yes, it’s been a full week since my last post, but i haven’t been sitting around.
here’s a list of 10 things that have kept me away from wordpress over the past week:
- drove from tallahassee to orlando with harper (layne stayed in tallahassee)
- flew from orlando to springfield, MO
- took harper to her first hibachi dinner (courtesy of my generous brother and sister-in-law)
- took harper (and my nephew owen) to barnes & noble to meet maisy the mouse
- photographed a 90 year old’s birthday party
- photographed a wedding reception for a couple who got married at the top of the Sears tower in April
- photographed a couple and their sweet baby boy
- atteneded/photographed an awesome hyms concert (i took 1131 pictures in 2 days!)
- flew back to orlando (where we were reunited with layne)
- drove home.
WHEW!!
and i love to eat. and i love this “guy” because he loves it just as much as i do.
i don’t watch alot of cooking shows, but diners, drive-ins, and dives has become a close second to paula deen (formerly the only cooking show i could tolerate). “triple d” isn’t really about cooking…it’s about eating. and it’s about eating greasy, fatty, DELICIOUS food in large portions. i don’t watch every episode, i don’t have it on my dvr list of things to record, but if i’m flipping channels and it’s on, i’ll stop every time. it’s almost punishment to watch because it just makes ME want to take that huge drippy greasy bite that guy just ate, but i watch it anyway.
anyone else a fan?
got this from amy’s blog: This is contest entry for those crazy folks at TodaysMama and Cricut. Be sure to check out Cricut’s cool new cartridges and the chance at $30,000 in travel for you and your friends at the Great Gypsy Escape site!
my answers:
1. If you could escape to anywhere in the world where would it be? australia. only place that i REALLY want to go that i’ve never been
2. What song do you play when you are by yourself in the car? honestly, anything sung in an adult’s voice or a song that doesn’t include words like “bop” or “farm” is nice…
3. If you had a night to yourself, and money was no object, what would you do? probably go to a nice dinner and a show or sporting event (front-row seats) with my husband, and then stay in a nice hotel
4. What is your guilty pleasure? a pleasure that i feel guilty about alot is Facebook. it is a time trashcan
5. What is the farthest place you have traveled away from your home? this was amy’s answer, but mine is the same because we were together on both trips: What’s farther from Florida…Prague or Greece?
6. Last book that you couldn’t put down? The Brothers K by David James Duncan
7. When you want to escape into another time, what movie do you watch? Back to the Future…haha, just kidding. i would probably have to say Grease or maybe Far and Away
8. What is your favorite local escape? the playground at Chick-fil-A on Northlake
9. How do you escape on a budget? don’t escape too far…for me “escape” really just means a break. i don’t necessarily have to get away from anything…although sometimes it is nice just to go to the grocery store by myself.
10. Best food you’ve ever had while on vacation. gelato in Italy, an AMAZING buffet at the bellagio in vegas, all-you-can-eat alaskan king crab on our honeymoon cruise in alaska
Now it’s your turn! Post and answer the meme questions on your blog and then send a link to your post to info@todaysmama.com with “Cricut Meme” in the subject line.
just got back from my annual girls’ weekend, except this year it was a little different. if you want to hear more about the weekend or more about “who we are”, read amy’s post.
it was alot of fun, but i have to say that i did miss the abundance of nothing-but-girls time. i feel like i spent a little too much time distracted by my family (that sounds terrible, but i’m just being honest). yes, it was fun to have my husband see/experience some of what he always hears about, and it was super fun to watch my girls play with shanel’s kids, but…i don’t really feel like i had a girls’ weekend at all, actually. i’m very thankful that we did it, but just wish i could’ve had more time to veg out and just talk…we were a tad bit too busy.
one great thing about having so many people around is that it didn’t allow for a ridiculous amount of picture-taking (if you know me, you know having my picture taken isn’t one of my favorite ways to spend time). however, here are a few of my favorites (at the end of the weekend, we all upload our photos to one computer and make CD’s so we can take them home).
some random snippets from my day:
- a few weeks ago i found an ariel jigsaw puzzle at world thrift. harper’s finished it, with my help, about 6 times. every time we do it she gets faster. the other night i decided to just take random pieces out of the completed puzzle and have her put them back in. it was ridiculous how fast she could get 10 or 15 pieces back into the 70 piece puzzle. so, i decided she needed a new one. got a 24 piece at target today. it said 3+ on the side, so when i opened the box, i decided to give her no help at all and just see how far she could get. she had the thing totally finished in about 10 minutes. i was so proud. i’m gonna let her do it a few more times and then video it and see how fast she can do it. it is SO much fun watching her figure new things out and to see the sense of accomplishment she enjoys afterward.
