Vacationish

I use the term vacation loosely here. It was a vacation in the time of Coronavirus. And by vacation I mostly mean Matt didn't have to work and we went places together on not a weekend day. So anyway, vacation week was last week. We made the best of it and it was actually a pretty good time. 

Monday: we went fishing in our creek. That was about the extent of it cause we had a few other things we had to do this day. 

Tuesday: Backstory- Matt has always wanted to go to Luray Caverns. I have never wanted to go to Luray Caverns. I am terrified of Luray Caverns. I always told him that would be a great trip for him to go on with Quinn and have some bonding time. Well here we were 137 into a pandemic and the thought of going to Luray Caverns was less terrifying than one more day stuck around my house. Lucky us that we were about the 3rd people to check into good old Luray that morning and pretty much had the dark, wet, underground cave to ourselves. Clearly, I survived and it wasn't that bad. We had to wear masks the whole time and my glasses were either fogged or I just quit wearing them, so maybe it helped I couldn't really see. 

After Luray Caverns we took a little drive over the Shenandoah National Park. We did the Stony Man Trail, which ended up being perfect. It was about 3 miles roundtrip. There was minimal complaining and Quinn was super proud of herself once we got to the summit and hung out at viewpoint enjoying the mountain views. 

Wednesday: Quinn wanted us to take her to DC so we could all touch the Washington Monument. We went in the middle of the day. It was crazy how empty it was. If you have ever been to DC in the summer, you know how many tourists there usually are, but it was almost like we had the place to ourselves. We visited the MLK memorial, WW2, Washington Monument, Lincoln memorial, and the Korean War memorial. We decided to quit while we were ahead and head back home because DC is also unbearably hot in the summer. 

Thursday: We planned to go to Pittsburgh for the weekend, but stopped off at Shenandoah again. We had planned to just do the first trail in the park, but when we got out of the car there was someone reporting a bear a few minutes down the trail to a park ranger. We decided to drive a little further in and ended up at the Land's Run trail. It ended at a nice little waterfall that made the steep downhill and uphill worth it. 

Pittsburgh: We were able to see lots of my family, enjoy cooler temperatures, celebrate Matt's birthday and my Grandma's birthday. It was a nice relaxing visit minus a 6:30 wake up call from Quinn which including a concert on the piano.

It was a great week and it was really nice to finally visit with family since we haven't seen anyone for the duration of pandemic. We are look forward to making Shenandoah a more regular visit since it's not that far. This is my last week of summer before my official contract starts. I'm hoping to squeeze in a little bit more excitement!

100 Days of Summer, Week 10

This past week was an exciting one! Quinn took her first vacation and a very long road trip! We all had a lot of fun, she especially loved the beach. I would say that the ocean is her favorite, but she enjoyed the sand too. This week we are back in Virginia and I plan on trying to make the most of these last two weeks of my summer vacation. We have some fun things in store, stay tuned.

{Day 64:August 1}

Swimming in the pool. She was a fish! She went under water, kicked her legs, went in the waterfall, and rode this lobster all week!

{Day 65:August 2}

First day at the beach!

{Day 66:August 3}

Watching the guy golf from the deck.

{Day 67:August 4}

Napping on the beach. 

{Day 68:August 5}

Happy girl in the dunes. 

{Day 69:August 6}

Desperate times...so as mentioned many times before, Quinn hates the car seat. She was a real trooper most of our trip, but the way home was LONG. Everything was going decently until Richmond when all the traffic came. Our friend lost her mind so we had to pull over. Matt decided the best place to go was Mattress Warehouse where he made up an elaborate story about needing a new bed for our guest room while Quinn and I walked all around the store and she crawled on temperpedics. All I wanted to do was lay down. 

{Day 70:August 7}

Happy to be swinging at home :) 

100 Days of Summer, Week 9

It's been an exciting week! We took our longest road trip as a family of 3. Since it wasn't hot enough in Virginia :), we decided to go south, finding ourselves in Charleston and then Hilton Head for the next week. Stay tuned for an exciting first beach experience! 

{Day 57:July 25}

First pair of shoes...it's a love/hate relationship

{Day 58:July26}

I love our crepe myrtle, and I'm sad that I think we are missing it in full bloom this week. 

{Day 59:July 27}

Pack and ready to go...all this stuff for 3 people...or mostly one person.

{Day 60:July 28}

On the road...a highlight for our car seat hater...this was right before the most massive meltdown.

{Day 61:July 29}

Fort Sumter, South Carolina

{Day 62:July 30}

Our view for the week, Galleon Golf Course, Hole #1

{Day 63:July 31}

Matt's Birthday Dinner!!! 

