2.23.2010

Going Away

This past weekend Shane and I took a trip to New Hampshire and... We didn't bring Nora. Crazy, right? We went to help celebrate our good friend Ben's thirtieth birthday. Rachael (finishing off her triple sow cow double lutz turny-thingy in the above photo) planned a fantastic birthday weeekend in North Conway as a surprise for him and it really was great. It was nice to feel like a young couple again, though I'm not gonna lie, we both missed Nora and kind of wished she had come along. (But only kind of.)
It helped to have this cutie around to focus our attention on. Gavin is eighteen months now and SO cute. I'm not sure how I managed to snap this photo as he's always on the move, but I'm glad I did.
The whole weekend was a surprise for Ben, but the big night out was Saturday, when we all headed over to the local Flatbread Company of North Conway. It was good. Really good. Like, five pieces of pizza good. I even ate two slices with mushrooms and loved it. Two thumbs way up for the Flatbread Company. We have seriously been missing out on a local resource seeing as there's a Flatbread Company in Portland, only thirty minutes from us!
After the night out, we all went back to the rental house and spent the next three hours in a hilarious game of Guesstures pitting the girls against the boys. We won (of course) and poor Chris (Gavin's Dad) will never live down the performance he gave in that last round that clinched the game for the girls!
The next morning Shane and I headed out early to pick up Nora three and a half hours away. I pulled out the gazeteer and tried to find alternate routes home...
And Shane took the wheel. I love weekends away.
How was your weekend?

2.15.2010

We're still here!

Believe it or not, I do still post things here on this blog now and then. I know, crazy, right? Even though it's the dead of winter around here, we've kept ourselves quite busy. The weeks pass by in a blur, full of work (and school for Nora) and weekends packed with fun. Last weekend we brought home Nora's first real bed (borrowed from my parents.) The transition has been amazing. She has spent every single night in it since Shane set it up. Granted, I have had to go in to soothe her on a couple of occasions, and have definitely fallen asleep there, but what can I say? The new mattress is WAY more comfortable than our ancient one.
We also took a hike up Bradbury Mountain this past weekend, and though it isn't much of a hike, it was great to catch up with family and friends. Barkley especially enjoyed getting outside and playing in the woods.
Shane and I took our token arm's reach photo. (Scroll down.)
Wylie was very intrigued with Hayley and Evan's new puppy, Ollie.
"Ooh!"
Ollie looks very serious here, don't you think?
The next picture warrants a bit of explaining. My Dad and Diana, a family friend, both have joint issues. Dad has two fake hips, with a replacement being scheduled to do yet another one, and Diana recently had ankle surgery and is just getting back into the swing of things. We weren't sure they would make it to the top, not because it was too strenuous a hike, but because the trail was quite slick, and even those of us on two sturdy feet didn't escape without a fall. (Me? No....) So you can see how surprised we all were when the two arrived at the top, no more so than Kalen and Nora, who promptly screamed a welcome their way.
Nora, of course, passed right out about two minutes into the car ride after the hike. She actually hiked up the mountain on her own, and hitched a ride on my back on the way down. What a sweetie!
And speaking of sweeties, here are my Valentine's roses from Shane. This is actually one of the first times he has gotten me roses- usually it is a wide variety of exotic flowers, or a cool potted plant, but this year he went the more traditional route. I don't mind! I've told him before that he doesn't need to get me flowers, because I usually forget about the poor things and they quickly die on me. In all honesty, I really don't mind that he ignores me!