God Bless America

So attempting to remember the last two weeks, cancel that, MONTH is the biggest incentive to start to blog more frequently.  I started this post awhile ago but been caught up in the typical summer craziness.  I know I've had fun and Maeve continues to do hysterical and dramatic things, but I'm stretching myself trying to recollect everything.

Before I start going down memory lane, this post has been attempted on three different times... first right after the 4th of July, second while I was on a train from Philadelphia to New York City between meetings in late July, and now third back at home in early August.

So I took my first US train ride and I loved it.  I don't travel often enough to be an expert, but once a month or so for work and I've had some pretty bad experiences lately so it was a nice change of pace.  I was able to charge my iPhone, use wifi to check work emails, no next door neighbor and the trains in general just seem so efficiently run.  I get to pick our vacation next year and it might have to include some train rides, maybe across Europe.

So back to our happenings...The days surrounding 4th of July were jam packed and full of quality time with friends and family.  We ended up having some friends over on the 3rd for a BBQ.  I've been wanting to try to make home made sliders and do a burger bar after a guy at work had one and it sounded delicious!  I'm a huge fan of cheeseburgers as well.  Making burgers from scratch is surprisingly easy, it's just all about the right combination of meat, seasonings, and something to bind everything together and hold in the juices.  The only major problem was that it was sooo humid and ended up raining halfway through party.  We don't have air conditioning so once everyone moved inside, the house turned into a hot box.  But rain subsided, we moved into the garage and started to cool off alittle.  The actual 4th was very low key with dinner at Kassi & Kyle's and Maeve & I headed home before dark so no fireworks... maybe next year. 

The following week was alittle chaotic because I was in NYC for 2 days and Ryan left for the West Coast for a 5 day work trip.  Fortunately for us, my parents and the Harris's were all coming in town late in the week to kick off their 2 week vacation at cottages on the lake in Angola.  My mom came in a couple days early to watch Maeve so work trips ended up being pretty seemless. 

So the rest of July has been filled with family out at the lake, usual work, and trying to catch up with friends who were in town from Denver with their 5 month old son.  Tim and Ryan have been friends since grade school and moved to Denver about 5 years ago.  I love how the two of them pick right up where they left off, even if it's been a while since they've seen each other.  Unfortunately for me and Maeve, she got a skin rash from a virus in the middle of their visit and we were quarantined for a couple days away from all babies.  So I was home last Thursday & Friday trying to work from home since Maeve couldn't be in school.  The last weekend with my family in town was shaping up to be great.  I took off Friday and we headed out to the lake in the morning to catch up with everyone and play and then the Harris's minus Margot, Alicia, and Maeve & I headed to Wanakah for alittle pool time.  We headed home for a nap and then back out to the lake for dinner.  I was hoping for a repeat on Saturday but Maeve spiked a fever Friday night and slept all of about 4 hours so Saturday we ended up at the doctors and back home to rest.  She ended up taking a 5 hour nap during day and then back to bed early.  Fever was finally gone on Monday but what is with these summer illnesses??  So unfortunately we missed saying good-byes to everyone but hopefully it won't be long until we see everyone again.

