one and a half?!

When did my little girl grow up so much? As of Tuesday she'll be 18 months old. I can't believe how the time has flown, and yet it seems like she's always been here with us, too.

In honor of turning 1 and 1/2 we had her pictures taken today. She hasn't had them taken since her birthday. When I compare these to the one she had taken on her birthday, she definitely looks like a toddler now, while she still looks like a baby in the birthday picture. What a big girl.

I couldn't get her wispy hair to lie down, but I guess that's what toddler hair looks like for the most part, so I couldn't do much about it. I'm happy with how they turned out. I like the first one because it's a close up. I like the second one because I wanted one in that outfit, too, and she looks so cute sitting on that little wall (she loved sitting up there!). I like the last one because she looks like she's ready to take off and run any second, which is totally her!

Enjoy!!

her adventures....

Click below and see the exciting things she's been doing lately!

http://www.myabcadventure.com/index.htm?movieid=F1C35B6D-6AC6-4611-8517-1EC995A74227

ready for her close up!

I haven't taken any pictures in awhile so I pulled out the camera today and took some while she was playing outside.


Here's the close up....I think she's due for another haircut! Those bangs grow fast, just like Mommy's.

She finally learned how to climb into chairs by herself (and likes to do it over and over again).

Here she is getting ready to go down her new slide that she can climb herself (the one on her swingset is too big for her to do unless we put her up at the top and hold her hand to slide down).





But this is what she prefers to do on the slide:






And this is from a few weeks ago, when she decided to empty the basket of all of the books and climb in and out and in and out.

See the baby toys in the background? She LOVES to play in her bouncy seat. It was in the basement put away but made it's way back up to the family room because she crawls into it to read books! That yellow crib toy was for sale in my garage sale a few weeks ago and didn't sell, so she decided she wanted to start playing with it again.

dake ooo

What? You can't read that title? That's toddler-ese for "thank you!" (Well, my toddler, anyway.) She's starting to say it all the time now. She puts something in my hand and I say, "Thank you!" She then says, "Dake ooo!" Then she brings me something else and the whole way over to me she says, "dake ooo, dake ooo, dake ooo," until she puts it in my hand and I say, "thank you," again.

However, she also knows now that when you give her something she is supposed to say "dake ooo" too. She doesn't always do it, but sometimes she remembers. When I went to pick her up in the nursery today after church they told me that she said it when they gave her her snack, all on her own! Hooray! She's learning! Today Daddy gave her a bite of a cookie and she turned away and said, "dake ooo" to him without being reminded.

Today at the park she was picking up mulch (her favorite thing about the park, I think....forget about the playground equipment....she just wants mulch!) and taking it to various people, telling them "dake ooo" as she gave it to them. It was a riot for these total strangers to hold out their hands to receive a piece of mulch from my daughter! She's quite the sharer, my girl.

Speaking of sharing, she's good at it, except when it comes to Mommy, apparently. On Friday we went to the hospital to see my friend Christa and her new baby girl, Hannah. Our little one was excited to see the baby.....that is, until I picked the baby up to hold her. All of a sudden my little girl was green with envy and couldn't get my lap back in her possession fast enough. She didn't want to have anything to do with the baby after that--just Mommy.

But sharing mulch....she's a pro. Just don't ask her to share her Mommy.

(It's a good thing Mommy doesn't plan on having another little one for awhile!)

17 month stats

Height: 31 inches (50th percentile)...not too bad! Daddy's hoping she may be a basketball player yet!
Weight: 19 pounds (below the 3rd percentile)....yeah, I know...bummer. I SO wanted her to have made it to 20 pounds!!!!
Shoes: size 5 medium(I just took her to Stride Rite and had her sized....just thought I'd throw that in there!) She used to be a wide, which I couldn't believe, since I have always had super narrow feet. This time they told me she has narrow feet, but they're still kind of thick from top to bottom, so that makes up the narrowness and she can wear a medium. Let's hope that's always the case because I have always had trouble finding narrow shoes in my size.

The doctor told me to give her pediasure every day to try and up her calories. She also said it sounds like she's just too busy and distracted to take the time to sit down and eat. I'll say!