- we visited harper’s school for about 15 minutes this morning. just picked up a calendar and her supply list and talked with the director about drop-off procedure and what-not. harper is SO excited….wait, i’m pretty excited, too, actually! hopefully when tuesday comes around she’ll be pushing me out of the way at the door to get in like she was today.
- layne climbed up into the chick-fil-a playground again today, but this time around there were A TON of kids in there. i heard a blood-curdling scream and had to climb up into the stinking thing. some brat had pushed her down (at least that’s what another little girl told me). we did not hang around much longer…had to get to target to buy school supplies! (us, and every other family within a 10 mile radius)
- i had sweet tea at lunch today and i just LOVE how much energy that caffeine gives me at the gym. i’m not normally a caffeine person, but i ran 3 miles pretty easily today and i haven’t done that in a few months. (plus the tea just tastes SO darn good.)
- keep forgetting to report this: my excema is back in full force. i’m a little relieved that i’m not allergic to sonic, but super annoyed because i really thought i had figured out what was causing it (although i have eaten other fast food and am wondering if maybe it’s just that in general…maybe i need to nix fast food for 6 months…hmmm….i don’t know if i could do that!).
- layne was walking around today the most i’ve ever seen her. she still just takes about 10 steps at a time, but she’s doing it totally on her own more now than i’ve ever seen….confidence is growing, i guess. won’t be long until she’s keeping up with harper! (scary!!!)
- got a call tonight from my sweet sister-in-law julie yesterday and a confirmation call tonight. they are flying me (and harper) out to springfield (MO) at the end of september to take pictures at her brother’s wedding reception (he got married a few months ago). i’m so excited! i’ll make a little money and get to hang out with family that we hardly ever see…and have some fun time with harper! thanks again for thinking of me, julie!
- i’ve been plugging away on the website for about a week now. it is so frustrating that i don’t ever get more than 2 hours or so in a day to work on it. still, it’s slowly coming together and i’m really pleased with it so far….feels very much a few steps above the old one.
ryan left for the keys this morning.
i’m up late trying to work on my website. it is seriously tedious. it’s sort-of fun and kinda NOT. i am a horrible decision-maker and these are really important decisions. i’m very thankful for the new site and VERY excited for people to see it, but it’s taking me alot longer to get everything organized than i thought it would.
anyway, we had a nice day. hung out here all morning (did i mention the website?) and then hit the pool around noon for an hour or so. i started a new thing with harper a few days ago where instead of “naptime”, she gets “rest time” and she can choose whether or not she wants to take a nap. every day she’s had “rest time”, she’s chosen to take a nap. awesome. if only i’d known this reverse psychology would work so well, i’d have started it 6 months ago. the only drawback to the new philosophy is that layne naps in our room every day, so i can’t do anything on the computer (I NEED A NEW LAPTOP!!!). it’s stinks, but it’s totally worth it if it means not battling it out with harper every day at 1:30 and not running in there every 4 minutes whisper-yelling at her not to wake up layne.
after naptime we played around here for a little while and then headed to CRchicks. i didn’t feel like rustling up anything for dinner or cleaning up afterwards, so it was nice. the reason we went there is because every time we eat there, both kids absolutely CHOW down. it’s one of the only times harper ever cleans her plate.
went straight to the gym when we got back from dinner, and then straight to the bathtub after the gym.
after layne went to bed, harper and i watched some jon&kate plus 8 (which i think i’m going to start boycotting) and then a dramatic episode of little house on the prairie (good ol DVR…it only took us 45 minutes to watch 1 1/2 hours of tv).
harper finally was in bed around 9:00 and then fireworks started up after the baseball game ended around 9:45…i’m pretty sure that’s when harper had just fallen asleep because she came running out. of course i let her watch through the window. i’d planned to work on the website from like 8:30 until now, but that didn’t really happen. oh well. i just have to remember that it’s getting somewhere, it’s just happening in stages.
