on our way

first road trip in the 5. we're all headed to uncle tim and aunt andrea's for the weekend.

can't wait to see everyone and to have mojo and jerry meet for the very first time!

the great adventure begins

just shy of three weeks old and we things are getting packed at the house and i am heading on an adventure with both kids...SOLO...on an airplane to TEXAS!!!  the new chapter of our lives is about to begin.  i am super excited, but also super scared, sad and anxious.  

we planned for me and the kids to fly to san antonio as the packers were packing everything so that we didn't have to sleep on air mattresses and whatnot.  thank you miss colleen for dropping us off.  it really didn't sink in that we were leaving our house until colleen said "i'll put the kids in the car, you say goodbye to your house."  yup, waterworks began.  

this was the house we bought right after we were married.  the house we brought both kids home to.  the house we first laughed in, cried in, argued in and made up in.  so many good memories, it was hard to hug grady, tell him i'll see him in texas and get in the car.  but we did.  we will be making plenty of new memories in this new chapter ahead of us.

this picture of colleen and graham will forever be imprinted in my brain.  as well as the crying and hugging we did at the security gate entrance.  it was bittersweet, but i know i'll be seeing this face again soon!  we're already looking into cheap flights!  :)

luckily there were not a lot of people there on a thursday morning.  so we walked to our gate to burn some energy and when we got there it was time for hannah to eat.  graham kind of walked on the seats like a madman, but he stayed relatively in one place, so i didn't care.  i had plenty of bribes, so he didn't go too far!

of course our plan was late, so this only prolonged this scary part of adventure.  graham was getting tired and ended up falling asleep on one of the chairs RIGHT before we were about to board.  GREAT!  woke him up to walk with me since i couldn't carry him.  of  course it wasn't a plane that you walk on from the gate ramp...no, we had to walk down stairs, put our luggage on a cart and then walk up super narrow stairs to get into the plane.  a nice man asked if i needed help...i actually responded YES!  although i was putting the stroller down and he didn't know how to help.  he stood there until i got it down.  i kindly said 'thank you.'  he replied, 'no need to thank me, i didn't actually do anything.'  my response, 'yes, you did.  i just needed the support.'  we both smiled and then got on the plane.

wasn't sure how hannah would do on the plane since this was the first flight for her...yes, at 20 days old!  i knew graham would probably be fine with his ipad and snacks.  hannah fell asleep pretty instantly on the plane and graham was content during take off and into the flight.  about halfway through i had to nurse hannah (that was fun!) and then graham fell asleep.  YEAH!  and by some grace of god, they both stayed asleep the rest of the flight!  i was so thankful as i didn't want to be the mother with two screaming kids on an airplane. 

LANDED (after somewhat of a bumpy ride there in the middle...i was actually happy the kids were asleep.  i got a little nervous, so i can only imagine how scared they would have been)!!!!  our 8 hour flying adventure we were finally in texas!!!  grana and grampa were waiting for us with signs, flowers and toys.  we were so happy to see them.

so for now, we will be broadcasting live from TEXAS!

yee haw!

north cackalackie

so here it is, the sunday after the fourth of july and i realized i only took about a days worth of pictures while we were visiting nicole and jeremy in north carolina.  i also then realized that i took not a single picture of the the four of us friends.  i blame that to the fact that we were having such a great time that we burned all the images into memory.  

we had such a great time and the days seemed to fly by.  thank you both so much for the wonderful visit and we can't wait to see you both soon!  oh...and mojo already misses clover!!  :)

butterflies, insects and dinos...oh my!

planned for us today was a trip to downtown raleigh to visit the museum of natural sciences.  good choice for being inside too seeing it is hot hot hot!  

first exhibit was the living conservatory where we got to be inside a room with tons of beautiful butterfiles.  we also saw some lizards and happened to be in the exhibit for the turtle feeding.  

next up....insects!!  graham was very interested in the huge cockroaches.  yick!

