Scenes from September

Here's a little more of what we did in September.  First, I turned 35.  Booo....  But I was lucky enough to have my parents come up for a visit that weekend!  And I got to eat cake, so of course, that always makes for a good birthday...

While my parents were here, we all (minus the kids) went to the Sox-Rays game.  The Sox won, and it was a little chilly but we all had a good time anyway!  Here we are up on the Budweiser Pavilion.  I like the guy to the right making that creepy face...

One of Todd's co-workers went to Afghanistan for work for a few months.  He brought back presents for everyone, including this interesting hat, which we put on Grant!

Lastly, I caught this cute moment between Todd and Natalie while they were working on putting together a fairy mobile at the dinner table.  They looked so cute working on it together!

Trip to the Cape

Every year, Todd and I make a point to join our friends Cooch and Karen at the Cucci family beach house in Wellfleet for a fun weekend away from the kids.  This year, it happened to coincide with my eye surgery, and this turned out to be a VERY good thing, since I could barely keep my eyes open all weekend.  (Warning: Unattractive sunglasses featured below!)

KK so graciously watched the kids for us while we went to my recovery weekend away.  This is how I spent Saturday.  With a shirt over my head.  Note the sunglasses on TOP of the shirt.  Dude, I'm really white.  More trips to the beach next summer, please!

This is how Todd spent his Saturday.  Practicing handstands on the beach in Wellfleet!  We spent the day at the beach, drinking cold beverages, as prescribed by my eye doctor.

We ate a nice dinner outside on Saturday evening.  Lobstahs, steamers, corn on the cob, yum.  This is me, in my awesome granny glasses trying a steamer for the first time.  Not bad, but kinda chewy. 

Hail hail the gangs all here!  It took everything I had to keep my eyes open in this picture.  Mmm, non paleo corn on the cob!  After dinner, we enjoyed the bonfire, some s'mores, some more drinks, and then I promptly enjoyed 12 hours of sleep!  That is the first time in YEARS that I have slept that much.  It was really good for my eyes.

Sunday, we went after breakfast to pick up the kids at KK's house.  We spent the day there as Todd did some outdoor chores for KK as a thanks for watching the kids.  I kept my eyes closed.  In the evening, we ate outside.  The kids were thrilled to eat outside, especially Natalie.  Then we made s'mores in KK's fire pit.  I thought Natalie would go wild for the s'mores, but not so much.  She hasn't been a huge chocolate fan lately.  Look how big my kiddos look in the picture below with cousin Seth!  So cute in their jammies...

Grant loves ribs

This post reminds me of my Uncle Harry, and how he can perfectly imitate the "It's McRib time at McDonalds!  CHOMP" commercial!

Laser Eye Surgery

I FINALLY had laser eye surgery! 

Long story... After 7 and a half years, I left Dewberry for a position as the Flood Hazard Mapping Coordinator for the state of Massachusetts.  However, before I left, I had about $1700 in my flexible health spending account that had to be used before I left, otherwise it would have been taken from me.  NOT COOL.  Thankfully, the hubs purchased a "Buy With Me" for laser eye surgery with Dr. Leibole at Newton Wellesley Eye Care and Laser Surgery.  Dude was AWESOME.  I mean - I have never quite had the level of customer service ANYWHERE that I have with this place.  His office was amazing, and I thoroughly recommend them!

Here I am saying goodbye to my glasses for the last time!

The surgery was really quick, maybe 2 hours tops from the time I got there to the time I left.  So afterward, we went to Morse Tavern for a Pumpkinhead Ale!  I asked Dr. Leibole about taking Advil or Tylenol, and he said neither of those would do much for me, given I had exposed nerve endings in my eyes!  So I said, "How about whiskey!?!"  And he said, "That is probably the best thing for you!"  Sweet.

It was difficult for me to even keep my eyes open after the surgery.  I had this one beer, an appetizer with Todd, and went home and slept for a few hours!

When you sleep, you have to wear these awesome eye patches.  They are hard plastic, with terribly sticky tape that never comes off of your face.  Plus, you have to take about a million eye drops for many weeks after the surgery.  I was in a good amount of annoyance/irritation after the surgery- not so much pain as it was just generally irritating to the eyes.  I compared it to a cat licking my eyeballs.  Ewwww...

First day of school 2011

Natalie is going to FACE Children's Center again this year, for pre-kindergarten.  She is in the Butterfly class this year, and is in the purple Butterfly subclass.  She loves it!  Grant is still going to Maureen's, but he loves that too.  We did sign him up to go to FACE next year though. 

Here is their first day of school series of pictures.  Grant had a big sippy cup of milk, that we had to take away for the pictures.  So most of the pics are of him with his hands in the air, reaching for the cup that we had just taken away.

Tropical Storm Irene

This Florida girl was just thrilled that we got a tropical storm this far north!  It was a hurricane at landfall, I think, but by the time it got up here to eastern Mass, it was a tropical storm.