So there you go. My itty bitty girl is still itty bitty. Today she's wearing a sweater from last winter that is size 6-9 months, and it still fits!

the social butterfly

Today we went to toddler story time at the library for the first time. It's for ages 18 months to 3 years, and though she's only 17 months old, she's clearly too old for the baby laptime, which is infants through 18 months (there's no WAY she would sit in my lap), so I tried the toddler one, thinking they'd be used to little kids wandering around and not staying in a parents' laps. Well, there were all the other little boys and girls, sitting in their moms' laps, and then there was my little girl, becoming best friends with the librarian leading the story time, the mom sitting next to us, the little boy across the room, the big stuffed polar bear in the back of the room, and everyone in between. She wouldn't sit still for two seconds, except when the librarian was playing the guitar and singing a song. Even then she stood (but some other kids were standing too by that point, so that part wasn't so bad), but at least she was still. But as soon as the guitar was put away (and she realized that signing "more" wouldn't make him bring it out again and play a song just for her), she'd begin to wander to and fro, picking up the books around the room and carrying them over to me one by one, or up to the storyteller and putting them on his lap, or to the grandma across the room. She took someone's DVD from their stroller and brought that to me. She took someone's baseball cap and brought that to me. She went up to the felt board and picked up a felt balloon that had fallen off and handed it back to the storyteller (wow, isn't she helpful?). Oh my....she was "quite the social butterfly," as one mom leaned over and said to me.

Everyone was smiling and laughing at her; I'll have to admit that it was probably pretty funny to watch, if she wasn't my own, but as her mother, who is trying to teach her to be obedient, it was quite stressful and showed me that she has a LOOOOOOOONG way to go! Granted, she is only 17 months old and doesn't understand it yet if I say, "You need to sit and listen to the story or we're going to have to leave," but she'll have to learn it sometime. At what point, I wonder, will she start to understand? And how do I allow her to be her friendly little self and not squelch her love for people and yet get her to be a good listener in these types of settings? It's a good thing we've got a few years before school starts to practice all of these skills!!!

And while I'm at it asking questions, where in the world did she get this socialness???? It's CERTAINLY not from me! If you know me even a little bit, you know that I never have been and never will be a very social person. And though her daddy talks more than I do, he was always very quiet and shy around strangers growing up, he tells me. She doesn't know a stranger. Maybe it was all of that mexican food I craved while I was pregnant. Did all of the spice give her some extra spice??

I love my girl, full of sugar and spice and everything nice....I just need to get used to having a social butterfly as a daughter and realize that she's not me.

our little artist

Yesterday I went to MOPS (Mothers of Pre Schoolers) at a church nearby (not our church). It was nice to meet new people and to know my little one was being well taken care of in the nursery. They said she was having a great time every time someone would go check to see how the kids were doing. When I went to pick her up they gave me a piece of paper and said, "This is the picture she drew." It was a blank sheet of white paper with some tiny red dots down in the corner that she obviously had done by pressing a crayon on the paper over and over and over. They wrote her name up at the top. It's her very first work of art! I already have it hanging on the refrigerator and it will eventually go in her baby book.

The last two mornings she woke up crying. I've brought her downstairs and given her her cup of milk, which she drinks, and then instead of scrambling down to play like normal, she's started cuddling with me on my lap instead (she's never been much of a cuddler, so this is quite a pleasant surprise!!!). Yesterday I started singing to her and rocking her back and forth as she sat on my lap with her arms around me. As soon as I stopped, she sat up, signed "more" and rocked herself back and forth until I started again. Then she'd put her arms back around me and cuddle some more. She did the very same thing this morning. It's just the sweetest time! I wish I could bottle all of that sweetness up and let it out at the times when she's being so frustrating!!!

Her latest obsession is bubbles. Every once in awhile this summer I've pulled out the bubbles to play with outside. She gets so excited when she sees the little bucket. She tries at first to blow a bubble, but doesn't quite get the idea of how to do it, so then she proceeds to chew on the wands (one in each hand) for as long as I'll let her. I have to keep blowing bubbles, though. If I stop, she signs "more" over and over until I start blowing more. Now if we go outside without bringing the bubbles, she looks at me, puts her finger up to her mouth, and blows, as if asking, "Mommy, where are the bubbles? You know we're supposed to have them when we come out here!" She gets quite upset when I tell her we're all done with the bubbles and we'll play with them another day. She doesn't want to play anything else when we're out there if the bubbles are out, so I don't get them out every time.

one man's junk....