finally....the dinosaur exhibit!  what can i say, the kid loves his dinosaurs!  even when we went to the discovery room at the very end of our visit he found the box of dinosaurs and proceeded to line them up neatly in a row.  he also put them back very nicely before we left.  if only he would do that at home!

happy 4th!

we woke up early this morning and headed down to raleigh, nc to see our friends nicole and jeremy for the weekend.  mojo was in tow, seeing as they have a pit bull mix as well, clover.  

luckily the dude was feeling better and slept most of the trip down.  it was rather hot outside though, so he was a little cranky when we got there.  

we had a great time though.  nicole had invited some of their neighbors over for a cookout and we were able to hang out and relax.  the dogs wore themselves out playing.  and the boys had fun tasting beers together!  

i realized about halfway through the day that i hadn't really taken many pictures.  d'oh! but at least i had a few before someone got really messy eating watermelon.

and away they go

so today my dudes head down to cocoa beach for 6 days!!!!

this will be the longest i've ever been away from the little dude.  i know i'll probably enjoy some time to myself, but i already miss them!

the big easy

i was going through photos on my phone and realized i never added the photos i took from my trip to the big easy.  my coworker and i went down for one of our client's consultant meetings, and little did we know it was the week before the superbowl and right in the middle of mardi gras!

even though we were in meetings most of the days we were there, we still managed to get out and have some fun!

when we got to our hotel there was already a parade going on.  

the next night we headed down to jackson square and the french quarter.  

took some photos of st. louis cathedral.

and had to go to cafe du monde to get some cafe au lait and beignet's.  OH MY GOODNESS!!!  they were delicious!  i'm a sweets person and i could only eat one!

tey-has!

so this was my first experience flying solo with graham.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little nervous.  i had checked in on friday and paid for my bag, so i thought i would be ahead of the game.  get to the airport and it's not too bad.  dropped my bag off and literally in an INSTANT a ton of people came out of nowhere and the line to get DOWN to security was at the FRONT door of dulles!!  OMG!  

panic starts!

plane leaves in an hour and i'm stuck at the FRONT door!

finally get down to security and i'm checking my watch frantically. i only have 40 minutes until take off!!!  will i make it?  the line person assures me i will.  

get through security and walk VERY briskly to what i thought was the new airport rail.  YEAH NO!  of course not!  i have to take the old fashioned people mover buses.  ARGH!  get on and get to the front of the bus so we can get right off.

bus stops at the D terminal.  in my brain i'm thinking D8 is my gate. (side note....we have about 15 minutes now until takeoff!).  i literally RUN to gate D8 and there's a ton of people waiting to board.  i thought it was odd but went right up to the front since i had a child.  guy scans my ticket:

"ma'am, where are you flying to?"

"san antonio, why?"

"ma'am this is the wrong gate.  you need to go to gate D2."

$&*@!!!!!!!

SPRINTING to gate D2 now....only about 7 minutes until take off.

NO ONE at the gate and i don't see a plane.  FREAKING out.  luckily the plane was still boarding and i was the second to last person on the plane.  OMG!!!  

so besides having to run with a toddler in my arms all throughout the terminal, the flight was fine.  graham was great and we ended up getting to san antonio 30 minutes early!!  

SO GLAD TO BE IN TEY-HAS!!!

up, up and away!

yes, so i have been paranoid about today for the past couple weeks.  calling miss sarah to ask her what we can and can't do flying with an infant (thanks for all the answers!!).  luckily we timed the dude's first flight at the perfect time.  right around the time he has lunch and a nap.  so we were hoping luck would be on our side and he would do well with the trip.

we munched on some melon before the flight.

and then got ready for take-off!

i had a bottle ready so that the dude could clear his ears.  worked like a charm!  no crying, whining or wiggling!  once we got up in the air we turned on some yo gaba gaba (on mute, so we didn't annoy the nice lady beside us) and in about 25-30 minutes the dude was OUT!  and he slept until we started descending!!!!

thank you thank you thank you first time infant traveling gods!!!  hopefully our luck will continue on the way back.  we definitely wouldn't mind a repeat performance of today!