Baby Shower!

Last month my wonderful mom and mother-in-law threw the most incredible baby shower for me! They went absolutely overboard on every last detail from the food to the decorations and games and I was completely spoiled. I felt so special the whole time. I am overwhelmed with love and gratitude for our friends and family that are as excited as we are to welcome our son to the world in just a few short months. I am not sure why we are so lucky but I am so thankful for each and every one of you. 

We had friends and family travel from as far north as Vermont and upstate New York to attend the shower. Christopher deserves a gold medal for joining in on the fun the entire time to take pictures and assist with gift opening. He played a great Vanna White. I might even say he had a good time!

The baby shower was held at a cute little historic train station in downtown Silver Spring. It just so happened that it took place on the same day as the Thanksgiving Parade, but that didn't stop everyone from showing up and having a great time! Our son's nursery theme is all about space, so the baby shower was based on that, and I absolutely loved all of the little touches!

My talented cousin Julia made this
adorable & delicious cake!

Cute star favor boxes with chocolates

One of my bffs Ryan contributed
 to the decor & favors!

My mom made a special recipe in a
blue variation for this favor.  When she was
 pregnant with me she craved this sugar popcorn
from the White House Cookbook.

There was an abundance of food and drinks and so much to do with all of the games and chatting with everybody that came to celebrate! It was such a great time and it was over way too fast!

Ruthie had everyone write us or the baby a message on this
pretty star stationery and then she put them all in a
scrapbook for us. When I read them the day after
the party I just cried and cried. They were all so sweet.

"Guess Baby's Stats" 

Baby Word Scramble- I thought I was good at these
but apparently not because I didn't win!

Lots of prizes for the winners of all the fun games

The food spread

Announcing a game!

Baby shower at the B & O Railroad Museum

Upstate NY fam

My amazing friends

Christopher's "Funny Oma"

More amazing friends & the hubster

Thank you so much to everyone that came! And for those that couldn't make it, please know that I felt you were there in spirit :) I love you all and our son is so excited to meet each and every one of you beautiful people.

Road Trip: Upstate New York

Okay everyone set your time machine back two months to August 9th when we road tripped to upstate New York! Chris has a lot of family that live in the state and I have always wanted to go. Ruthie (Chris's mom) and Elcio (Chris's stepdad) organized the trip and invited us along. Well on Friday I took the day off and we headed straight for Ithaca that morning!

There had been some serious rain the previous night and a lot of the area was flooded. We noticed the flooded areas as we were getting closer to the city but it didn't occur to me that it would mess up our plans for a hike at Robert H. Treman State Park. Well we headed there anyway and found that unfortunately all the trails were closed due to the flooding. What bad timing mother nature! We checked out the swimming area anyway and got some crazy photos of the falls and surrounding water that was quite the juxtaposition from the tranquil photo on their website! After that we ventured into the college town and stopped for a snack before heading to Opa (Grandpa) and Ma B's place for dinner.

Not so tranquil huh?

Aunt Tina and Uncle John as well as cousin Lucia joined too. We had a wonderful dinner there that Ma B prepared and Opa gave us a private tour of their beautiful garden. Afterwards we sat around the living room and chatted. The Aunts were discussing the ages of all of the cousins and Chris took that opportunity to make our exciting announcement "yea and we have one that's about 12 weeks." Nobody really got it at first and someone asked if we got a puppy! Then they figured it out and many congratulations were had. It was totally perfect.

Opa's backyard garden

On Saturday morning we met Opa for breakfast and great conversation. He brought us some beautiful books from his collection. One was filled with gorgeous photos of the state of New York, and the other was National Geographic. We love them and they proudly sit on our coffee table. After our bellies were full, Opa suggested a car show in Cortland or a visit to Lime Hollow Nature Center. Obviously a nature center was more our thing than a car show, so off we went! Lime Hollow is one of Opa's favorite places and I can see why. It was gorgeous. He pointed out several different species of birds and plants on our hike and Christopher clicked away on his camera the entire time. We even spotted some wild blackberries and sampled a few! Something I quite enjoyed were the random alcoves where you'd find a sculpture or two. The nature preserve houses a youth camp and these are some of their projects. 

A morning at Lime Hollow

Opa and grandson

Well the long walk had reset our appetites again and it's a good thing too because we were headed back to meet the others for lunch at Opa and Ma B's. Here is where I had my first cup of coffee in months, and it tasted better than I ever remembered! For dessert Ma B made this wonderful dish and I can't remember what it was called! It sort of looked like jello with whip cream but she called it a tart I think? I will need to ask her about that. What a great afternoon we had sitting out in the garden enjoying everyone's company! We had clearly exhausted Opa because he headed in for a nap. It occurred to us that maybe we should go rest at our hotel as well since we had dinner plans in our future!

