screaming, i go get him we play for another 20-30 minutes then try again and he usually goes down the 2nd time.
he has become baptized to the religion of the lake goers.

max stats:
he is feeding himself really well with utensils. he has mastered the spoon for cereal and ice cream and other spoon friendly foods.
he is potty training himself.

yes, i said potty training himself. he's been peeing on the potty for quite some time. not at any really regular intervals during the day but before and after naps and bedtime and any other time we change a diaper (he doesn't always go when we put him on there but he understands that if he goes, he gets to flush! big fun!) so while on vacation we were eating a late dinner and he was giving us a hell of a time basically he didn't want to eat. we didn't fight it. we let him get down from his chair, he went to the other room to be private then quickly came back to let chris know that he had pooed.

it was just a little bit so chris put him on the potty to finish. he went some more and exclaimed that he was "all done!"
the next day the same thing happened except all of the poo ended up in the potty.
this was a few days ago, we haven't changed a poopy diaper since.
fastforward to today, we had lunch he started to play, i was cleaning up and he runs in and says, "mama, this!" and grabbed his crotch. so we went to the potty, his diaper was wet but not warm so i know he hadn't peed lately in it. i put him on the pot and leave the room (he won't do anything in there if you're in there with him). at this point i hear him trying to go. wouldn't you know it, i then had to go too.... so i leave him there and run to the basement. i go. (i know tmi) then run back upstairs to find him still going... so i stand outside the door and listen. then i hear a plop and he starts to whine so i go back in to find that he went a TON! i gave him a big kiss, cleaned him up and let him flush the toilet! big excitement! we aren't close to getting rid of diapers all together because he still pees there quite often. i'm fairly certain that i could train him if i took the time but i need chris to be here on a somewhat normal schedule and frankly that's not going to be the case until the end of august. so maybe we'll attempt it the week of his birthday.

vacation wrap up:
ahhhh the lake! we had some crappy weather, especially early in the week. it would be sorta clear in the mornings but by 10 or so it would cloud up and rain off and on for the rest of the day only to clear around 7 pm or so... then mid week there was one day it rained all day. then thursday and friday it was pretty nice and then saturday it was sunny until about 1 then got cloudy again just in time for us to pack up and leave. regardless of the weather we still had fun. and got a good amount of swimming and lake lounging done too.

andy make his lake debut!
here he is with papa! both look pretty happy to be there!

max played with his bucket and rocks! this is my favorite photo of the entire week!




i relaxed in a chair in the water....


we had a great time not doing a whole lot. my mom and i did manage to go shopping in a small town one afternoon, i found some great antique buttons. three pearly white ones that are square and are angular and 9 dark blue ones that are pearly. i also got some super cool antique post cards from around 1906 for chris. one is of the intersection of 4th and wood downtown (right where he works) and the other is a view of 1st ave taken from station square. both are pretty neat.

another day my mom and i also went to pick blue berries! we got there kinda late and they were going to close in about 20 minutes. but between the two of us we each filled a 1 gallon ziplock bag! we had enough blue berries for the week and we both got to take home about half a bag each! we're still eating fresh blueberries! for those two large bags, we paid $8! can't beat that! i can't wait to do that again next year!

i also made a lot of progress on my FLS. not quite done with the body yet. i did have to fix a mistake (thanks amanda for that technique! i did it all by myself! yay!) i am starting to worry that i need to buy two more balls of yarn...

as for traveling with this kids. this trip was a little easier. we left the house about 5 on our way up. we stopped around 7 for breakfast then again about 2 hours later so that could feed andy again and so that max could run around a bit.
then about 30 minutes after that the kids were both having fits... so i crawled into the back seat and proceeded to read to them... all the while i felt like i could have yacked....

as for the ride home.... we were supposed to leave early sunday morning. chris has a job scheduled for about 3 pm that day so we had to hustle. we then decided late afternoon on saturday that we would just scrap that and instead pack up the car and the kids that evening and leave around 8 pm (aka bedtime). so i cleaned, chris packed the car, max helped us both ;) then we left! my parents stayed until the morning then traveled early. we got home about 2 am... we were very groggy. the kids slept through the whole thing. it was awesome! we didn't have to even stop to pee, we only made a quick stop at a T & A for a caffeinated drink for chris. then we kept going just like the old days b.c. (before children).