...is another man's treasure, or so they say. This was proven today. We had our first ever garage sale. A month or so ago we got a notice saying that someone in our neighborhood was organizing a neighborhood sale, and after first deciding against it, we eventually changed our minds and decided to give it a go and clear out whatever we could. We ended up finding way more than we thought we had....and lots of things we figured nobody would buy. My friend Allecia brought some things over, too, like a book called "Our State's Spiders" or something like that (it had the actual name of our state in the title, but I didn't want to write that, so you can figure out the title if you know where I live!). She said, "Who would ever have this book in their house????" My husband said, "Well, it's your book!" and we couldn't believe it, but someone actually bought it! Would you pay a quarter for a book about spiders found in our state??? Crazy.

It was funny to see what things went quickly and what hung around all day--many things we thought would go easily didn't go at all, or went only after we kept lowering the price throughout the day, and other strange things were snatched up in a second. In the end, we got rid of almost everything and made a whole lot more than we ever thought we would've. We boxed up the left overs and took them to a donation center, just to get rid of them. Our house is that much more uncluttered (though trust me, there still is plenty of clutter! I'm sure we'll have another one in a few years).

Our little one LOVED it. She got to play outside ALL day (it was a gorgeous day to be outside, too--low humidity, sunny...perfect!) and see lots and lots of people, dogs, and babies. We were constantly chasing her but she was very good and happy most of the day. It was a good, but tiring day. We met neighbors we hadn't met before and making money on your "junk" is always a happy thing!

week in review

Not too much going on around here lately, so I haven't had much to write. Here are some pictures from the last week, though.

My college friends, Ginny and Paula came over last week to visit. Paula just got her PhD (finally--she says she's been a professional student since we graduated from college in 1996. Way to go, Paula!) and is moving away to Canada in a few weeks, so we wanted to get together before she left. They hadn't seen our little one since last summer (she's changed a lot since last summer), so we all had fun playing with her and catching up.

Sunday was our church picnic. We had never gone before because we were always busy on that day, but this year it worked out so we went. We had a good time watching our sweet girl play on the playground---she loves playing with the big kids, but Mom and Dad aren't too sure about that. They plow her over and we have to be so vigilant to make sure she's safe way up there.

Yesterday we went with a friend and her son to a new park. They have fountains for the kids to run through, which she had never done before. She wasn't too sure at first, though she loved watching everyone else do it. Eventually she became more brave and would go in and get a little wet, and then run out. As the afternoon went on she would stay in the water a little longer. She also enjoyed the playground across from the water area, which had this toy train to "drive." Real trains kept going by on the train tracks next to the park, which both fascinated and terrified her. She watched and watched them, while safely clinging to Mommy!

before and after

The haircut was an adventure on Friday. She got to choose which seat to sit in....she chose the horse. She got to eat a sucker (she'd never had one, so imagine her face when she stuck a little hard thing in her mouth and it was SWEET!) and watch Baby Einstein. Could it get any better? Not much...only if animals or word books were involved!

Anyway, here she is before....

during.....

and here she is after. There isn't much difference, but the back and bangs are neater.

And here she is today, just because.

playtime

I haven't gotten a chance to post these pictures. Last week we went to the local science museum, which has a great play area for little kids. She LOVED it! There were all kinds of things to play with and climb on. She especially loved the water area (she probably would've happily stayed in there all day!) and the kitchen set. We'll definitely be going back on a regular basis.

I put her hair in pigtails that day. Daddy has decided that he loves her hair in pigtails. I've tried many times since to put them in again, just for him, but she screams and does everything in her power to get away, so it hasn't happened since. Tomorrow she's getting a haircut--her first one, other than Mommy trimming bangs now and then. We'll see if she can sit still long enough! Our friend, Molly, is cutting it, and she works at a children's salon, so she says she's used to this kind of thing. Maybe she'll have some tips for me on putting in pigtails, too!

obsessions

Last time I wrote about her favorites. Well, I'm coming to realize that they're less like favorites and more like obsessions. Are other little ones as obsessed as my daughter? Here are her most recent:

• Word Books....You know, the kind with a picture and a word underneath. It's great for her age because she doesn't sit still long enough for a story, but she can look at a few pictures and we talk about it and she's had a mini vocabulary lesson each time. These are her absolute favorite types of books. We look at them time after time after time each day. She's not very much into toys at the moment. All she wants to do is bring Mommy books to look at. I'm loving that she's so into them--the teacher in me, I guess--but gosh, do I get tired of the same books! I went to the library to get some new ones for her last week just because I had had it with the ones she was bringing me every other minute.
• Animals....yes, animals (I think it's a cruel joke, since both her daddy and I are pretty anti-animal people!) Well, in all of these word books there are a couple of pages with animals. Those are the pages she especially likes to look at. She turns and turns the pages until she gets to the animal ones and then sits and looks and looks at them forever. She goes especially crazy over the kitty cats and doggies ("ki-ki" and "da-da"). And to see them in real life? Oh my....she goes berserk! At my brother's house yesterday she was constantly chasing their two cats around the yard. Poor cats. I hope they haven't been completely traumatized, but I guess maybe they're used to it with three kids of their own to run away from. She now makes many animal noises too. They're not really that close to the actual animal sound, but she's consistent! Her cow noise sounds more like you're buzzing your lips together to play the trumpet (I used to play trumpet, so I know the sound well) rather than a mooooooo. If I make an animal sound she can point to the right picture in the books most of the time.
• Dancing...also in one of the word books is a page where there are kids dancing. She loves turning to that page and just dancing while sitting on my lap or on the floor. And everytime a commercial comes on TV with music, she dances. Upstairs in the guest room (which has sort of become her upstairs play room) there is a CD player with her favorite CDs. She goes in there several times a day, points to the CD player, and starts dancing, letting me know she wants to hear the music. As soon as she hears the music, she starts to boogie. You can just say the word dance to her and she'll start dancing. It won't be long before she'll be taking tap dancing lessons or something....
• There are more, but I'd run out of energy if I wrote about ALL of them! This girl is obsessed, I tell you!!! But they're all so endearing and make her quite an individual!

I mentioned my brother's house.... Yesterday we went up to his house (an hour north of us) so my husband could help them put in a new countertop. My parents were there, too, so my dad could help. The three guys worked so hard all day and were exhausted and sore. My mom and I kept my little one out of the way (her three cousins weren't there, though, because they had gone to their other grandparents' house so they would be out of the way!). Anyway, my brother lives only a few miles from my college alma mater, since he teaches there, so my mom and I loaded up my sweet girl and went there for a little while. I hadn't been there in several years. It's such a special place full of lots of memories. We walked up and down "Middle Path," the mile-long stone path down the middle of campus. I saw my old dorms and reminisced with my mom. I heard the bells ring on the hour from the church's bell tower. I used to hear those all the time! It was fun to go back down memory lane.

That's about all of the news from our house. Just trying to stay cool (our a/c broke last week--the hottest week of the summer--thankfully they were able to come out the next day and fix it, so we got by with only one difficult day/night). Thank goodness the last few days haven't been as humid. Let's hope this week it continues.

favorites

Just thought I'd fill you in on some of our little one's favorite things, now that she seems to have opinions of her own. Of course, we can't ask her to know for sure, but these are what we've observed. Enjoy!

Favorite word: "hot," but in just the last couple of days she's been saying a new word, "woah," a lot, so maybe that's her new favorite. She learned this because when she trips or stumbles I often say, "Woah! Be careful!" So now she says it herself....often.

Favorite toy: it changes almost daily, but right now it's the old Fisher Price kitchen set that my mom brought down that used to be mine, way back in the day! She loves "stirring" with a utensil (doesn't matter if it's a fork, spoon, or knife) in the cup, pitcher, or pan.

Favorite book: still Goodnight Moon, but I think Peek-a-boo is a close runner up. It's a book the library gave us free when she was born with close up pictures of babies laughing, crying, yawning, and so forth. She loves imitating the faces (or more accurately, watching Mommy imitate the faces).

Favorite activity while playing: carrying books or toys over to Mommy...usually wanting to sit on my lap to look at them, but often just to share them with me.

Favorite hobby: going outside, and lately because it's been so hot, it hasn't happened much. She lets us know she wants to by going over the the back door and patting it or fussing and pointing at it. She knows we're going if I tell her, "Let's get your shoes on!" so she gets SO excited to get her shoes on, because she knows what's next!

Her newest favorite trick: pulling all of the pillows off the couches onto the floor (and we have a lot of pillows) so the entire family room is littered not only with her toys, but now pillows, too. She likes to sit down on a pillow, lay back onto the floor, and wait to be tickled! Seriously, she waits for us to come tickle her. It's when she gives her best laughs.

Favorite food: carbs...anything carbs....crackers, bread, whatever. She loves her cheese, too, but she'll choose crackers over about anything.

Favorite drink: Anything she can drink out of an adult glass (usually only water is what we allow out of our glasses). She only drinks milk and water, and I don't know which she prefers. She just loves to drink, and I no longer have to hold her sippy cup, so I'm enjoying that fact.