Other than that we are just back in normal routine.  Our girl has possibly entered her terrible two stage (even though she is not yet two) as the littlest things seem to set her off into a meltdown.  And when I say meltdown, it is a literal meltdown.  Her tiny body just slithers to the floor to assume her kicking or sliding or fetal position.  I'm trying my best to ignore, which is working pretty well because just as I'm about to break and grab her, she usually breaks and comes to get me, almost effortlessly doing a 180 and turning back into a sweet little girl.  I keep telling myself to stay strong - patience is a virtue and anything else that will give me sanity when dealing with a screaming child. Otherwise, she's pretty great.  She is talking non-stop and I can decipher about 80% of it.  She's a sponge who loves to stop and ask us all sorts of things, like hold up foam letters and numbers in the tub and ask which ones they are, or what all the different clothing is for her doll.  She's so quick to point out airplanes, helicopters, diggers, clouds, the moon... so observant that I'd love to see the world through her eyes even for a day.  She loves telling Ryan and I both to "Sit here" usually right next to her or "Come on Mom" "Come on Dad - let's go to the park".  Which translates into each of us getting a stroller or shopping cart and pushing it around the house in circles in a train, following her.  She has officially renamed her baby doll to Margot.  Her teachers thought she had seen Despicable Me since there is a girl named Margot in it, but little did they know she has a mild obsession with her new baby cousin. She's enthralled with being in the car not in her seat.  She wants to explore and press the hazards button.  She told me today that she wants to drive and sit on my lap, which didn't go over well when I told her no because she just wasn't ready to comprehend laws and police.  Everything in the world also belongs to her, according to her everything is "Maeve's truck" to everything we pass on road, "Maeve's phone", etc - she's all about ownership these days.

So pictures to come and sorry for delay... take what you can get because I'm obviously very behind.  

Fun Wedding Weekend

I think I'm still recovering from my girlfriend Niki's wedding this weekend.  It was held at the refurbished Statler and was just beautiful.  Ryan and I took full advantage of Maeve's sleep-over at Aunt Alicia & Uncle Jon's house and we were out until 3:30!!  I haven't hit 3 am in quite a while so a nap was required the next day.  

Here we are whooping it up post wedding!

 Fortunately for us, Al & Jon & Costigan must have tuckered Maeve right out because she took a solid 3 hour nap so I was able to get all caught up too.  Mid-day naps are pretty perfect every once in a while.  All reports from Al & Jon were good and it's official that Maeve just adores Costigan.  She is an animal lover and always lets him like her hand/face.

After naps, we decided to head over to the pool for a quick dip.  We are pretty fortunate to have the pool so close to us (walking distance) and how much Maeve loves the pool - especially all of the jumping and bubble blowing that comes with it.

Last week Maeve kept talking to Ryan and I mentioning "pom poms".  We kept asking her what that was all about, thinking they were doing some cheerleading in school or playing with pom poms at school.  Finally I asked Ryan to google it to see if it was a show or character that we didn't know about... come to find out it was a Jones Brothers song that she heard at school.  We downloaded the song and have probably played it about 30 times since then with Maeve just dancing away to it.  Ryan is slowly coming around to Pop music, starting to realize that he has no choice.  Lately Maeve wants to bring her pillow everywhere, or as Maeve says her "Pie Low".  We are looking forward to a short week and some celebrating with family and friends over the next couple of days.  Happy Fourth of July!!!

The Potty, Parties, and a Birthday too!

So the summer is in full swing around our house, which means it's hot and sunny and busy!  We are keeping really busy and trying to tire out this little ball of energy each day.  Today was no different, even though it is my birthday.  The best part of the day were the random times that Maeve would just burst out "Happy Day Mama".  She's a non-stop chatterbox (wonder who she got that from???)  just begging for someone to talk and listen to her.  Her chatter has been remarkable, new words everyday.  She'll still do a good mix of word talking and throw in some babble, but the babble is becoming more and more infrequent.

My birthday was pretty low key.  I got to go out to dinner last Friday with my sisters and friends to Left Bank and had a yummy meal with lots of laughs.  Al and I ended up staying out late, but Ryan gave an early birthday present of getting up with Maeve.  I'm usually the early bird who doesn't sleep in and is up before Maeve is on the weekends, so he was probably wondering what the heck happened to me!  I got lots of love today in the form of phone calls, cards, texts, and Facebook posts.  There's nothing like a day filled with warm messages to make you feel special.  My last treat of the day was a trip to George's for dinner.  No cooking for me and a delicious Big George cheeseburger!

Maeve got to enjoy the playground and one of her favorites... the slides.  Of course she ate about 1 strawberry, 1 bite of chicken, 1 french fry, and devoured a whole drink of chocolate milk... my girl has a sweet tooth.  It was a happy day if I do say so myself.

