May & June Photodump

Well I see that a monthly update is too much for me to handle! So go grab a cup of coffee and get comfy... I have a lot to share and a lot to say :) And I like hearing myself talk (and I'm the quiet one of the family! haha!).... so here we go!!

5/7/16 Weekend: Ross & I have the best group of friends! In May, they planned a winery weekend at the Finger Lakes, and it was our first time being able to go (yay for being closer to home!). So this was also our first weekend away from Claire. The trip was lovely. We rented a beautiful house with our friends with lake views, wined and dined for 3 straight days, and left with our hearts filled! And I only cried once from missing my baby girl.

Here, I let Claire pick out a new toy for the upcoming roadtrip! (She only had to drive half as far, as we met my parents in NY to watch her.) It's a big deal when I buy her a new toy as I'm very set on the 'minimalist' mindset. But a roadtrip called for a new toy and she loved it :)

Caption: 'See mom... I buy Claire SOME new toys!' I couldn't pass up a cute owl from the one winery.

Ross & I at Wagners Winery & Brewery. Ross loved having the option of beer or wine. He goes for beer. I go for wine. We are both happy campers.

A picture of the whole group!

Ross & I have perfected feeding Claire during long roadtrips! One of us will jump in the backseat to feed her a bottle while the other continues driving.... it's a win-win because she's buckled in and happy eating, and the other person is buckled in the middle seat, and we don't have to take the time to stop. This is the first time for Ross to take over feeding duties in the car (and he dozed off!) so I had to take a pic! ha!

5/17/16: Sometimes the simplest toys are the best toys!!
Video



5/18/16: This particular night, Claire was hilarious. She was purposely putting the burp cloth on her face... I think it was her game of hide-n-seek. And she kept giggling over and over. We finally got one round on camera!!
Video



5/22/16: Ross, Claire & I went to check out this place here in Cleveland called the Holden Arboretum. They have a canvas walk through the trees and a tower that you climb to see out over the trees. It was so much fun!! And we had a gorgeous day for it. I carried Claire in the back-pack which she loves. Afterwards, we had a nice picnic for lunch then headed home :)

Goofball likes eating the carrier!

Family selfie!!

Panoramic Views!! And it's worth mentioning the I carried her up all 202 stairs!!! Ross carried her down. Safe to say I was huffing and puffing when we finally reached the top!

She loved playing with an empty water bottle during our picnic... again, the simplest toys are the best toys!

5/23/16: Claire and I love going to our beach, Lake Erie. Did I mention already it's 5 minutes from our house! haha  It's not the nicest beach or the 'bluest' water... but it's our beach and we love it! And I'm not even a beach person. Make me drive 8 hours to get to the Atlantic... no way! 5 minutes, sure!! I love our town here in Bay Village!!

5/26/16: 6-month checkup, all is well! And she was such a champ with the shots this time! I can't get over how much I love these headbands... headbands all the time :)

5/28/16 Memorial Day weekend: Here was another big event.... our first time camping this season and first time camping with Claire!! Boy, it was work! But I still won't give up camping no matter how much work it is! I love it too much and it brings me too much peace. Hopefully Claire eventually enjoys it as much as Ross & I do! Unfortunately, this time, we got some rain and a TON of mud... so remind me next time to bring tennis shoes or rain boots! whoops.

Claire's wearing my hoodie while we were stranded under our canopy in the pouring rain. She didn't mind and eventually fell asleep in it!

She loved the tent too. She eventually slept peacefully at night by stealing my sleeping bag. *sigh*

Family selfie...

Girl loves selfies. hahahaha....

Aunt Ang and Aunt Kris loved spending time with Claire too!...

Tent Selfie...

 

And finally, a picture of the whole gang before we all departed! (minus Dakota. She hates camping and had had enough!  She was sitting by the car waiting to go!)

Ross took the next day off too to have an extra long holiday weekend so we explored Cleveland a bit. Can you guess whose drink belongs to who?!

6/2/16: Another beach day! And another selfie. She cracks me up!!!! This was our first and only pic of the day...we're getting too good at this!

6/3/16: She discovered her tongue! ha!

This was also an exciting day b/c I received my Welcome Kit for my new job. I'm officially a contractor with eGroup for Southern Nuclear Company!! I sent this selfie to a few of my coworkers who also work through eGroup and said we could now be 'TWINSIES!' hehe

So basically, I got my old job back as a Project Analyst but as a contractor since I live out of state. I'm SO happy to be back working full-time and I think Claire's happy being back in the home daycare she was at previously with a few other kids. It's good for both of us. I'm regaining my sanity and independence and she's learning how to make friends :)

6/9/16: The tough life of shopping. She fell asleep like this in her stroller.

 6/10/16: Another giggling video... I can't resist!!!
Video


6/11/16: Another beach day. This time she discovered sand!
Video


6/18/16 Weekend: Last weekend, I headed home to Pittsburgh to celebrate one of my best friend's, Steph, on her upcoming wedding! It was her bridal shower and bachelorette party all rolled into one weekend! Everything went off without a hitch and we had a blast!!

Ross & Claire stayed behind for the weekend, so he ended up spending his first Father's Day watching Claire all by himself. I heard that they had a really good weekend though!.. that may or may not have had something to do with also seeing her grandma (Ross' mom) and her uncle (Ross' brother) for the weekend! I'm sure she was spoiled with attention!!!

Back to the beginning of the day, Steph's fiance asked for one gift... a chainsaw. And he was ecstatic! priceless!

 

Group shot at the shower!