Favorite song: I don't know, but boy, does she love music! She dances like crazy every time she hears it. And she recognizes songs, too. When I sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider," she kind of twists her wrists as if she's making the spider crawl up the spout, but she can't quite do it with her fingers. When I sing "If You're Happy and You Know It," she claps her hands.

I can't think of any other categories at the moment. If you think of one and want to know her favorite, you can let me know and I'll post it!

getting back in the groove

It's been busy, trying to get caught up on everything after being gone for so long. Doctor's appointments galore, it seems (not really...just two for me and one for my little one), laundry, unpacking, returning phone calls and emails, laundry, cleaning, laundry....oh, and did I mention laundry? We had a lot of it! :)

But things seem to be settling down a little and I'm back in my routine, if you can call it a routine. It didn't take any time at all for my sweet girl to get used to her own house and toys They all seemed new and exciting for about a day and now she's bored with them again and finds better things to play with like the cooler, which has been sitting in the kitchen since we returned! It's provided hours of entertainment as she puts a Mega Block inside, closes it, and does her "where did it go?" imitation (she kind of puts her hands out in front of her, palms up, like you would when you shrug your shoulders and babbles a few "words" that have the inflection of "where did it go?"). Then she opens it up and gets VERY excited to see it there, takes it out, and does it all over again. Too bad, Daddy cleaned up tonight and took the cooler down to the basement where it belongs. We'll have to find something else to put the mega block in, I guess.

She also plays this game in the bathtub. Grandma started it. She puts a little plastic teacup inside a little plastic drum--both toys she plays with in the tub that aren't tub toys, but sort of migrated into the bathroom because she was bored with her regular tub toys!!! Every night those are the first things she grabs when she gets in the tub, and that's what she plays the whole time she's in the tub. She gets the biggest smile on her face when she opens the top of the drum and the teacup is still there.

The other night she didn't want to put her toys down and get out of the bathtub, so I said, "Say goodbye to your toys! You'll see them tomorrow." So she said "Dye Dye!" waved and was satisfied with leaving after that (she doesn't say the "B" sound very often, so everything starts with a D). So now every night when she gets out of the tub she turns toward the tub, waves, and says "Dye Dye" to her toys. Funny girl.

The other night she and I were looking at "Goodnight Moon," and I was asking her to point out various things in the pictures. (Where's the light, where's the kitty, where's the clock, and so forth.) She enjoys this and does really well pointing to everything I ask her to, if it's something she knows. Well, she kept pointing to the bunny in the bed. I kept saying "That's the bunny. He's going nigh' night in his bed." We did that on every page. The next day she brought the book to me and we started playing the same game. This time when she pointed to the bunny she said, "Ded, ded." (This is "bed" in her lanugage, if you hadn't figured that out). Dye, Ded.... I hope she's not obsessed with death!

Today we went to the endocrinologist. It wasn't a very helpful appointment. First of all, they took us back to the exam room, she was weighed (18 pounds, 14 ounces--she's gained a pound in not quite 2 months). We then waited....and waited....and waited for an hour for the doctor to come in and see us. She started out happy and was content to either sit in my lap and look at the two books I had brought or to walk around the room pointing to things on the wall. But that only lasted the first 20 minutes or so. Then she was into the garbage can, touching the calendar on the wall, hung low enough so she could, opening the drawers.... UGH! She hadn't slept during her afternoon nap (I don't know why), so she was sleepy and not very good at listening to Mommy's commands to "don't touch." Anyway, after the doctor finally came he asked a lot of questions and tried to explain the growth hormone process to me (he had a very heavy accent so I had trouble understanding him) and then told me he didn't think anything was wrong with her. He thinks the test results are wrong and wants to have them repeated to make sure. So that's all I found out. I'm supposed to take her to get more blood work as soon as I can (YUCK!!! More screaming!!) because I wasn't about to stay there longer and have them draw blood from my already fussy, sleepy, unhappy girl. On second thought, maybe I should've just done it, since she was already out of sorts....this would've just made her a little more out of sorts and gotten it over with. Oh well.

our vacation adventures

Ever watch the Amazing Race?? It's one of our favorite shows. My husband would love to be on that show...just not with me! We'd be one of those couples you get really frustrated with because they fight all the time. See, I'm a terrible traveler. I enjoy it if we do it my way....slow and relaxing, but the way my husband enjoys his vacations is to pack in as much stuff as he can until we're ready to collapse. It's stressful for me, and I don't need winning a million dollars like on the Amazing Race to stress me out even more. But anyway, that's how our vacation ended--much like the Amazing Race....running through the airport and all! The only difference was that it wasn't a million dollars at stake, but getting home to see our little girl, worth way more than a million dollars! It wasn't quite the way one would like to end a vacation--stressed and exhausted--but that's what we were. The good news is that we won the prize...we got to see our little girl!