This was the day before, courtesy the NHC.  Todd and I actually did some preparation for this because I had been through Hurricane Opal in 1995, which wasn't so awful of a storm by the time it reached Auburn, Alabama, but I still didn't have power for a whole week.  And for a single, college-age girl, wasn't the worst thing ever, but as a mom of two little ones, I was freaked out by the possibility of not having power for an extended period of time.  We had to elevate some of our appliances in the basement (the freezer, and the dehumidifier), and Todd had to go put out plastic on the ground under the only spot around the house that has a gutter... which hadn't been cleaned in years.  But that stopped the small flood that had started in our field stone basement.  :-)

During the storm.  Sorry about the bounce of the flash off of the window.

After the storm I went out and took some pictures.  We had a lot of branches/limbs/leaves down in the driveway.

Same with the backyard.  Much larger branches were down back there toward the far end of the property, out by the fence.

Part of our fence came down, I think due to a branch coming down on it.  Not sure though.

Even the tomato plants were not immune to Irene's "fierce" winds.  In the end, we never really lost power.  We lost it for about an hour in the middle of the night, AFTER the storm was long gone.  Go figure! 

Robb Wolf seminar, aka: Todd's man crush

Todd got to meet (or... um.... meat) his paleo idol, Robb Wolf at an all-day seminar in Boston in August.  I allowed Todd to spend his own money as a birthday present, albeit a little late, to see Robb in one of his last ever live speaking events.

Seriously, he looks deliriously happy in this picture! 

Todd said about this picture:  "We're like brothers!"  Or... since Todd is about a foot taller than Robb, maybe not!  If you ever want to know more about eating Paleo (meat, veggies, eggs, seeds/nuts, fruit), you should check out Robb's website www.robbwolf.com He is a paleo GURU, with great podcasts, blogposts, testimonials, etc. 

Some big shoes to fill

If Grant is half the man his daddy is someday, I will be just thrilled.  He has some really big shoes to fill!  Hopefully he'll be big enough to fill them!

Uncle Steve and the fam visit Massachusetts

Unfortunately last year at Christmas, a big snowstorm cancelled Uncle Steve, Aunt Jeanne, Megan, Hannah, and Ryan's visit from Maryland.  So we haven't seen them in a WHOLE year!  So we were all really excited to see them in August...

First, since there are just TOO many Bailey cousins now, and they're mostly all ... well, like GoGo and Ryan, massively tall....  we had to move to a more spacious location for the group photo.  I took about 10 pictures and this was the best one, ha ha.  Yes, Natalie is in her pajamas.  I know 20 years from now I'm going to be mad about that. 

Then we went in the backyard and snapped a few pics of Bean with his beautiful granddaughters.  Natalie and Madison are giving some sass. 

Next up was Grammi and her baby boys.  Ryan is a sophomore in high school, if you can believe that.  He's almost Todd's height (6'4").  GoGo is starting at Mass Maritime Academy and playing football there this fall.  Seth is my big goofball Godson, and one of Natalie's favorite people in the world.  Please note:  This is the first time EVER that Ryan has held a baby. 

We like to get outdoors when we're down at Grammi and Bean's house.  Neither kid wanted to ride the trike, and I didn't want to carry it, so I just hopped on here.

We also like to go to the pond.  Or rather, Daddy and Natalie like to go to the pond.  It's too cold for Mommy and Grant doesn't like sand or cold water.  He gets that from me.  I just have to say here... look at my nearly-40-year-old husband's hot bod!  CrossFit rocks.

Big Boy was having a blast with Daddy and Uncle Steve.  His face cracks me up in this picture.  I think Uncle Steve thought he might be getting some cake here...

Natalie also is VERY into makeup and nails these days.  She is such a girlie girl, or at least more so than I was at that age.  I love it!  Here, cousin Megan did her nails and I did some of her makeup, which you can see in the picture below.

I'm pretty sure I can never let her out of the house when she is a teenager.  I absolutely love this picture of us. 

Random Summer Photos

This has been a busy summer!  Here is a summary in 8 pictures of some of the highlights...

We've done a little swimming in the kiddie pool (yes, Mommy too).  It hasn't been too awful hot this summer, but we've been able to get out a few times.  Grant, NOT a big fan of the pool, or water in general. I think he likes it when the water is warm, because he doesn't have any issues in the tub.  But a cold pool, not such a fan!

We've been to the gazebo a few times, and this year, Grant runs around more than Natalie!

We ate pasta at TGI Friday's and smashed it all over our face.

This is what happened after Daddy told her to stop smashing pasta on her face.

We've had MORE fun with the Wilmington crew!  Second generation friends Caroline, Natalie, and Annabel, being SO silly, as usual!

We've attended some Red Sox games (Orioles, Cleveland).  I think I'm 2-1 this season.  They just lost to Cleveland last night (August 1) when we saw them.  This is Todd at the Sox-O's game on July 10th.

We went to Org Day at Todd's work again!  We went last year but last year it was in June.  This year, it was on a nice warm day in July.  Natalie got her face painted- ready for battle in a pink tutu skirt! 

The big guy (ahem, Grant) didn't make it out of the parking lot.  He was out COLD.  Must have been a good time!  I think he liked the playground at Daddy's work the best!

It's been a good summer and we've had a lot of fun!