Rain, Rain...

Hope hubby remembers to wear his swim-fins on his way home. The dirt road in front of our house is becoming a lake once again. The rain is coming down HARD. I suppose it's good for our poor little shrub that's been looking a little yellow, since I probably wouldn't have made it out to water it again today (but I did on Monday - keep your fingers crossed she'll pull through!).

We're getting ready to head out again tomorrow afternoon. This time not quite as far as South Carolina - we're making our annual trek to the Tail of the Dragon. Woo-hoo!! 318 curves in 11 miles - bring it on! Okay, in all actuality, I quit actually riding the tail of the dragon a couple years ago, but it's good to see the boys have so much fun :). I was rather excited to find that the Smokey Mountain Bluegrass Festival is also this weekend - at the very resort we're staying at. Hahahahaha.... Sounds like a toe-tapping good time!

Although I don't quite celebrate 'wordless' Wednesday (yeah, me shut up, right...), here's a picture of Maggie enjoying peas wayy back in March.

I WON!!

The service auction Saturday night was a good time. Hubby and I ended up getting: a Girls' Bunco night (never played, but they promise it's fun); a card-making workshop; four tickets to the Detroit Science Center; $15 to a coney island; a piece of torte cake; and a Jelly Belly dispenser, all for $69 total. Woo-hoo!!

Today we took Maggie to the MetroParents CoverKids search. It was fun. We got a t-shirt, some coupons for the mall, and a commemortive photo that will be available online in a few days. I didn't even notice when they announce the actual cover kids for next year. It would be cool if Maggie was a cover kid, but they stress all the way through the event that they just want everyone to have fun. I can do that :) We also entered for her to win a big ole gift basket from Radio Disney. I think she said they'll call tomorrow when we win (I got my optimistic streak from my mom! Hahaha).

What a busy weekend! I'm sure there will be plenty more like it now that the weather is getting nicer! We can quit hibernating and go out and LIVE!! Yay!!

Woo-hoo! Go, Judy

I forgot to tell my husband last night that his first girlfriend is getting her own series! Yes, I'm talking about Miss/Guided with Judy Greer.

My husband tells the story of Judy's (her last name wasn't Greer then) house (well, actually her parent's house, since she and my husband were ten years old at the time!) being on his paper route. One day he finally worked up the nerve to go up to the front door and ask to talk to Judy. Her mom invited him in and they all had hot chocolate together. Awww....

And Yet More Bahamas

We rented a small 25’ motorboat from Port Lucaya and did a little exploring in the canals and eventually out to "Peterson Cay." Here’s Maggie showing her Dad how it’s done. He's so proud.




She loved the boat! and I love this picture!!





Maggie would always start off the day full of energy and enthusiasm…





…but more often this is how she looked once we finally make it to the beach.





Eventually she would wake up. Sarah was super cool about watching Maggie while hubby and I would take off for a while down the beach.





Awake from her nap.




This particular beach we were visiting had a short pier off the beach. Daddy and Maggie went for a walk while Mommy actually took a few minute to read.

Adventures in Nursing

And by nursing I mean breastfeeding, of course.
This afternoon we went to the Detroit Boat Show. It's been getting smaller each year, lately, but we had a free ticket and $5 off another ticket, so for $6, it was a nice afternoon out for the husband, Maggie and me.
While my husband was talking about our next cruiser with some sales guy, I shouted up to him that I'd be nursing at some seats nearby. The front row of the seats were some creepy looking guys, so I grabbed a chair a few rows back and faced it toward the curtain/wall. I'm not exceptionally shy, but I'm not an exhibitionist either.
As I nursed the baby, my husband finished talking with the boat guy and joined us. I noticed more creepy-looking guys were joining the throng in the seats. Then I saw some young girls (okay, around 20 years old, but that's young to me!) with breasts that looked like they must have hungry babies around too (translation: lactating).
When my husband started chuckling, I saw the sign he'd noticed - the bikini contest was starting in ten minutes. And here I was with my goodies already out on display.
I should have gotten first prize.

Still More Bahamas!

Hubby and I (after a few 5% Bahamian Beers)



Maggie and her new friend Luc





Hubby taking Maggie down the jetty for a morning walk.



We took a walk to a neighboring beach one evening to catch the sunset. En route, I ran over ~100 feet of fishing line and proceeded to get it all tangled up inside the stroller wheels. Hubby asked one of the local Bahamian fisherman for a sharp filet knife or safety cutters so he could cut all the line out. Instead, he borowed a rusty butter knife that was covered in fish guts.