the lake

i'm swimming..... so is andy, max and chris.

be back in a week!

go get a drink and take a seat

knitting at the beach, what a treat! talk about relaxing! i finished my bag, i made a HUGE mistake in it and frankly it's pretty obvious but i couldn't figure out how to fix it without frogging it and i knew that if i frogged i would risk messing it up even more.... so i left it because frankly it's a market bag, i'm going to put fruit and veggies in it from the farmers market and really all it needs to do is hold those items. it already looks super as it is and unless i encounter another knitter while using it i would bet that most people wouldn't even notice it... plus it's such a huge mistake that it almost goes completely around the entire bag and it's right in the middle so really it COULD have been deliberate.... finished photos to come soon, i bought ribbon for a strap and i need to sew that on before i will take finished photos of it.

vacation was perfect. chris and i both got a nice break from being full time parents. with so many hands and arms around to hold and play with the boys we hardly held on to them at all the entire week :) willing family members and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins ROCK! andy spent nearly NO time on the floor this week... which i'm sure he liked but it meant that he didn't practice rolling over much. before we left he would sometimes do it but not consistently. since we returned home, if placed on the floor or in his crib, he will be on his belly in no time and reaching for anything within reach. he has also started to play with things :) jennifer, the ball and rattle are the top two items that he likes to play with and i've finally managed to get max to understand that they are andy's toys and not his to play with.

another cute thing that happened is max has started to talk to andy. yesterday max was holding a ball, he looked at andy, pointed to the ball and said "ball" to him as if to teach him what it was :) max was very serious about it and he didn't exclaim "ball" to him like he usually does to us. i think he's taking this brother thing very seriously.

ok, vacation details... let's see.... mostly we relaxed on the beach, max collected rocks for us and dug in the sand. by about thursday he was hip to actually getting into the water on his own. chris didn't have much time to relax at the beach due to this. we took the fairy to cape may one day. it was a major time suck. the boat ride took 75 minutes each way and then we had to take a shuttle that took about 30 minutes each way as well. plus we had two kids, camera gear and a double jogger to get on the shuttle bus... that was a little stressful. thankfully again we had some extra hands around. but it was still slightly annoying and way too commercial once we got there. we did have a good lunch and bought some yummy fudge from the fudge kitchen. but while there someone had an accident and the entire town lost power. making shopping without cash a little difficult. anyways, back on the fairy we went, i had a stiff drink to smooth my nerves and that was that. the following evening chris and i had a date night at a cool restaurant called agave, it was a tequilla bar and the food there was OUTSTANDING! best meal all week. we cooked in most every other night, and only managed to have lunch out twice. blah...

one morning the whole crew decided to take a bike ride, i had to stay back with andy so i put him in the stroller and set out to find the local yarn shop. it was called ginger moon fine yarn and antique shop. i found this: http://www.ravelry.com/yarns/library/austermann-bambou-soft
i know, not the same link i gave you in the last post. but in my opinion better :) this will be my yarn for my version of the feb lady sweater. i've swatched, i'm right on with gauge and i hope to cast on tonight after the boys go to bed. it's such a lovely color! photos to follow or be at least uploaded to flickr and ravelry very very soon!

overall, i was really glad we decided to vacation with chris's family. i'll admit, i was a little nervous about it but really it was quite lovely and very relaxing. if you have young children and have considered vacationing with family but thought that it might end up stressful. you might want to rethink it. the grandparents and aunts and uncles had a blast with max and andy and max and andy loved having a lot of time to play with them as well.

ok, back to reality

greetings from da beach version 2.0

hi all! i'm here, we're well, enjoying ourselves and relaxing :)

max is having a great time, he loves playing in the sand and finding lots of rocks for mommy :)

andy is doing well too and enjoying sitting with his grandparents and aunt and great aunt and uncle too :)

i've almost completed everlasting :) i've got the top band to knit then bo and i'm done. as michelle mentioned in her blog, what a dream it is to knit on the beach :) heaven on earth :)

i found a great lys nearby and i think i found my yarn for my feb lady sweater :) amy, you'll be happy it's a beatiful deep purple :) i can't wait to co!