heading to natalie’s tomorrow for the afternoon. we’ll spend the night there and then head down to clearwater on sunday morning, stay for 4 or 5 hours and then head home. ryan should be here to meet us when we get back. hopefully with alot of lobster and a tan.
this is us on a walk around the “neighborhood” where the house was. it was a paved road with huge steep hills. layne LOVED riding in this carrier thing (thanks, charlene!). i think harper was a little jealous, although she was piggyback on me for much of the walk…she even ate a snack while she was riding. here are a few more of the same walk/hike/whatever:
the next one is a picture of my toes after harper painted them for me. can’t remember if it was her idea or mine, but she had fun. the excess came off after like 2 showers. looking at this picture, i’m thinking: my feet are SO different than they were before i had kids. why does pregnancy change EVERYTHING?
this is ryan trying to pull a huge splinter out of harper’s big toe. she was absolutely hysterical…i’m sure it hurt, but it was her first splinter, so i think she was more scared than anything. look how white her little knuckles were…i told her to squeeze as hard as she could and it wouldn’t hurt so bad…i was trying everything to get her mind off of it. i pinched her arm (which just made her madder), shoved a popsicle in her face, and something else that i can’t remember now. when he finally got that thing out i burst into tears. it was so hard to see her freaking out and being held down like that…i have so much sympathy for moms with sick kids…i cannot imagine watching doctors work on my kid all the time.
this picture is pretty self-explanatory. i love harper’s new carseat, but it’s one disadavantage is that it doesn’t recline unless the seat it’s sitting on does. this one didn’t. it hurts my neck just to look at her.
the house we stayed in was great. it was fairly secluded, cozy, roomy, and had everything we needed and more (there was a ping pong table in the basement that we really never got around to using). here are some pictures of the happenings at the house and of the views from the house.
first, a pancake breakfast. we ate GOOD while we were there.
next, a smokey mountain sunrise.
sunset from the deck
another view of another sunset
this picture didn’t really come out (why can i still not figure out what ISO to use when?), but it shows another view from the deck…
the girls had fun watching the sneaky squirrel…he was alot more persistent that i think i’d be…that birdseed must be really good.
harper’s tent and the awesome porch swing (looked out to the lake). i miss that swing!!
shooting gordon’s pellet gun. they set up some “targets” in the yard (mostly trash…pizza and cereal boxes). it was alot of fun to shoot…even harper tried it.
playing with some “shooters” (water guns). i think this was one of harper’s favortie things we did…maybe because when her clothes got too wet i let her take them off. she kept telling erin and i to get naked too.
“exploring”. she really did figure out how to see through them. i think in this picture she’s trying to look at what daddy and opa are shooting.
one night as we were going to bed there was a crazy lightning storm. it was so cool because we went out on the deck to watch and take pictures and it took a good 20 minutes for it to reach us…after that we went in a turned off all the lights and watched it from inside. i’ll never forget that.
i like this picture. i think he looks like a little garden statue.
this is one of the wierdest places i’ve ever been (in america, at least). yes, i am a christian, and yes, i love God’s word. however, to see the 10 commandments written in 4 foot tall concrete letters and laid out on the side of a hill doesn’t move me to feel…anything, really. we stopped here on our way home from the waterfall (that’s why, you’ll notice, harper is still only wearing her Jane Fonda getup).
(at the bottom of the hill there was a replica of the tomb that didn’t look AT ALL like what i think the real tomb did, a hill with 3 crosses, and a pathway up the other hill that was lined with Psalms monuments or something…we didn’t go over there)
there were stairs inside the big “book” at the top…we climbed up on top of it, but you couldn’t get close enough to the edge to get a picture of anyone looking down.
this place was called coker creek falls. it took us about an hour and a half, two stops, and some time on the internet to find it, but when we did it was well worth it. these types of places are pretty much ideal to me…running water, big rocks, and no crowds. it was so fun to get to share it with harper…she loved it (as you can tell from the first picture).
ryan told her to stand on the rock and not to move. she obeyed. 
the girls on the trail…this place would’ve been cool even without the water…the trail was very well worn, but still a little challenging…parallel with the side of a hill.
wedgie. 
coming in from testing out the current speed for us. (yes, i’m kidding)