We are so lucky to have so many amazing friends just a couple of streets away so we've all been taking advantage of warm weather and having lots of get togethers. Every time I ask Maeve if she wants to go to a party, she wholeheartedly replies "YES" with a big smile. We've been over at our friends, Greg & Jenn's, for a cook-out and some pool time.  It was a bit too cold for me but Ryan and Maeve went in with Kane & Brady.  I bought Maeve a Puddle Jumper, which is like arm floats and a vest combined, which works pretty well for her but is a little big.  We have to be right by her either way, but it helps keep her head above water well.  She pretty much learned from Brady, who is only about 6 months older, but way more of a daredevil,  how to jump from the diving board so I usually have to help drop her in the water to Ryan about 10 times before she'll take a break and head back to the shallow end.  It's funny because when we go to a party, she usually get infatuated with one person and won't stop looking or asking for that one person all night.  If Uncle Brendon is there, then it's usually him.  At the last one it was my cousin Brian, Kane and Brady's dad.  She was keep asking and asking me where Brian. "Were'd go?" = Where did he go?

Since it's been a bit, I'll just catch you up on some pics from my phone.  I have to download my camera soon as there are some great ones from this past weekend when she was helping Ryan do some planting.

Here she is chomping on some broccoli.  She's usually a pretty good eater, but trying to work on more variety.  Funny thing is that she usually always eats the healthy stuff: fruit, veggies, yogurt, but no protein so have to keep working on that.

 So quick she is... I ran to put something away and came back about 30 seconds later to find her sitting in dryer with her blanket, a book, and her blocks.

 So Maeve's latest obsession is the bathroom and specifically the potty... yes, she has actually gone on the potty about 15 times by herself.  Now we weren't exactly training, but had bought a couple of books about the potty and have been including them in the daily rotation.  I had 1 seat on the toilet upstairs and would ask before the bath if she wanted to sit and try it out... most times she said no and sometimes she said yes and sometimes she wanted us to sit on it with her.  So a week or so ago was no different than usual routine but she asked to sit on the potty... so we took her up, pulled off diaper and sat her on the toilet.  Ryan and I were both talking to each other waiting for her to tell us she was done and then we heard some tinkling... ummm.... is it really that easy??!! My girl just went potty on her own, even telling us to put her on potty... amazing!  So No - it's not that easy.  Most of the time, she sits but nothing happens, sometimes something does happen and she's been going about 2 times a day on the potty at school.  We'll see where this goes.  And I'm sorry for talking about Maeve's potty training - I know it's not typical conversation but you'd be amazed at how much I've been talking about it lately with Ryan and Maeve's teachers.

With lots of time in bathroom, comes lots of time to play with toilet paper.  

 Can you see her disdain for me for interrupting her Mickey Mouse show?  She doesn't like camera breaks when she's watching a show.

 With summertime, comes lots of walks and often trips to Charlaps for some ice cream.  We all split a hot fudge sundae, which was so tasty.  She may look a lot like me, but she's got similar hair to her Daddy with lots of curls in the back.

With rain, comes puddles...
And puddle jumping!

Ryan is always bringing up how similar Maeve and I look and our similar mannerisms.  I don't always notice, partly because I'm looking at her and not at me, but he took a couple pictures which made me smile and laugh and how she is my mini-me

 She keeps crossing her arms in front of her or putting her hands on her hip and saying "Yeah" instead of "Yes" and I'm noticing that it is all me (for good and bad)

We were over at Greg and Jenn's the other night and Greg pulled out his guitar... and Maeve was mesmerized, even trying to strum the strings.  She loves to sing and dance and jump around so possibly a musician in her future... which is definitely not from me!

A lot of little things...