Exhibit A (There is no exhibit B or C)

I am so mad at myself for not taking any photos at Kurt and Wendy's house. They live in an old one room school house that has been converted into a beautiful home. We drove towards Hannibel; after the gps connection goes out of range, you drive through a few cornfields and then turn left at the cemetery. They had set the table in the backyard and we dined inside of a Pinterest board. We feasted on pulled pork, salad, and the most delicious "salt potatoes" I have ever had. It was the most idyllic setting with the view of farmland in the background. Still kicking myself for not taking a picture… We loved visiting with them and hearing about what all of the kids were up to. Mica had just returned from a week at camp and Maya and Katja were talking about an upcoming trip to New York City! Gabriel and Christopher were lost in conversation the entire time discussing the merits of this or that video card (just kidding i'm not going to pretend I have any understanding of what they were talking about!). On the long drive back to our hotel I opened the moon roofs and stared up at the stars as we drove down the highway. What a beautiful night.

the night sky above Syracuse

Sunday morning we wanted to hike so we decided to venture out to Fillmore Glen State Park. It turned out to be further away than I had realized so we only had an hour to explore the beautiful trail and falls. What a great park! There was a sprawling lawn with tons of picnic tables. Nearby was a swimming area with ice cold water supplied from the falls. Not sure why it was closed that day but boy do I wish we had something like that where we live! It looked very fun. We walked along the stream path for awhile, Chris took lots of photos, checked out the falls and then it was time to head back. We wish we had planned for more time. I guess we will just have to return. 

badly photoshopped pic of us together at the falls

Next was a huge birthday celebration in honor of Opa at Briggs Hall in Homer. Ma B, Tina, and Ruthie planned a catered lunch at this historic building and what a great job they did. There was plenty of delicious food, lovely speeches, and some wonderful musical entertainment by the talented Lucia, Johannes, and their dad John. 

Birthday celebration

That evening was spent at Tina and John's home overlooking Skaneateles Lake (!). We spent the time telling stories and laughing and I daydreamed about returning some day for a longer trip. I loved upstate New York so much, what a beautiful place.

Guess What?!

The secret's out! Christopher and I are so so excited to be parents soonish and meet the little thing in just 6 short months! So far the pregnancy is going really well. Of course I've had some nausea and i'm always exhausted but it hasn't been too bad. As long as I eat frequent small meals I don't feel sick. Christopher is enjoying the additional snack supply in the house.

I crave salty crunchy things and I can't stand eggs anymore, which is funny because I used to love them. My first craving was ketchup!

I am seeing the midwives at Midwifery Care in White Flint and I absolutely love them so far. I will be delivering at Shady Grove Hospital in Bethesda.

Christopher has completed his first baby gear research project, we bought a new family car with great safety ratings. Now who wants to bet on how often she gets washed?

Have a mentioned that my husband is amazing?

Another work trip

I must travel for my job. Now, I love to travel to new places, but these aren't your typical conference/networking work trips where lots of downtime is anticipated. While Dallas in April turned out not to be as traumatizing and exhausting as my month long escapade to a particularly southern town last year, working eleven days straight plus overtime aint no walk in the park. 

Lake Caroline

It was pleasant at times though. I managed to scrape time together here and there to log 3 runs (go me!) This photo illustrates why it was easy to convince my sleepy body to lace up my running shoes.

Here is an example of how weird I am (don't worry, Chris thoroughly makes fun of me when I do this).

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

One thing that I can usually count on with these trips is that I will get to try some good local food. Well, no such luck in Dallas. Maybe I just wasn't going to the right places, but the best food I had was from Marriot's room service.

Some scary things happened while I was away that made me wish I could hug my family. The Boston marathon bombing for one, and then a few days later, the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. One was purposeful and one was seemingly an accident, both are awful for having occurred. It was scary how close the plant explosion was to where I was working, and it put everyone I was working with on edge because of the work that we do.

I did make time to meet up with some family that live nearby in Burleson; my husband's cousin Will and his wife Kristina, and cousin Rick and wife Wendy and their rambunctious children, Morgan, Miles, and Mia! Here is Mia bouncing around at dinner, she is hilarious.

Rick and Mia

Now you might think that when I returned home I would've put on my yoga pants, flopped on the couch, and started in on a Girls on HBO marathon. Well I didn't do that for two reasons. One, it would've been rude because I have a standing date with Kristina to watch Girls. And two, I wanted to go backpacking! So off we went to the George Washington National Forest!

More on that later...