Weekend in Williamsburg

I know we just moved and have an endless list of things to do around the house, but when our out of state friends invited us to meet up with them in Williamsburg for the weekend we came up with more reasons to go than to stay home and work. Lucky for us it was wonderful weather, got family pictures checked off the list of things to do, met up with Aaron's brother, and was able to stay and visit with our friends in SC that we rarely get to see.
We've been before, but there's a lot to do! So we were able to do a couple tours we haven't done in past trips. And thanks to staying together with our 'friends with kids' we were able to enjoy a night alone at the pool and sauna as Liam slept. For future trips I'll have to remember that, travel with friends and do a kid swap while the kids sleep... we'll be looking for takers in the future :)

Liam did great. He was either snoozing away in the stroller or happy hanging out in someone's arms. He is so happy just seeing all the different scenery and being outside. We actually woke him up from a nap for family pictures and he made it through all of them, the hardest part was keeping him from eating the grass.

We enjoyed a late lunch from the cheese shop and sat outside and listened to the fife band. We thought Liam was sleeping but we caught him with his eyes open just relaxing to the music.

My sister and I found these matching PJ's for our sons the weekend before at the outlets. We thought they were pretty cute. The best part is they glow in the dark so when he's in bed wide awake all you see is this skeleton reaching for you, it's pretty funny.

And finally.... A preview of our family pictures. I think Liam stole the show in his little fedora.

Boys will be boys.... And we love them for it.

 

 Auntie Manda and Cousin Easton came to visit for an extended weekend

On Sunday we went to church and the boys wore coordinating outfits for some 'formal' pics. This was what happened 98% of the time we tried to get them to sit next to each other and smile.... we settled for looking at the camera at the same time.

 Saturday we went downtown to see the monuments and the Hope Diamond, eat some Bobby Flay's Burgers and Paul's pastries for a sweet treat.

 We stopped briefly to attempt some photos.

 Saturday night bath time together.

 @ Bobby's Burgers

 Our first attempt for photo's was Friday night in their Halloween outfits... They just wrestled

Thanks for the fun visit! We sure loved playing with you. Come back soon!

All about Liam

He's 5 months! And growing up way too fast. Some facts about him.

He is always on the move. He is happiest facing forward in the Bjorn on a walk, seeing what there is to see. 
He's a talker. He likes to gab whether it's ooing and ahhing or ack ack acking.
He can roll over both ways and is starting to wiggle his way around on the floor or in the crib.
He smiles all the time and is often caught flirting with the ladies when we're out and about.
He's ticklish on his ribs under his arms, but no where else.
He likes a fast action game of peek a boo or tickle momster, always sends him into giggles.
His favorite music is country. When he's unhappy in the car he quiets down pretty quick when you play country in the back seat.

We are head over heels for this happy quirky loveable baby boy. Even when he's at his worst we still think he's pretty darn cute. My favorite time of the day is just after he eats, he relaxes in my lap and sits still for about 5 minutes. Time is passing way to fast and its those moments that I try to pause and 'smell the roses' if you will.
 

Meal time - a new hit or miss

Awhile back a friend of mine posted on her blog about some pinterest meals that she had tried. Well in an effort to expand my meal repertoire I have been challenging myself to try a few new recipes. In addition to the new recipes I have been doing meal prep once or twice a week for the entire week. It makes making dinner so much easier since now that I have a little one, I never have time in the evening that I can actually make a meal that takes prep work outside of sticking something frozen in the oven or making a sandwich. It's been working quite well. It's also cut back on doing dishes during the week and if I plan well I can cook a bunch of chicken up for 4 recipes at the same time. And if I'm extra good, I can double recipes for a meal to enjoy on a crazy week that I am not together on. And since I plan everything all at once it forces me to look at the week as a whole and evaluate some of our meal choices. 

So back to my friends challenge. Here are the pinterest meals we've tried and our thoughts:

