Too Much Fun?

"Too much fun what's that mean?

It's like too much money, there's no such thing
It's like a girl too pretty, with too much class
Being too lucky, a car too fast
No matter what they say I've done, well I ain't never had too much fun"

Yeah, its kind of a goofy song, but if you've read our blog much, I think you know that we believe there's no such thing as too much fun when it comes to weekends! I learned a few things last week. Most importantly that you should seize every moment. Love on your family and friends, as if you might never see them again. Don't take anyone for granted, b/c next month they could be gone. So, per our usual, Don, Kate and I went out and seized our weekend.

We drove to Florence on Saturday to have lunch with Don's family. Our niece Lauren is graduating from high school on Thursday! Here she is being embarassed by the singing Olive Garden wait staff. I didn't even know they did that for graduation. We're hoping Lauren chooses to go to Columbia International University here in town so that we get to see her more often and Kate gets to know her big cousin. It was so good to see everyone, we should definitely do this more often!

The Family. I really don't like this photo of me, but there are so few of us together as a family, so here it is.
On the way home we stopped by Babies R Us and picked up this cute little activity center for Kate. We'll probably hate "The Farmer in the Dell" by the time its all said and done, but she LOVES it.

On Sunday afternoon we went against our better judgement and headed to the Zoo! I don't know if you know this about Riverbanks, but it has to be one of the hottest places on earth in the summer. Well, today the high was in the 90s, but there was a breeze, so we tried it. Not too bad! Thanks to my friend Lorene, we had 2 free passes. You probably also don't know that the zoo is one of my all time favorite places in the world. Yeah, that's a big statement, but its true! I always wanted to be a zoo vet before I ended up a Microbiologist. I wonder if they need a zoo Microbiologist.....

Kate's first trip to the zoo!


We sought out lots of shade.
Sitting on Happy the Tiger with Mom. Happy was the first resident at Riverbanks Zoo, which opened the year I was born, 1974!


Kate couldn't see most of the animals, and lets face it, this trip was for me and Don and not her, but she did have a few favorite parts:

The penguins with Dad. She also liked it when Dad threw his sunglasses at the Koala bear.. Ok, so I exaggerate a little bit. I wasn't able to get a picture of him picking them out of the exhibit with those "grabber" things. I guess when you don't have any hair to hold them on, it can happen. :)


Loved the plants, trees, and flowers!



Fish with Dad. LOVED the fish. Takes after her Pop.



Here is my attempt at artistic photography. This other blog I read had a post on how to get blurry backgrounds. So, I dropped my f-stop down to 2.7 (that's as low as it would go) and voila! I'm quite pleased with myself.



I think we wore her out. What do you think?


Wow. Its past my bedtime. I have no idea where the hours go, but Kate is asleep (for now) in her own room (!), Don is upstairs sewing (yes, you read that right), and I have just finished cleaning the kitchen that never gets clean and I have a list 2 miles long of stuff I'd like to do (only 2 feet of which might get done after this post). Hopefully Kate won't wake up as often as she did last night and I can get some sleep. Last night was her first full night in her room. It was brutal, but she woke up happy and Don and Foster brought us bagels. This coming week will be my first 5 day week in over a month. Its going to be a long one, but rest assured that next weekend we'll try to have too much fun again.

For the Love of Long Weekends

Long Weekend Part I
Aren't long weekends just the best? You know, when you squeeze lots of fun into Saturday and Sunday, and then realize that you still have one more day to shop/explore/recover. So, we decided to pack up the baby girl and head to the coast. Ah, Charleston, our home away from home... or is that where we live now? For my Birthday/Mother's day, Don and Kate gave me a pedicure at my favorite pedicure spot - Stella Nova. Then they took my sparkly toes to Basil for dinner, where we sat outside and listened to Kate giggle her loudest and longest giggles yet. After crashing in the hotel we had a relaxing Starbucks breakfast, shopped a little and bought Don a surfboard. Oh, and in case you were worried... there was a fair amount of shopping that resulted in Kate acquiring more super cute clothing and a couple of books.

The freshly pedicured toes and Kate's new shoes


Giggles galore!

Don and his new dream surfboard. I liked this purchase b/c it guarantees many more trips back to Charleston this summer!

Kate bopped to the reggae music while we waited on Don to pick his board. She showed off her mellow, Bob Marley side. I'm afraid she'd have dreadlocks if her hair were longer.


Here we are in the truck waiting some more.


Have (only a) Baby, Will Travel
That's plenty to pack into a long weekend, right? Not for us! Monday the 4 of us cruised downtown (Columbia) and had some lunch. I guess we totally forgot that we had a BABY to take care of. I realized when we got to the Saucer that we had no diapers, no wipes, no burp clothes, no binkies, no baby hat, no baby stuff whatsover except for the baby, her car seat, a stroller, and the toys she came with. It worked out ok. There were no diaper blow-outs.