More Bahamas!

With all the time we spend traveling, alarm system monitoring is a good investment, eh?



Maggie, me and Sarah on “Baraby Beach.” One mile long and all to ourselves.





Family Portrait Time.




Family Beer Time! When eating out, Sarah would try to take us to all of the hole-in-the-wall places that only the locals know about.





Hubby went snorkeling at the local beach with Jeff. (I'm never crazy about actually going in the water.)



Maggie and I hung out on the beach and watched. She never complained about wearing her sunglasses and hat outside! Hahahaha...





Later that evening, we drove into Port Lucaya (the resort area) for dinner. Here I am standing in front of Jeff and Sarah’s townhouse. We got lucky and the baby usually cooperated on our little 'field trips.' It's sometimes exhausting just to make it out, with all the baby accoutrements.

Bahamas!!

Last week was our fantastic Bahamas vacation. We stayed with a good friend of mine and her husband (and their dog ;) ) for seven nights. It was cheap and laid back.



First stop on the tour, my husband and my friend's husband went to the Grand Bahamian Brewing Company. They hung out at the brewery and a had a few glasses straight from the still. :cool:



Why didn’t anybody ever tell me about these “Reef Shoes”!?!? The notion of never again being stranded on a beach without an opener… brilliant! Here we see my friend's husband cracking open a “traveler” for the ride home. Driving around with open containers is perfectly legal in the Bahamas. :rock:



Later on, we took the dog “Luc” for a stroll on the beach. The beach was about 500 feet from the townhouse and almost always empty. The cool lens effect is actually a plastic bag over the camera to protect it from the falling rain.



A very rusted industrial sized chain on the jetty. Lots of garbage on the island. Litter is a big problem.



The beach at the end of the street just after a good rain.











The next morning was B-E-A-U-T-F-U-L!!! 76 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and almost no humidity.

Maggie all dressed up and ready to go.

Home Again

What a fabulous vacation! Hubby brought the camera with him to work today, so I don't have any pictures yet, but Maggie looked soooo adorable in her little sunglasses and sunhat!!

Unfortunately, I expected to get home and be all rested and refreshed and ready to go, but I feel really ucky to be home :( My friend that we stayed with was so on the ball, I feel like the worst wife/homemaker/mommy ever. To my credit, she doesn't have kids yet (but she does have a dog, which definitely adds something). Her apartment was neat and organized, and she cooked three healthy meals a day (well, except when we insisted on going out). And then she cleaned up too. I feel completely inadequate.

To make matters even a bit worse? I think Maggie and I picked up a bit of a small bug on the plane. My tummy is wonky, and she's blown out twice so far today and is super-fussy :( With all the messes, our bathroom faucets are getting a workout today.

Sometimes Life Isn't Fair

Hubby came home from work early cuz he didn't feel good. Then he couldn't rest here anyway, since Maggie was busy playing. So he went and ran a few of my errands (yay!).
Now he's asleep on the couch, and she's asleep on my lap. I'm the only one awake in my house. Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll ever be able to catch my nap! hahaha

The camera wasn't where I expected it to be this morning (hopefully that means it's on the battery charger..), so I couldn't get a picture of Maggie in her adorable new baby legs - thank you so much, Grandma!! She looks so cute! Grandma made them for her for Valentine's Day. I'm thrilled because they'll be perfect for her to be able to comfortably crawl on my friend's tile floors in the Bahamas, while still cooly dressed in a onesie. I'll get a picture at some point and be sure to put it up.

Get The Show on the Road?

So I know I've mentioned hubby's idea before of starting his own forum, haven't I? While I LOVE it and think it's a great idea (since it would also give me server space for this blog ;) ), I'm glad he's so smart about it all. I would have no idea where to start with hardware or anything...new IBM? used cisco?
I'm exactly the type of person to be frozen by indecision, so it wouldn't be an idea that would ever come to fruition if it was just up to me. Just sayin.

Where Do You Exercise?