1. Slow cooker Honey Sesame Chicken - this was okay. Not a favorite. Something about Asian food in the slow cooker is not quite working for us.
2. Coconut Chicken w/ Sweet dipping sauce - this would have been better had the recipe specified that you need 'sweetened' coconut, not the plain stuff as I used. I plan to try this again with the right stuff.
3. Chicken Broccoli Supreme Casserole w/o the canned soup - excellent. We've had this a couple times.
4. Braised Short Ribs - This is a favorite of mine. I cut the red wine and use beef broth. Aaron seems to sometimes like it and sometimes not, so I don't know if I didn't space it out far enough in between or what. He likes variety whereas I could eat the same delicious meal every night several nights in a row.
5. Honey Spice Chicken Thighs- Good, but not as flavorful as I was hoping. Need to kick up the spice next time.
6. Pot Roast - I've made pot roast before, but I thought I'd try this as it had a few more seasonings and spice. We both enjoyed this and especially the pot roast leftover quesadilla's that were suggested as a follow up meal.
7. Left over Pot Roast Quesadillas - Awesome :)
8. Chicken, Potato, Bacon Au Gratin - sounded better than it was. It was fine, I definately need to add some red pepper or something next time. Needs some serious spice.
9. Orange Chicken - made in the crock pot, another Asian meal I decided doesn't work in the crocker. To many varieties of flavors blended together. The flavors need to be kept separate and layered and then maybe we would have liked this better.
10. Best ever Beef Sandwiches - good. very salty from the soy sauce. maybe beef broth next time? We'll see. I haven't given up on this one.


So inspired again by my friend, I put this question out there... What are your go to meals? and what about recipes you've tried? Anything good enough to share? I need some more awesome hits and less misses.

Family Vacation 2012

Aaron was surprised with an extended Fourth of July holiday so we decided to take Liam on our first official family vacation. Over the years that we have lived on the east coast we've consistently had reasons to travel north and have not taken the opportunities to go south. So since fried chicken was calling my name I thought why not go to the mecca of the lady herself, Ms. Paula Deen.

Our trip started out earlier than expected due to the previously mentioned power outages. But on the plus side we got to spend extra time with our friends in Florence, SC. It was so nice to sleep somewhere with air conditioning. This part of the trip was mostly hanging out with friends which was really nice to just visit without trying to fit extra things into the schedule. Aaron got to spend some time golfing, while Melissa (yes the friend we visited has the same name) and I got to talk endlessly about girl stuff without boring the boys. We went to school together years ago, before we both got married, had kids, and moved all over the place. And I love that after all these life changes, when I talk with her and hang out with her and her family I still feel as if we are the same people that we were in design school years ago.

On the Fourth we set off to our next destination, Savannah, GA. We stayed at a riverfront hotel with a perfect view of the fireworks. Liam did great touring the city. He napped in his stroller and when awake he hung out in the Bjorn cooing at the constant change of scenery. Although somehow he managed to sleep through the fireworks. While in the Savannah we spent a day doing a hop on hop off trolley tour. We saw movie sights, historic sights, gardens and eerie graveyards. Everything was draped in Spanish moss which made the town feel both romantic and haunted. I was happy that we did not run into any alligators on our trip, but I saw plenty of warning signs along the river. The highlight of Savannah for me was the buffet dinner at Paula Deen's restaurant. The home cooking classics were delicious and I've never tasted brussels sprouts like these, topped off with a piece of butter cake for dessert. I can't even remember the last time I was in that much pain from eating, but somehow an hour later I found space to enjoy a praline.

note: a favorite memory of Savannah was the morning Aaron was changing Laim's diaper and he pooped through 4 in a matter of 20 minutes, not only that, but it was while Aaron was in the middle of the diaper change and poop got all over the bed sheets on his side of the bed.... Aaron humbly went to find the maid in the hallway to ask for new sheets, she laughed when he explained why.  A special thanks to my son who saves his best poops for his dad :)

Three days later we were off again to our next stop. We swung by the beach for lunch on our way out of town and made our way north to Charleston, SC. Aaron's favorite food guide when traveling is his phone app. called 'TV Food Guide'. It has led us to some awesome food and some random food. My favorite is still the gingersnap milk shake I enjoyed in Cleveland, OH. So our first night we let it guide us to a quaint little sit down place that had the menus written on a chalkboard wall in the dining room. Again I enjoyed my favorite fried chicken and Aaron has some sort of pine bark stew. I'd say this place was on the awesome list, although I still crave that gingersnap milk shake. We only spent 2 days in Charleston, but we took a great historic tour on a carriage ride and enjoyed some silky gelato on the pier. We walked through the market and saw the pirates graveyard. Next time I'd love to spend a day at a plantation. There are some big ones there that take a solid day to explore. 

After Charleston we made the drive home and were very happy to find the electricity had returned. I always love family vacation. It's very rejuvenating, a nice break to leave the stresses of home behind and just enjoy each other one on one for a solid block of time and experience something new.

So the part you've all been waiting for.... PICTURES!

 Market Street where they have sweet little things called 'pralines' a new favorite

 Stroller AC

 Fourth of July Firework set up

 Laim enjoying his diaper change

 Breaking for morning snack

 The Sears and Roebuck fountain

 This is a Sears and Roebuck house kit. Apparently the owners read the manual wrong and put the window sills on top of the windows and the window crown on the bottom where the sill should be.