But I'd better start at the beginning before I get ahead of myself.

We left our daughter last Tuesday night after I put her to bed. I left her room in tears, knowing it would be a week before I saw her again. I knew she'd be in safe hands with my mom, but I also knew I would miss her terribly. Once we left I was fine, though. It felt like we were out on a date--that I can handle! We drove the two hours to the hotel where we'd spend the night. We knew we had to get up at 4:00 the next morning, so we went to bed early and got up with the roosters the next morning, ready to go. We took the shuttle to the airport and, after much waiting and two flights, we landed in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's a small airport, so you get off the airplane on the stairs outside, so we walked out onto the tarmack staring at the beautiful Grand Tetons. It was a gorgeous day and a perfect welcome.

We rented our car (a navy blue Chevy Malibu, for anyone who cares--we've decided it's our vacation car because I think it's our third one we've gotten on our trips...not because we love it particularly, but because that's what they give us for a mid size car) and took off for the town of Jackson. First we took care of the most important part--we ate lunch! We asked at the airport where a good place to eat could be found, and the guy recommended Bubba's. So Bubba's it was! It actually was really good, authentic barbeque. Just what you want when you're out west. Next we went to KMart--doesn't everyone go to Kmart on vacation? The reason we went there was because I forgot my sunglasses and wanted some cheap ones and because we wanted to buy a cooler to keep our food in while we traveled. Kmart was the best place in this little town to do both. We decided on a foam cooler, since it was cheaper and we could just leave it there in the garbage when we left.

Then it was off to the grocery store to buy the food. We stocked up on sandwich supplies and snacks. When we came out it was raining a little. We quickly put the groceries in the trunk, trying to put the things that needed to stay cold into the cooler. My husband couldn't get the lid to stay on right, so he pushed a little harder....which broke the cooler. So it was back to Kmart for another cooler. This time we got a little better foam one with clips that kept the lid in place. We switched the food to the new cooler and were on our way.

Since it was raining we decided to tour the town of Jackson instead of sightseeing in the mountains. Jackson is a touristy town with lots of shops. (and a horse and carriage for tourists):He hates that part of vacation....shopping....but it's one of my favorite parts. It was nice to start it out that way! This is the entrance to the town square in the center of town. Each corner has one of these arches made of elk antlers.

We drove up into the park, then--Grand Teton National Park. We stayed in a little cabin inside the park--rustic, but cute.

The next morning we woke up VERY early (Wyoming is two hours behind us, so 5:00 am to them felt like 7:00 am to us) and decided that since we were up so early we'd take a drive up the mountain to see the sunrise over the mountains. It was beautiful as the sun changed the colors on the mountain faces.

On the way down the mountain we saw our first bear! It was just on the side of the road digging in an old stump. He was oblivious to our being there and didn't even bother looking up. We snapped a few pictures and moved on. When I saw the bear my husband slammed on the breaks and guess what happened to our cooler in the trunk? It crashed forward and broke! Another one bites the dust.....so that afternoon we went BACK to Kmart and this time invested in a regular hard sided cooler...so in trying to save money we ended up paying double! Ugh. I guess we'll learn from that mistake next time!

Next was our float trip. Our guide was great and told us all kinds of interesting facts about the park. He pointed out lots of wildlife (we saw about 5 eagles!)and answered everyone's questions. This was by far my favorite part of the whole trip. It was a perfect day and I loved the views of the mountains.

The rest of the day we drove through the park, stopping at pull offs so my husband, the photographer, could take all of his pictures. I love the results....it just takes a long time to get just the right shot. We have SOOOOOO many pictures of those mountains! These are a couple of my favorites.

This is a church in the park (they still have services here).

When you walk in and look at the altar, this is the view you see. How awesome is that?

The next day we got up early and headed to the boat dock on Jenny Lake (a famous lake at the base of the Tetons) to take a boat across the lake. Once we were on the other side we hiked up into the mountains a bit to a place called Hidden Falls, and then on a little bit further to Inspiration Point. I'm not much of a hiker, so it was strenuous for me, but we both enjoyed it, and the final destination was gorgeous. This is inspiration point (with a tired Weed recouperating down below!)