no photos just yet... we've been trying to not do too much computer work while here :)

more updates upon returning home!

yawn....

i need a nap.

i need to put the clean clothes away.

i need to pack.

i need to clean.

i need to relax.

we're preparing to head out of town this weekend for a week's stay at the beach with chris's family. it should be fun, i hope it's fun. i ran to kmart today for a few incedentals and ended up dropping $75.... that's the most i've ever spent there... but i attribute it to having to buy about 8 greeting cards... damn those things are expensive.... it sucks.

max is a horror these past few days. refusing food. cranky pants. coloring on carpets, doors and toys. screaming at the top of his lungs and flinging himself onto every piece of furniture and every floor of every room. it's a lovely sight. i am not sure what the entire reason for this behavior is... it may be some more teeth... it might be that he has some sort of sick... doubtful.... but i think it's called a toddler and being very near to being 2 yrs old and his lack of communication skills.

he is saying new words daily. i really don't know how many things he can say but he can say a lot. but he still can't communicate well. this has got to be so frustrating... i feel his pain. i want to understand him so it's just as frustrating to me.

andy is doing well. he's finally regulating his feeding schedule and not eating every 45 minutes to an hour... he went through a major growth spurt last week so that has tappered off. he's also huge. he is 4 months old now and he's currently wearing clothing that is 6-9 months. he's very long. he is also getting the hang of naps and his nighttime sleeping. a pattern has arrived. but it's very easily disturbed... fun times are ahead while we beach it next week...

on the knitting front. i'm still working on everlasting:

i'm about half way complete. i need to join new balls soon (i'm using two strands of hempathy so that it's sturdy enough). i'll be taking this as my beach knitting. i also checked out ravelry for info on some local yarn shops near where we will be staying. there are three. i think i'll take a little me time one morning and check these shops out. maybe find some yarn for MY lady sweater :)

i might check in once or two next week, in order to do that i have to go to the local library. it's not within walking distance... so that's a deterrent.

until then i leave you with this, my giggly little baby:

max's gastrological tour

back from cayuga lake, a finger lake in ny. it was heaven. the weather was good, we had a little rain in the middle of the week but we swam 5 out of our 7 days there. family time, a little too much. but i know they all enjoyed spending so much time with max and really having my parents there made our jobs as parents a little easier :) so it was a nice relaxing time for us too.

max though, he had a blast. our first day there, he seemed to be on his normal nap and sleeping schedule. after that, it all went downhill.... days two and three, NO NAPS. just a few 10 minute snoozes while in the car but that hardly helped. however day one was the first day of max's gastrological tour. before we left i packed a ton of baby food jars, puffs, dried fruit, all the stuff they make for easy travel. i came home with more than half of it.....

day one, upon our arrival we were greeted by some cousins from my mom's family who were preparing a shrimp boil. the recipe was taught to my mom's cousin who lives in FL, the recipe is for an authentic Cajun shrimp boil. ingredients include: shrimp (with the heads still on) that were at least 5 - 6 inches long, whole vidalia onions, whole cloves of regular garlic and elephant (giant sized) garlic left in the paper (peal), whole mushrooms, half ears of corn, a few lemons worth of lemon juice, zatterans Cajun seasoning, water, and pepper oil (very very potent hot pepper season). i can't remember the order that you prepare everything but oh my good god was it awesome. once cooked you pull everything from the broth with a huge strainer and you just place it all into large casserole dishes or a large bowl. then you just start to pick. we had a picnic table covered with craft paper, so we just pealed the shrimp, you pull the head off then peel the rest off like a regular piece of shrimp, you pull an onion apart and eat it piece by piece, you squeeze garlic our of the skin and eat it whole like roasted garlic, and you eat the rest of the food with your hands too. it was so hot and so good and so messy, it was great! max ate some of the potatoes and mushrooms. and he also had about a 1/2 of blueberries that day too, his first adventure with blueberries, which he now loves, and shrimp boil.