Seven Months

Again with the late monthly post. I all but guarantee, the 8 month one will be on time because then I will have one less major responsibility! Month seven brought on some major milestones! We did not have a well check at seven months, but I estimate Quinn is between 17 and 17.5 pounds and probably 27.5ish inches. The beginning of May brought on your two top teeth, further proving your sleep has been off and on for weeks now due to teething. I will say this month was better than last.

You continue to LOVE standing and will scream and yell at us until we stand you up. Recently you have taken it one step further and just want us to help you walk around the house all day. You are still quite vocal. Last month you would hold on to the couch or something to stand by yourself, this month you have learned how to pull yourself up, especially in the bathtub since it's low. Luckily most other things are too high for you to reach.

Waving

You discovered your Elmo toy this month and it is hilarious to watch you interact with him. You still enjoy soccer and banging things together. Also new this month is waving at people, and especially yourself in mirrors. We are still working on getting you to wave at the right times. You also started clapping your hands. We have started to see a little bit of separation anxiety, but nothing too bad.

We took you on your first airplane trip to Boston and you did a great job traveling. You were a very good baby on both flights. We still consider ourselves very lucky with a happy and well behaved baby.

Eating solids has come a long way since last month. You have had many fruits and veggies and oatmeal. You have one meal with your babysitter around lunch and then I feed you oatmeal with fruits and veggies when we get home for the day. You typically prefer thicker food and not very pureed things. It is fun to watch you try things for the first time. As always we are so excited to see what the next month brings! We are so luck you are ours and love watching you grow each day!

New England

Matt and I have just returned from a trip up north. The week went so fast and now I'm really feeling like it's crunch time. After all that sneaky month called August starts on Saturday. Enough about that, though. This was a big trip for us! We got to visit with Matt's family, spend some peaceful vacation days as a party of two, and we had a baby shower!

We spent most of last Saturday driving up the east coast playing the license plate game (eventually we got all but nine states!) and finding out just how big the small state of Connecticut is...really I swear we were there all day. When we finally reached Massachusetts we had a nice dinner with Matt's parents, and then spent Sunday just visiting before driving to Maine late at night.

Monday we headed to Drake Island Beach and spent the day sitting in the sun and reading. It was a perfect beach day! The day was so perfect we ended up finishing it off at the pool after coming back from the beach. As great as Monday was, Tuesday left something to be desired. It was a little bit chilly out in the morning, but things warmed up for a few hours in the afternoon. We decided to make it a pool day, but it was short lived. The fog and cold temperatures rolled back in, but we made the best of it and went on an excursion to find lobsters for dinner. We had a tip that a place called Looney Lobster had the best lobsters around. We followed signs and directions, but could not find the place to save our lives. We looked everywhere. You would never guess it would be so hard to buy a lobster in Maine. After stopping at a gas station, and getting all the locals involved, it was determined that the place wasn't open. We got a referral to go see Brenda, after you make a left at the car wash, instead. Turns out Brenda owns the Yodeling Clam Lobster Pound. We enjoyed Brenda's company while she steamed our lobster friends and then headed back to the cottage to eat our lobsters. We also went to the Scoop Deck for ice cream cones that night.

Wednesday we returned to the beach for another perfect day. We had also made reservations at our favorite restaurant in Maine, Joshua's, for that evening. If you ever find yourself in Southern Maine I highly recommend this place. Both Matt and I agree that this is one of the greatest restaurants of all time. Thursday, I went to Congdon's Doughnuts for the first time. Apparently this is the place to be if you are a doughnut lover. For me it wasn't great, but I also don't love doughnuts. We headed to Ogunquit afterwards and walked the Marginal Way. It's a beautiful path along the coast and another must do if you are in the area. Afterwards we headed to the pool for the rest of the day before meeting Matt's parents in Massachusetts for dinner.

Friday was our last day in Maine and we wanted to go back to the beach. As we were packing up the car to head there it started thundering so we decided on just making it a pool day. The rain did hold off for a little but the temperatures dropped into the 60s and it did eventually start pouring down rain on us. Friday night we saw Nice Work If You Can Get It at the Ogunquit playhouse. It was a good show and was pretty funny.

Saturday afternoon was our Massachusetts baby shower. Matt's mom and sister did a fabulous job with the planning. The shower was bee themed and had so many cute little details. The food and desserts were also delicious. It was so nice to celebrate Baby K. with our family and friends in Massachusetts. We received so many nice things, our baby is already very lucky. I'm also happy to report that Matthew survived his first baby shower ever, with some beverages, and (as evidenced below) even participated in gift opening. I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Sunday we had to head south. It's always a longer/harder trip coming back, but again it's always nice to be back home. Like I said at the beginning, now it's crunch time before I have to go back to school. There's still a lot to do our our long list of getting ready for a baby, regular life, and prepping for the new school year. That being said, we are also very lucky to have a lot to prepare for and look forward to in the coming months.