 Eerie graveyard

 Aaron and Liam in thier matching outfits... only dad's isn't a romper, but wouldn't that be funny? Aaron actually picked out this outfit himself and dressed them both that morning. Later he got tired of all the strangers commenting on their father/son outfits so he changed.

 Aaron's other purchase for Liam. He makes a cute monkey.

 I think Liam thinks he's too cool for this.

 Tybee Island Lighthouse

 Charleston Pier

 Carriage ride

That is our update for now. In other news we have started house shopping, wish us luck! We might be moving to Virginia. Sad, but true. Friends in Maryland, pray we'll find the perfect home here... although on the plus side our power lines would most likely be underground in VA which means fewer if any power outages. In which case Maryland friends you can crash with us. :)

Teaser Picture

Me and Liam at the Tybee Island lighthouse. More family vacation pictures and a more detailed blog to follow. This is just for those who keep asking for more pictures ;)

The Days of Darkness

It's no secret that we lost power for several days last weekend/week. And with the massive heat wave plus humidity it was extremely inconvenient and uncomfortable. The first 24 hours I was just annoyed, but as we ventured out Saturday we saw....




this was a common sight all over. Our street was closed and patrolled by 3 cop cars for several days. We could get out, but to get back we had to drive the wrong direction on the wrong side of the street. Now as I was telling a sister about this she asked me if we lived in the boonies.... no, no I don't, but one would think with this sort of mess and the length of time we all had to wait to get power back you'd think that we didn't live just miles away from where the leader of our country lives. To be exact I live 11.8 miles from the White House. Luckily we had already planned a family vacation for last week so I was just trying to get to Tuesday and we'd be okay. Here's how the weekend went:

Friday night/Saturday:
We spent all day inside in the dark just hoping and praying for a miracle and that our power would be some of the first to come back. We were bored a lot and slept a lot. Luckily because I am a bit obsessive I had batteries and back up batteries for the necessary items...  also lucky that baby toys seem to be battery operated and already had batteries, hmmm maybe that's why I had back ups. These black outs have happened before and for some reason we always think that they won't happen again, but then they do. And it always seems to be the hottest week or coldest week of the year... remember snowpocalypse 2010?


and snowmageddon just 2 weeks after that?(actually I'm not sure which one came first but they were one after the other)


So what's worse? Hot or Cold? I'd say the heat... at least when it was cold we could warm up and I could run the gas stove to provide a little extra heat, but when it's already so hot you try to avoid adding any kind of heat to the already overly hot space so any kind of cooked food was quickly ruled out and dry cereal, fruit and peanut butter sandwiches became our diet. And being that we were all put under strict water conservation advisement's I filled up every empty container we had with clean water just in case the water purification plants didn't get up and running. But speaking of water the lack of power also meant the lack of warm water and thus added the shock of cold showers to the list of misery. Again when it was cold we could heat water on the stove and take a warm sponge bath, but as I said the use of the stove was out out out.

Sunday day 2: I have never been so excited about going to church in my life!!! The church building had power and AC and I was going to enjoy those 3 hours of coolness. About an hour in, a couple friends who were lucky to get their power back the night before had offered a cool place for us to hang out and electricity for us to do laundry. At first I was like oh we'll be fine it's only a couple more days, but about 20 min before church ended I was fighting back tears as I was dreading the fact that I would need to return home and realized if there was ever a time to be needy and not self reliant it was now. A thousand thank you's to the Atwood's for opening their home, their freezer, washer/dryer, warm bath for the babes, and offering a hot meal and fantastic company. I still tear up when I think about what a blessing that afternoon and evening was.

Monday day 3: We were done! Almost made it to Tuesday, but why wait? When you've already planned a family vacation, have hotel reservations and friends on notice that you are going to visit why prolong the wait? So as soon as Aaron finished his partner/lunch meeting I had big plans to get out of here. And so get out we did. Aaron packed his suitcase before he left for the office and I was sooooo happy that babes took a super awesome long nap that morning allowing me to get everything packed and ready so when he woke, we took off in a fully packed air conditioned car hours before the lunch would be over. But we were excited and so we ran some errands, did some shopping, made some phone calls, and picked up Aaron to leave straight from work and put an end to the mess we were leaving behind. 

I'm not quite sure when we did get our power back, but we got home early early Sunday morning to the delight of electricity and rejuvenated from a wonderful family vacation. So now that we have a very empty fridge and freezer we will be doing a full load grocery shopping spree this evening. Gotta go on a health kick after that nice Paula Deen buffet and all the other southern fried chicken I devoured.... and I wonder why I'm not bouncing back to my pre-pregnancy body ;)