day two, my mom had prepared a really good red sauce with meatballs and brought it with her for monday's dinner. she prepared pasta, and we added her sauce and meatballs to it. max had had pasta before but with very simple sauce and he had also tried meatballs before but again with a so so sauce. that night he had real pasta and a meatball. he loved it and had the left overs a few times the rest of the week. tuesday, we again got together for dinner with our cousins, we pulled our leftovers from the shrimp boil and our pasta together plus we added a few lake bass to the mix. they were blackened and grilled and really yummy, we then tossed the left over shrimp to some extra pasta added a salad and we were set. this day, max again had some pasta and some lake bass, he loved it all.

day three, the 7 of us (my parents, my brother, his fiance, chris, me and max) all packed into the cars and drove 30 minutes to ithica to have some mexican lunch. i packed a few jars of food and some puffs for max. so we ordered, i started to feed max his lunch and the chips came. we all started to munch, and max got angry.... he kept yelling and pointing at the guacamole. so chris broke off a tiny piece of chip and put some guac on it. it disappeared in about two seconds and he was yelling for more. the jar of food was cast aside. i would try to feed him more from it and he would close his lips so tight... so... our food comes. it's quite spicy, max doesn't care though he points and yells for some burrito, i give him some rice from inside, chris does the same with his, i try to give him food that is not near the spicy chicken that is throughout my burrito but i know i slipped a few times... he starts to get crazy, he is pointing and yelling i give him water, it doesn't help, he points and yells some more, i put more food on the spoon and he takes it. we weren't sure if his crazy antics were because of the spicy food or the fact that he loves mexican... either way, it was a fun trip to the mexican restaurant, and it was really good food too.

day four, was pretty quiet. we did however all go out for dinner (all 14 of us) to a nice restaurant where the specialty was prime rib. i got crab cakes instead but chris got the prime rib and max willingly ate some of that as well, again he didn't want anything to do with the jar of food, so instead he ate a roll, some sauteed green beans and some pretty rare prime rib. he loved it all.

day five. hmmm, what did we do day five.... not much... chris and i made burgers and we even made a few that were baby sized just for max, so that night he had a little baby burger, some fruit and a piece of bread.

day six, chris and i took max to Rochester to the George Eastman House, it's a smaller sized museum that is all about photography. they were featuring an Ansel Adams show which was spectacular. we also met up with a long lost friend Peter who lives in the area. he was one of chris's college roommates and we haven't seen him for quite a few years. it was nice to catch up. we ate lunch at a cool place called Black & Blue, chris had a kobe beef meatball sandwich and i had a roasted chicken wrap. max had a few shoe string french fries, a roll and some baby food.

that night we met up with the family again and went to a small family restaurant where we had some friend fish, max tried some of mine. along with some veggies from the salad bar, he seemed to really like the mushrooms and he had a little pasta salad too.

day seven, we spent most of the day in the water, the weather was perfect the sun was shining bright plus max took his normally scheduled naps so we could relax a bit. for dinner we headed up to our cousins cottage for burgers and hot dogs. they had grilled up some zucchini and max had three large pieces of that, which he loved. then he had a few green beans, which he also loved. the kid likes veggies!

it was a really nice time away, and we hope to do it again next year. we're wondering how that will work though with max and a 5 month old.... i'm guessing it won't be as relaxing. overall, i think max is finished with his baby food and is now into whatever we're eating :) fun times are ahead!

i'll add photos soon, they aren't ready for viewing yet :)

ugh....