Once we get back from vacation, I plan on signing up for a swimming class with my little Maggie. I doubt it'll be a lot of exercise for me, other than the sweat I'll break thinking about appearing in public in my swimsuit. Ew!! At least I should have a tan after our vacation ;)
For exercise, my husband had talked about turning our front 'sun porch' into a bit of an exercise area for us. There's already a skiier and a stepper out there, we could maybe squeeze in a treadmill and a couple free weights and be good to go. It only needs one more thing...right now it's surrounded by windows, with insubstantial pieces of lace hanging over the windows. I remember when I tried to exercise after my back surgery, and felt like I could wave to the passing cars and they'd wave back. When I told him that then, it was a silly complaint. Now that he wants to exercise, we'll be putting up some curtains first. Hmmm....

Happy Weekend!

Since I've been slacking off on Wordless Wednesday lately, here's one I just took of my adorable girl. I LOVE her outfit (from our ginormous bag of hand-me-downs). The black onesie actually has a snap-in-the-back turtleneck top, and a leopard print cat on the front, with the leopard pants to match. And she, of course, is rockin it :)

Last night while hubby and I went to Outback Steakhouse and I ate everything that wasn't nailed down, my mother-in-law and brother-in-law stayed with Maggie. As they went to heat up a bottle for her, they gave her the nipple to play with. She promptly fell asleep playing with the nipple. And this morning, she dragged herself right across her favorite squeeky giraffe to get to the nipple on the floor. Silly kid!

Less than a WEEK!!

I'm only at the overwhelmed point so far, but excited is starting to creep in! We have a busy weekend to go before we leave.

Saturday is a baby shower for (pay attention, now) the wife of my husband's friend's younger brother. Didja get that? I also grew up down the street from the same friend and younger brother. My mom and sister-in-law are going too. So hubby is going to drive me and SIL the half hour or so out there, so he can show off baby and then give me a few hours where I can pay attention to what's going on instead of paying attention to baby.

Sunday is my Pampered Chef party. Yes, it is happening after all. I think the consultant is pretty surprised at the expected turn out, but she's not used to the fact that I used to do these things for a living, and know how they should be done. And everyone is coming just to see my cute baby :P Hubby will carry the torch on that one too, and keep her out from underfoot so I can visit with my friends. Yay for helpful hubby!!

Between Saturday, Sunday and Monday, I also need to work at least 10 hours. Then - at long last - we leave at like 6am or some ungodly hour to fly to Ft Lauderdale, then on to Freeport, Bahamas. Biggest YAY!!!

The Weekend in Review

Last weekend was one of those odd weekends where I hardly did anything, but a ton happened anyway. Whew! Back to the old grind can be somewhat relaxing, sometimes.

Friday night was my Girls' Night Out. Woo-hoo!! Thank goodness for a supportive husband :) I went and met a few girlfriends at The Bee's Knees and painted an adorable little heart-shaped picture frame that will hold Maggie's six-month picture (once I go have them taken, that is...). We were having a nice time visiting, and munching on snacks and painting, but I sort of rushed out. See, a couple of hubby's friends had come to the house and were going out for dinner at 9pm. I'm not one to miss out on a meal! Hahahaha... The four of us (and Maggie, of course) headed to Branns for steak. We had the same waitress as last time (about a month ago) and she remembered us too. I'm not sure if that's good or bad....

Saturday morning darling hubby got up to make French toast for breakfast before he headed out to the garage to work on a friend's car for the day. Unfortunately, he may have only skimmed the directions, and used the instant pudding I had in the cupboard for friendship bread instead of the cook and serve pudding called for in the recipe. We learned that this is a VERY IMPORTANT distinction. The pudding started to set-up before the toast made it to the goo and the grill. Oh well. We ended up having cereal, and I washed the cooked, instant pudding off the grill this morning. Lesson learned!

Poor hubby spent all day Saturday and Sunday working on the Jeep of Death. It still isn't done :( Unfortunately it has to be finished (and, more importantly, out of our garage) before he can fix what's wrong with his car. In the meantime, he's driving my car (except for tomorrow, when he'll beg a ride from someone else so Maggie and I can go to infant massage).

Saturday night and Sunday night, I shamefully looked forward to and watched two TV shows which probably have no intellectual or cultural worth, but I enjoyed anyway. hahaha...Saturday night I saw Miss Michigan crowned Miss America, and Sunday night was (of course!) Rock of Love 2!!

Choreplay vs Foreplay

OMG. This was too good not to pass along. There's an article on BabyCenter about choreplay vs foreplay. And it's exactly what it sounds like. I LOVE IT!! So true... Not having to dwell on everything that has to be finished is so much more of a turn-on than looking at the clock to figure out how long I can spare to have a little fun with hubby. Just sayin.

Thanks to Parent Hacks for bringing this article to my attention.

