Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Vacation Day 4- Coming Home

On Sunday, we had to come home from Savannah.  Boo.  Kate was not too excited about it either...



We ate a big breakfast and then packed everything up to leave.  We hit the road about 10:45, which would put us home around 2:45 if we didn't make any stops.  That didn't happen.

Kate did great at first.  She slept for a good hour or more, but then she woke up and wanted out.  She really wasn't that bad, but we finally decided we needed to make a stop and since we were only 30 minute away from my parent's house we decided to go there.   It was a little out of our way but we had to stop anyway and hadn't seen them in a while, so it was worth it.  We stayed for a little over an hour, ate a very late lunch and Kate got to crawl around and visit with her Gigi and Papa Rick.  Lots of fun.

We finally got home around 5:30 and were exhausted.  I knew Kate was going to go to bed early, but first she need a bath.  And she needed one badly.

One thing that we never even considered when booking a hotel was how the bathroom was set up.  I mean, all hotels give you the necessities, right?  Wrong!  After we took Kate swimming on our first day, we came back to the room to get ready for dinner.  I went to give Kate a bath when I realized that there was no bath tub.  All we had was a shower.  Kate is WAY too slippery when she's wet to even attempt putting her in the shower so the sink was our only option. Of course it was a tiny sink and Kate is not a tiny girl but we made do.  The next night, Kate was already asleep when we got back to the hotel room and I didn't want to attempt the sink again (I made a big wet mess) so we skipped the bath.  When we got home on Sunday night, she was getting a bath!  I think she was pretty excited about it too.








And then it was pajama and bed time, but not before playing with one of Daddy's toys... and a few of her own.




And so ended our vacation.  I would say that we're back to our normal schedule, but we're not.  Kate's still adjusting her sleep and catching up from her wacky vacation sleep schedule.  Also, I'm off of work this Friday because we'll be meeting up with Kate's birth parents for a visit.  The last time we saw them was right before Christmas, so we're excited to see them again and although they get to see lots of pictures, I KNOW they're excited to see how much Kate has grown.

We have LOTS to be thankful for and I hope we never take any of God's blessings for granted.


Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.
1 Chronicles 16:34

Monday, April 23, 2012

Vacation Day 3- Savannah

Here's a recap of our second day in Savannah. Maybe even longer than the first.  Sorry!

Kate woke up about 7:30 so after her bottle, we went downstairs for breakfast.  We stayed at Embassy Suites, and part of the reason we chose this hotel is breakfast.  Embassy Suites serves a big breakfast each morning with everything you can think of.  So we went downstairs around 8 and filled up.  We brought Kate's puffs but they weren't satisfying her.  She was reaching for our food like crazy, so we gave in.  She got her first taste of an orange and LOVED it.  We really shouldn't be surprised.  I don't think she's turned her nose up at any kind of food yet.


We came back to the room and got ready for the day while Kate napped.  We planned to do a trolley tour of the city since this would be our only full day in Savannah.  The weather forecast called for rain all day long (40%) but it looked sunny outside so we decided to take a chance and go do the trolley tours anyway.  I'm so glad that we did.  It was a lot of fun and we didn't get rained on.

The trolley tour was really neat.  They took you around the city, and explained some of the history while you were riding.  They stopped at 15 different places and you could get off and go explore on your own.  When you were ready to go, you could hop back on the next trolley and head to the next stop.  The trolleys ran about every 15 minutes from 9 am until 4:30 pm so there was never a long wait.


We finally made it to Chippewa Square, which was what Kevin was looking forward to.  This was where the scenes were filmed from Forest Gump where Forest is sitting on the bench waiting for the bus.  This was the view from our trolley.


We stopped in front of Chippewa Square (above picture) and our driver was explaining some of the history when all of a sudden, this guy hopped on our trolley...


It was so funny.  This tour was not a "live history" kind of tour, so we weren't expecting any re-enactments or anything like this.  He was pretending to be waiting on Lt. Dan so they could go look at a new shrimp boat they were wanting to buy.  At the end, he thought he saw Lt. Dan and took off running, Forest Gump style.  I have no idea where the trolley company found this guy, but they found the perfect person to fill this role.

It was lunchtime for Kate, so we got off the trolley at Forsyth Park.  This is where we stopped to eat...






We walked around Forsyth Park for just a little bit.  Apparently Saturday was Earth Day and there was all KINDS of stuff going on at the park.  We didn't head into the crowded area of the park, but we did check out the fountain.  





Then we hopped back on the trolley and just decided to ride for a bit.  We ended up riding all the way to the end, and never got back off.  It took us about an hour to tour the remainder of the city and by the time we got back, Kate was exhausted.  She was past due for a nap, but had done great all day long.  So we went back to the hotel to get a little bit of rest.