I've been up one day and down the next... feeling like total doo doo on those down days and pretty close to 100% (let's call it about 90%) on those up days. crazy max is everywhere, chasing the kitties, learning to navigate the steps, trying to walk through the new front door screen, or yanking on plugs that are stuck in the wall (this is my favorite thing he does... especially when i sternly say no and shake my head no while he laughs at me - yes he laughs at me!) ugh... fun times.

yesterday i had an ultrasound to help set a due date. the u/s tech said that the fetus is measuring at 10 weeks on the dot. so does that mean that i'm actually 12 weeks along? either Feb. 8th! i hope we have snow! anyways, the process was fun! i got to see our little bean! it was funny because the tech found it, took some measurements then just as she stopped typing away, she held the "thingie" there on my belly for a minute so i could watch it and the teeny baby did a little dance! it was the cutest thing ever! it wiggled and jumped around a little then settled back down and then we were done. it was great to see the baby, it made things seem more real. i guess i'm still in a bit of denile with a side of morning sickness.

well, we are headed out of town again this week, i will have NO internet service the entire time. so no updates until i return. so i leave you with this.... something that i love to drink on vacation but i will NOT be drinking while i'm lounging at the lake again this year... btw, this isn't my own photo... sorry... i borrowed it from here, thank you nice lady.

greetings from da beach

hello everyone out there in blog land!

i'm writing to you from the Lewes Public Library, very friendly place here, but i only have 16 more minutes left on my Internet time... so i need to make this snappy!


this area is great! very relaxing, very clean, very friendly and a minutes walk and you're on the beach and nearly there by yourself to boot! we've taken some photos and they are on my flickr site but this is my favorite:

so far max seems to love the ocean, had tasted a bit of sand but especially loves to try to eat the little rocks and pebbles that are the same size or larger than his favorite snack, puffs... so that's been a little bit of a challenge to keep those small items out of his mouth... but other than that he's doing so well. not sure how much of this he'll remember but i'm hoping that the photos will help him do so :)

other than that, we're really enjoying the time off and spending this time in a great town and cottage. photos of the teeny place we are staying in to come later, it's actually quite charming, just a bit on the small side but works for the three of us.

until next time....

my readers speak, my readers get

so yes, i have not had much in the witty department to blog about lately. sorry readers... i do have to say though that amanda, dear, you haven't had much either! and same goes for amy, but i know you've got a lot going on with your schedule and heather and your job. so... just know i'm not the only one with not much to say! lol jen, your new recipes look outstanding and your updates on Finn's food items, are entertaining :) annie, you've got a little bit going on right now too but you've had quite a lot of updates considering :)

however it's funny that you all mentioned this today because i was planning a little update prior to leaving... we're preparing to leave town for vacation soon and that's consuming our lives at the moment... we have gone out of town for weekend trips with max before but that was prior to his mobility and his change in diet... i packed clothes, some little toys and formula... easy as pie. this time, not so much... the thought of packing toys to entertain a baby for a week is a little much for me... i am hoping that being at the beach will be enough to tucker him out thus he won't need tons of toys or different toys... i'm also concerned at the amount of sand i'm told he will ingest. this is gross... especially considering that it's really not just sand... but also bird poop, dirt, dead sea animal germs... ick.... i suppose he is not the first baby to ever go to the beach and ingest sand so i'm sure he'll be ok but it still a little frightening.

as for vacation, i have it in my head that we really don't need to pack very much. our place has a washer and dryer. so we really only need to pack for a few days, then i'll wash everything and we'll wear it all again... i have a feeling though that once we accumulate are large pile of stuff that it's going to be much larger than either of us expected and that's going to provoke yet another argument because apparently prior to any trip we ever take, i get a little bitchy and i don't calm down until we're on the road. that's according to chris, obviously.... i surely don't see it that way.

while on vacation we have no plans... well, chris has a few that revolve around him getting up before dawn to photograph sunrise and he wants to visit a brewery that is nearby. but other than that... we are out! going on vacation is really the only way for us to really completely get away from our business. since our office on the third floor houses our photography business, it's only a flight of stairs away, thus it's so easy to just pop up there and so some work and get immersed... we won't be able to do this while we're gone. the nearest wifi spot is less than a mile away but that still means that we won't have the computers on all day while we putter around the house. i'll be cut off from my email, message boards and blogs that i read daily... and frankly i'm welcoming the break from all of it! but just for a week of course!

i'll try to post a little update mid-vacation about our trip. that should have a photo or two attached as well...