That afternoon, after a herd of bison passed us on the highway, we drove up to Yellowstone, which is just north of the Grand Tetons.

We drove up to Old Faithful, where we stayed in the very old, VERY cool Old Faithful Inn. We took a tour of the hotel and learned all about the history of it. It was really interesting and we both really enjoyed it. That night we ate in their dining room--you have to make reservations well in advance, which we did--but it wasn't worth it AT ALL in our opinion. The food was dry and tasteless and we were very disappointed. I guess you pay for the ambiance there....that part was nice.

After dinner we watched Old Faithful erupt, but it wasn't much of an eruption, so the next morning after breakfast (we ate again at the Inn and they redeemed themselves--breakfast tasted much better!) we watched it again. This time it was much more satisfying and the spray traveled up much higher. It was neat to see all of the steam coming up from all of the geysers.

The rest of the day we drove around all of the many, many, many geysers, hot springs, and other thermalological (sp?) features in the park. It was a very hot day, there was very little shade around all of these places, and I didn't really enjoy all of this. My husband, the geologist, of course loved it all, and didn't understand why it was unexciting to me. I twisted my ankle on a hike around the geyser basin, so that just added to my frustration. I was very glad to see this day end. We drove up to the north end of the park to Mammoth Hot Springs...another old lodge, but not as cool as the first one. The best part about this place was that out our window in the mornings a huge herd of Elk came to eat the grass. I sat up in bed and there they were, both mornings.

The next day we drove down to what's called "The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone." It's a big, beautiful canyon with waterfalls. I liked this part much better. Something I didn't know about Yellowstone is that every part of it is really different. Every day I felt like we were in a whole new land. The geyser part looked like Mars to me, but the Canyon part looked like pretty, mountainous places are supposed to look.

We hiked down a couple of trails into the canyon--the first one we got halfway down and then found out the trail was closed before you get to the bottom of the waterfall. Then we had to hike all the way back out. We were both so mad that they hadn't posted a sign and we did all that work for nothing. As we came up I told everyone we passed so they wouldn't make the same mistake we did. Well, stupid us, at the top of the trail there WAS a sign. It had big red letters at the top that said "WARNING!" We missed it (but so did all of the people we passed on the trail, so I don't feel quite so idiotic!).

The following day was our last full day, and my husband wanted to hike Mt. Washburn. One of his life goals has always been to climb a mountain. So this was it. I didn't want to do it, so we drove him to the trailhead and I left and came back to the village where I could shop, read, and relax. It was nice, though I was a bit worried about him climbing all by himself. It's a busy trail, though, so I knew someone would help him if something happened to him. Around noon I went to pick him up and he had just finished. He was very tired, but very happy to have achieved one of his goals.

He slept most of the afternoon as I drove us back down to Jackson Hole again. That night we finally had internet, TV, and air conditioning--the first time for all three for the whole trip! And boy, were we thankful for the A/C--they hit record highs out there while we were there, so it was always hard to go to sleep in the heat (most places don't have A/C, even the expensive ones, because it NEVER gets hot there!!).

Then came the Amazing Race..... We got to the airport on time that morning and got all checked in. While we were waiting to board they came on the loud speaker and told us we were going to have to stop for fuel in Denver! Denver???? That wasn't on our agenda!!! We were to have a two hour layover in Dallas and then fly back to where we started. When we got on the plane they announced that because it's so hot in Jackson they can't fly heavy planes out of the mountains very easily, so they needed to lighten the load by not having as much fuel in the plane, which meant we had to stop in Denver for more gas. Well, it took an hour to land in Denver, taxi to the gate, get fueled, and take off. There went one of our two extra hours we were supposed to be in Dallas. Then there was a thunderstorm outside of Dallas, so we had to fly around the storms and take a different route, which took almost another hour! We had to wait to pull up to our gate, which took more time, and we were chomping at the bit to get off that plane and make it to our next flight, in a whole different terminal!! By the time we finally got off the jetway, we had 9 minutes. We flew down the hall and up the escalator to the tram that takes you from terminal to terminal. We had a little rest on the tram as it went from our stop to the next, where we needed to get off. Then we FLEW down the escalator (my husband ran ahead of me to try and stop the plane from leaving because I had sandals on and couldn't run as fast as he could) and down the hall as fast as we could to the gate. It was a long run, and I've never run so hard in my life. As I approached the gate I saw a long line at the desk and I thought, "Oh no, they've cancelled the flight." I got there and my husband, who had arrived a little bit before me, was giving me the thumbs up. Another flight had gotten cancelled, but not ours. They hadn't even boarded yet, even though it was scheduled to leave in one minute. We were out of breath, but thankful that we hadn't missed it.