We'd wanted to go to Tybee Island that night, but the rain was moving in so we decided to skip it and just go to the mall.  This is how Kate travels.  Can you tell she's on vacation?  She doesn't look relaxed at all!



Our Saturday was another great day in Savannah!  This time last year, I couldn't even imagine being on vacation with a baby.  It was definitely an adventure (like Kate's bath time- which I'll share tomorrow) and we learned a lot about what vacation with a baby means, but it was a lot of fun and there were definitely a lot of memories made!  Happy Monday everyone!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Vacation Day 2- Savannah

We're back!  I took a lot of pictures on our trip to Savannah so this post is going to be pretty long even though I'm breaking up our trip into a few separate posts.  This might even be my longest post yet.  If you make it to the bottom, I'll be impressed.  We had a lot of fun, and it was a much needed vacation.  So, here goes a recap of our trip!

We woke up Friday morning when Kate got up (around 7:00ish).  Kevin fed Kate while I showered, got ready, and finished putting the last few things in the car.  He took a quick shower and we were on the road by a little after 8.  Our goal was 8, so we weren't too far off of that.  Kate was SO excited to go on vacation. :)


This is the furthest we've traveled since Kate was only a few months old, and this is our very first vacation as a family of 3.  We weren't sure how she'd do in the car for 4+ hours but she did really well.  She went back to sleep almost immediately after we left and slept for a good 1.5 hrs.  We had to stop for gas and after we got back on the road, she got a little restless.  SO, I climbed into the back seat and rode with her for about an hour.  It kept her fairly entertained, but she really just wanted out.  I can't blame her.  I was ready to be there and get out too.  So, I think we did pretty well to make the entire trip in a little over 4 hours with only one stop.

We got to Savannah around 12:30ish but couldn't check into our hotel until later in the day.  So we went downtown and walked around and ate lunch.  By chance, we parked in an underground parking garage and when we got upstairs to the ground level, we realized that we'd come out at the big fountain (or kid water play area) right outside City Market.  Right in front of us was a Wild Wing Cafe.  So we stopped there for lunch.  Kate liked the BBQ wings the best. :)

After lunch, we walked around City Market for a little while and then walked down to the river.  Kate traveled in style.  Because we knew we would be in Savannah this weekend, and we are going hiking next weekend, we bought a backpack carrier for her.  My parents used one of these with me and my sister when we were little, and apparently we loved it.  Kate seemed to like it too, and it was great to have the backpack instead of a stroller in a city with uneven streets and lots of curbs.





After we checked into the hotel, Kevin went to work out.  Kate hadn't slept since earlier that morning in the car, so I tried to get her to nap.  It didn't work out very well so when Kevin got back to the room, we decided to take Kate to the pool.  This was her first time in the water (other than the tub).  She seemed to like it, laughed and smiled a lot, and never cried.  We even let her go under a few times.  She drank a lot of water too.  Not from going under though.  She would put her face down to the water and try to lap it up like a dog.  Too funny.









We went back up to our room and showered and got ready for dinner while Kate finally napped.  Lots of people asked if we were going to go to Paula Dean's restaurant (Lady and Sons) while we were in Savannah but we decided to skip out on that.  We weren't up for the wait, and didn't think Kate would be up for it either.  Being in Savannah, of course we wanted Seafood.  We had recommendations from a couple of different people to try out Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, which is another one of Paula Dean's restaurants, and we decided to try it out.  We were a little worried that it would be crowded and there seemed to be a lot of cars in the parking lot when we pulled up, but it wasn't crowded at all.  It was great.  Kevin ordered shrimp, I ordered blackened fish and we split the fish/shrimp so we both got a little of each.  We enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.  I took a picture of my food, but I had already started when I thought about it.  Still looks good to me though!






And that was the end of our first day in Savannah!  What a great first day, filled with lots of firsts for Kate!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Kate's Second Word!

Since Kevin blogged about Kate's first word (Mama) here, I'm going to let him continue the tradition and be the one to share about her second word.  Go check out his latest blog post here!

Vacation- Day 1

We're not leaving for Savannah until tomorrow, but I took today off to catch up around the house.  I have a list of things that I want to do today, but for now I'm enjoying the fact that it is 8:15am and I'm still lounging around in my pajamas, watching HGTV, surfing the internet for things to do in Savannah, and going through pictures.  I'm a multi-tasker.  So far my day is off to a good start.  Here are the pictures that I'm enjoying right now. They make me smile.




Kate is now in the stage that Kevin calls "Discovery/Destroyer Mode".  She's into everything.  On this day, she was so intent on figuring out the air vents.  She kept crawling over to them and would play around with the vent.  Then she'd stick her nose all the way down to the vent and let the air blow her hair all over the place.  I didn't get a picture of that because I was laughing way too hard.  So funny.  She's a pretty curious baby. 






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