Steph and her coconut rum punch! Yum!! We ended up having a Makeup-Tutorial party, dinner catered by Mad Mex, then out on the town to a club to dance!

One more shot before our night out! Let me remind you that we only went OUT at 9:30pm... a time when most of us are in bed! So bets were talked about whether or not we would make it out and not fall asleep beforehand. Answer? We are still young! The evening was a blast and we were up until 3am!! It only took me 5 days to recover from the sleep I lost....

So worth it!!

At the club, I'm sad to report that it's evident that I'm a MOM. Every time I saw a girl dressed scandalously, I cried and prayed that Claire would never wear such a thing. "Put some clothes on!" or "Don't dance like that!" I would yell. Oh, these poor poor girls. Have some respect for yourselves. ....What happened to me?!!! I never asked for a daughter and look what it's become of me!!

At the club!... (what an *awesome* pic of Kris & I, ha!)

And lastly, a pic of Ross' weekend with Claire! I think Claire loved her daddy-daughter weekend!

 

6/24/16: And lastly, because it happened today and I'm still giddy over it... our new fridge!!! Well, sort of. We live in a rental house and the fridge died... so the Landlord went out right away and bought us this shining beauty. I'm giddy over it!! I didn't know if they'd buy something cheap since it is a rental after all... but seriously, I feel like I won the lottery! 

It's so pretty. I pet it and stare at it every time I walk in the room. 

Yes... my name is Kristin and I get giddy over new appliances.

 

Ross & I are thinking about re-signing our lease for another year and this def. helps sway the decision! We are just so happy here and are not interested in buying a house yet. And I'll tell ya... it's nice to have a break from home renovations :)

Well, that is all! I warned you I had a lot to share!

*Kristin*

Camping Labor Day Weekend 2012

It's been a week since Ross & I came home from camping with our friends over Labor Day weekend, but that just makes me want to reminisce even though I have a ton of great pictures to remember it by (on facebook in case you hadn't noticed)!! A few of the highlights:

- Camping in the mountains of North Carolina (near Boone)...gorgeous area all around! Can't wait to go back one day!

- The chaos of figuring out our tent sites at the campground, long story, but Ang & I were victorious in the end :) Go Team... um......Portuesi Seibert?!!!

- Touring Linville Caverns and Linville Falls, experiencing 'total darkness' in Linville Caverns, only 2 places in the world you can experience that and we were in one of 'em :)  (fun fact: apparently it would take 2 months to go completely blind, but psychiatrists say it would only take 2-3 weeks to go crazy) Final Conclusion: Yes, it was dark  (not the whole tour, just that one moment :)

- As usual, we played card games, and yet another game of never-ending Phase 10, to which 3 of us finally ditched out in hopes of gaining back our sanity

- Ross & I got to use our brand new tent. OH THE ROOM WE HAD :) Even Dakota had her own spot in the corner with her bed. She was great, we'd go to bed at night, and she'd immediately go lay down in her bed. I'd cover her with a blanket to keep her warm (since her new habit is burying herself at home) and she'd sleep until morning. And as usual per our faithful Marmot brand, the tent stayed dry through the rain!

- Ross & I also felt spoiled having the crossover with so much room and power! (mwahaha) Somehow we managed to completely fill it up with stuff, but it's still a car we're both going to love for years to come and for hopefully many more adventures :)

And last but NOT LEAST:

- Mr. Monopoly (aka mean Park Ranger with a mustache that we nicknamed) threatening to give us a $250 ticket for having our cooler with alcohol in our car when pulling into an area to go see Elk Falls!!! Apparrently we drove onto an Air Force Reservation Land which prohibits alcohol and weapons. So sorry we didn't see your rusted, dinky sign and that you barely noticed our ALABAMA (aka tourist) license plate. And then questioned if we were even 21 years old AFTER looking at Ross' LICENSE, registration & insurance. Wow. Deuche-bag. Yes, Mr. Monopoly, I can call you whatever I want, at least we had some great laughs for the rest of the weekend!! :)  (aka....Mr. Monopoly park ranger says 'do not pass go, do not collect money, go directly to Jail') hahahaha    but we never did get to see those falls.... o well! We were lucky we had to head back to the campsite anyway, b/c then it started pouring down rain and we were there in the knick of time to salvage most things!!

*Kristin*

Gearing Up for North Carolina!

Everything is in full swing for camping this weekend!! Not only do I love camping and my friends, but combine the 2 and the fact that I hardly see them anymore, you can bet that I'm 10x's more excited than usual! And I'm pretty sure Ross is looking forward to it too :) Of course, my friends & I have been constantly checking the weather, and even though it's calling for rain, I can't help but not care (it always changes anyways!). I'd rather be sitting under the rain canopy with my closest friends than sitting at home by myself with beautiful weather. It's nothing we haven't dealt with before in the past :) Especiallly last labor day weekend when we were drenched after the last night of camping. Said trip would've been better if Ross & I put the rainfly on our tent properly, aka having dry shelter throughout the night rather than waking up with water everywhere! But have no fear....we know for a fact that our tent stays dry through monsoons(!). It's part of the reason we so highly reccomend Marmot tents :) So no rain is gonna ruin our trip this time!

We did lots of shopping for food and drinks this weekend, b/c no camping trip is complete without lots of food!! ...and drink. And am I alone in thinking that all road trips require candy and snacks?! Ross never thinks so! haha ...more candy for myself.  We're gearing up and ready to go. Only 4 days until we set off!! The weekend will surely go by too fast but hopefully with lots of pictures to remember it by....