Insightful

Did I spell that right? Meh. Anyway...In my cleaning yesterday (which never got fully underway), I found the old pages of a Mary Engelbreit page-a-day calendar from a couple years ago (yeah, it's been a while since I cleared off my dresser). It's time, I think finally, to start throwing away the pages covered with pretty drawings and nice sentiments. But I can post them here to last forever (well, the sentiments anyway...)

"There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage." -Martin Luther

I can get down with that. My husband and I consider our marriage the foundation for pretty much everything else we do. It will (hopefully) serve as a good example to Maggie when she has to face the world. A happy, healthy home life makes everything else a lot more bearable.

Car Play

Well, hubby is working on his car. I'm sure he's glad to be home! Hahahaha...Unfortunately, it's nothing fun today. Something about a ball joint. Sounds painful, and he's already been working without the results he wanetd all morning :(

Luckily my car is loaded with options and still under warranty. Back when we got my Cadillac (because I wanted a four-door for the baby), we also looked at the Chrysler 300. Since hubby is a 'car guy' (maybe I'll go into my theory about all that someday...), we always do stuff to our cars anyway. I think next on the list for the Caddy is the iPod adapter thingy so I can play all my music in the car. Woo-hoo! If we'd gone with the Chrysler, I'm sure we'd be deciding between a Chrysler 300 accessory or two..or three..or..hahahahaha...

Cars can definitely be a source of endless entertainment ;)

I Must Have Been Good!

What about you? Did Santa bring your heart's desires? While I didn't get any women's lingerie, I'm not too torn up. Especially since they don't make much cute 'flip-top' (i.e. nursing) stuff anyway. I did get a few nursing shirts, a leather coat, slippers, fabulous dueling banjo penguins (I LOVE penguins :) ), a couple new penguin ornaments for the tree, a couple of books, a pair of gloves, homemade shopping bags (so we can quit killing quite as many trees to bring home our groceries and such) and some other fun stuff :D I must have been better than I thought this year. Hahahahaha....

More importantly, Maggie got some cute clothes and sleepers, a couple stuffed animals, a few toys, some homemade stuffed animals, a savings bond and a bit of cash. I already knew she'd been good for five months, though ;)

Hubby got work clothes (how exciting - NOT!), a memory thing for the computer, the little RC helicopter that everyone got (it was his very favorite gift - I'm glad I ordered it when he sent me the link!), a digital photo key chain, and a stocking full of goodies including a crow bar. Huh.

What did you and yours get? What was the best gift you gave?

Made It!!

It was a close call, getting home, that is. Who needs fitness equipment when you can just run through the Frankfort airport while carrying a 15 lb child? Arrghhh!!!

We arrived at the airport 2 1/2 hours before our flight. When we got to the check-in point for our 230 lbs of luggage, the nice guy said we needed a paper ticket for the little one. Yeah. About that. Someone who will remain nameless left this ticket at his office after submitting a copy of it for reimbursement. No biggie, right? She was still listed as a passenger, so what's the problem? He said we had to go down to ticketing to straighten it out.

I left hubby at that window with our bags and I ran down to ticketing with the baby/passport/etc. At ticketing, the (not-so) nice man said, "You need a paper ticket. They issued it on October 12." Then he slapped her passport on the counter in front of me and turned away. Huh? I (obviously) had to speak up. "EXCUSE ME. What do I do now. I'm not leaving my child in Germany." Duh. Should I really have needed to state this??

Finally, after we paid 80 Euro ($120), they outsourced the printing of the ticket to whatever country is furthest from Germany. I mean, they had to have. It took AN HOUR AND A HALF to complete the transaction. Seriously.

So we get the bags checked, and everyone tells us not to dawdle. Did they think we were completely stupid? I could hear the overhead announcement saying our flight had boarded. You know, boarded onto the plane that was two security check points away from us???

A nice guy from the airline showed up at everyone line we ran breathlessly to and put us in the front every time. At the last checkpoint, the chick from the plane said she needed our stroller. NOW. She got it from the security people before we were done with our checks. I believe we were the last ones seated on the plane. Scary.

But we made it, and brought Maggie with us, and we're smelling (as hubby likes to say) the 'sweet air of freedom.' and the first nice guy from the airline said if we call them in Detroit and tell them we purchsed a duplicate ticket, they should reimburse us. I hope so. We bought two tickets to hold a baby on our laps all day. What's up with that?