We waited and waited in line, boarded the plane, and then waited and waited at the gate--for who knows what. We were supposed to leave at 6:00. We didn't leave until 7:15! And we hadn't even eaten dinner because we hadn't had time....and they don't serve food on airplanes anymore...so we were starving.

We arrived at our destination city at 10:45 instead of 9:35 like we were supposed to. We went down to the baggage claim and waited for the bags to start circling around the belt. They started coming...and coming...and coming...and no bags that belonged to us came out!!! Our luggage hadn't made it. By this time we were beyond exhausted and starving and just wanted to see our little girl!!!! We found out that a previous flight had been cancelled so most of their luggage was on our flight, which meant there wasn't enough room for our luggage--it happened to three or four others on our plane. Another flight was due in about a half hour, they said, and our luggage would most likely be on that plane. So we waited...since we didn't want to drive two hours back the next day to pick up our luggage. My husband went back to the hotel to pick up our car and drove back, while I waited for the luggage. The next flight got in around 12:00 and thankfully, our luggage was on it. I was SO relieved to see it come around that carousel!!

So we stumbled out to our car, loaded up, and were on our way. We stopped to get gas and dinner (dinner at 12:30 am??? Something's very wrong with that...) and arrived at my parents' house at 2:30 am, weary and sooooooooo glad this day was over.

Or was it??? We went up to peek in our little one. I was so happy to see her, even in the dark! Well, the light must've disturbed her because she woke up! And after she saw us, all she wanted to do was get up and play! Well, since we were so glad to see her, we wanted to play, too! So from 2:30-3:00 in the morning we all played together and enjoyed being together again. A late, but happy homecoming. I put her back to bed and she went to sleep, and then I fell into bed. Just after I fell asleep, at 3:30, I heard her crying. She wouldn't stop. So I went in and gave her a drink. It took a half hour to get her settled down, but she finally went to bed. But at 6:30 she woke up, all ready for another day! Mommy wasn't, though! But I so wanted to be with her, so I got up with her, even though my mom would've gladly taken care of her for me so I could sleep. We played until 8:30, when she let us know she was ready for her nap, so I put her back to bed, and I went back to bed, too. I enjoyed the next two hours of sleep immensely!!

We drove back yesterday afternoon and I went to bed very early. I woke up this morning still feeling exhausted, so when she went down for her nap, so did I again. I don't do that much anymore (I did all the time for the first several months she was born), but I definitely needed it this morning. Today has been a whirlwind of catching up on laundry, grocery shopping, phone calls, mail, email, and so forth. Whew! I'm ready for bed again!

So there you have it....a novel of our adventures....the kind of vacation my husband lives for. Vacations are nice, and we both enjoyed ourselves, but I like the comfort and routine of home and my little girl. There's no place like home.

vacation preview

We're still on vacation, but I finally have an internet connection at our hotel for the first time of the whole trip, so I'm taking advantage of it. When you stay in national parks you're close to lots of beautiful things, but you don't have all of the comforts of home that you come to expect. Some people like it that way (my husband!) but it's been rough for me!

We've had a good time and seen some gorgeous sights, but I have missed my little girl like CRAZY! I don't know how people do it and leave....it's been so, so hard. I guess I'll get used to it, but I just want to hold her and squeeze her and see her precious smile so much! She's doing so well at Grandma's though (I've called home twice almost every day!) so that makes me feel better. They seem to be having a great time together.

I won't write many details now...too much to say and not enough time. We fly back tomorrow (Monday) and will get back to Grandma's really late tomorrow night. Our little one will be in bed but you can bet that my first thing upon walking in the door will be to go up and look in on her while she's sleeping.

Here are a few pictures, just to give you a glimpse into our trip. I'll add more later.

Our float trip down the Snake River in the Grand Tetons was my favorite part of the trip.

We drove to Idaho just because my husband wanted to add it to the list of states he's been in! I also added Wyoming and Montana to my list...he'd been to those two already.

I didn't like the million of geysers too much, but Old Faithful was pretty amazing.