So life has been relatively peaceful around here.  Perfectly peaceful that the last thing I've been in the mood to do is sit in bed and type on the computer.  But our little girl keeps growing leaps and bounds. Not only is her hair getting longer and curlier in this heat, but she's talking like crazy.  We've just been trying to keep her busy and keep up with our own work, spring cleaning and enjoying this warmer weather.  And with that is a random group of pictures from my phone over the past couple of weeks since we've gotten home from our trip.

 Maeve got a wonderful gift the other day from her cousin Drew... a whole stack of new books.  We've been digging in all weekend.

 Ryan has been pretty busy with work but always makes an effort to spend some quality time with little miss.  He is always willing to be silly and goofy, particularly if it's something Maeve asked him to do.  

 Testing out a beef taco.  It was pretty much a mess, but she's getting much, much better.

 This is typical Maeve... following along one of us.  She was so curious where Dad went (for a run around the neighborhood) and I had to make an appetizer for a party later in the day so I got her a snack and drink and she sat for about 15 minutes at the front door waiting for Daddy to run back.

 Finally enjoying this wonderful weather at the water table.  She often drinks the water so we've been trying to keep it clean.  She likes to drink the water in the tub as well but we are working that.  She doesn't get sick too much so I'm thinking it might be she has a high tolerance for fighting germs from all of her dirty water drinking.

She is doing excellent at school as well lately.  We've gone 5 full days with no incident reports or for Maeve it's really just all about biting, but I can't remember ever going 5 straight days over the last 3 months with no reports.  She's had 4 teeth pop through over the past 2 weeks so I'm hoping that was driving some of the previous biting... here's hoping for a "bite-free" summer... because she leaves marks.

Africa 2013

As for our trip... it was amazing!  We weren't in any major cities so it was a very remote trip, but sometimes there is nothing better than peace and quiet. We got to watch the sunrise and sunset each day, have delicious meals under the stars, and even take some naps and read books (not articles on websites).  

So we took hundreds of pictures so here is just a snapshot...

Our first major action in the delta... a spotted leopard

 A female lion waking up from a nap

 A hyena walking along the road on our way back from an evening drive

 Side shot of our vehicle, which protected us from all of these animals

 Hippo

 A wild dog, which was a rare find as they are not common at all

 Herd of Elephants

 Zebras

 Enjoying the view during our daily siesta

 Tiny Crocodile

 Two lionesses lounging around - they are sisters that snuggle and hug:)

 Here are two brother cubs that were playing together on a tree branch.  They are about 5 months old.

 We had lions in the front of us and this beautiful sky behind us.

 Mama monkey and baby monkey getting a ride

 Our mode of transportation between camps.

 I was in the back for this one, but got to sit in the front next to the pilot on our first small plane flight.

 Ryan in the front!

 View from the plane

 Our second camp - that's me on the lounger reading during our siesta.

 A family of hippos hiding in the water.

 A mama lion with 3 little cubs nursing.  The guide thinks they are about 3 weeks old.  The mom was trying to nap and the cubs were walking all over her, on her head, her body, and nudging her face.  We were there almost an hour in silence just watching.

 So you can see from the pic that rhino is actually behind a wire fence.  There weren't currently any wild rhinos in the delta due to poachers so And Beyond, who owns the camps and land that we were on, decided to transport 6 wild rhinos from Africa to Botswana.  The rhinos were in the enclosure for just a couple weeks before they are released.  They should be released by now, but we got to see them up close and talk to the researcher in charge of watching and tracking their migration for the next 3 years.

 The elusive male lion.  Our amazing tracker, TK, spotted these guys about 300 yards away.  We followed them almost a mile or so as they walked through the delta.  They move so quietly I get how they are king of the jungle.

 A herd of buffalo.  There were about 300 of them traveling together

 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  So they weren't that much different from Niagara Falls, but definitely larger and higher and we were at peak season so the water was raging.  During dry season, parts of the falls will actually dry up enough that people can walk along the crest.

 A beautiful elephant we came across right at the start of the morning drive.

 Lots of giraffes

 Here was the lodge at our first camp.  No walls, open air, very peaceful

 Africa 2013.... we will be back!