Kate and Foster. Notice she's holding the leash. Don't worry... it wasn't attached to the dog.

Pretty girl.

Her usual happy self.

Yeah, you know I couldn't get through this post without some cute baby feet. She stomped happily in the grass.

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig
Ah, finally home. Kate sure knows how to relax. Tuesday I had my final Furlough Day and we took advantage. There was some napping and some coffee and some strolling. Here's Kate kicking back. I think we wore her out.

Relaxed in the ducky tub!

Snoozing in the swing

Pteradactyl Baby

Ok, I've had requests... here is the video proof that our baby is actually at least part pteradactyl!

Lessons in Change

Ok, so Kate and I got some feedback on the black background and decided that black really isn't becoming to a sweet little 5 month old. So! Kate got her first lesson in "compromise" - which, I might add, was the Sesame Street word of the week not long ago. Green is a cheerful color isn't it? And Don likes trees and the outdoors (green!). If it were up to Kate the blog would be red like Elmo, but I don't think Don or I could stomach that... So, to make everyone happy, we have gone to a green blog. I didn't mention to Kate that usually when you "compromise," you ask the other person what they think before you make a change. But I also didn't want to bother Don at work asking about the color of our blog (because I've bothered him 3x already today). Sesame Street's word of the week last week was "aggitate." So if my changing the color does happen to "aggitate" Don, its all for the good of Kate's young vocabulary!

Oh, and because its not cool to post without pictures, here is our sweet girl trying to steal Dad's burrito at Moe's yesterday. You've gotta watch her now, she almost knocked his tea off of the table too...

Backpacking Fork Mountain to Oconee S.P.

First things first... pink blog? Seriously? This Kate is going to be serious trouble. We're switching to straight black for awhile to make up for all of the pinkness. Watch it Kate... you'll want the keys to the car sooner than you think and I have a good memory.

Dad & I took a group hike in the Upstate this weekend with the group from the parks program. The original plan was to start on the Fork Mountain spur of the FHT and hike to Oconee State Park over three days and two nights. This is a 30 mile hike that was planned to split evenly over the three days.



Here's dad at the beginning of the hike.



The mountain laurels were in full bloom this weekend.



A view down the Fork Mountain spur of the FHT.



Taking a break by the Chatooga River.



This poor guy was carrying 50 or 60 pounds of gear down the trail. I didn't think he'd make it past the first day but he did manage to (slowly) cover the entire hike.



The pines in our first camp were huge. I don't think this one ends...



Some flowers from the edge of camp.



My self portrait on a 60ft log bridge.



Looks comfortable!



Beautiful canopy along the way. I wasn't able to take many photos the next day due to rain (doesn't mix well with digital cameras). We ended up hiking 20 miles out to end the trip in 2 days instead of the planned 3. We were both tired and had sore feet but we were able to avoid the storms (see the radar below). That radar image was taken while we were driving home. Camp was approximately where the 'X' is... lots of storms were on the way. We definitely made the right call.

Girls' Weekend Cut Short

Well, it was a blast while it lasted!!! We were able to squeeze in almost everything that we wanted!! There were a few modifications to my original plan, but we stuck close enough to it. We were both very excited when Don called Saturday night to say he was on his way home. We didn't expect him until Sunday, so it was a nice surprise! Ok, so see below - Our first official Girls Weekend!!

I started Friday night a little concerned that we weren't getting off on the right foot. See Kate and me... in our PJs... about to watch a movie? I think she must have realized that there weren't any really good ones On Demand so she dozed off.


Here she is asleep in her Pack N Play... on her BACK... NOT in her SWING! Shh... lets just pretend like that's no big deal. What's also not a big deal? *wink* *wink* The fact that she slept in that very position for 4 hours!! OK, maybe you don't know our history here, but previously her record sleeping on her back was 2 hours, with an average time of 1 hour or less. No biggie though. :)


So, I got out the ice cream and read a book. I haven't done that in a while, it was nice. I also glanced at the Farrah Fawcet story from time to time - closed captioned of course. Wouldn't want to wake sleeping beauty. I did finish the ice cream before Don got home.


OK, so all of that rest caught up with Kate around 2:20 AM, and she was WIDE awake.


So, what did we do? Well, since there were no good movies on, we watched the Disney Channel for a while. Here we are snuggled in bed watching some show I've never heard of about a rocket boy or something. *yawn* Honestly, Kate would be happy watching Judge Judy or QVC, so content isn't really important here.


After we slept in (until about 6:23) Kate was bright eyed and bushy-tailed.


So we made pancakes. I know it doesn't sound hard to just add water and shake the pancake mix, but somehow I managed to screw that up and started to miss Don b/c he gets it right every time. Kate did oversee the flipping of the pancakes and suggested I put some of those yummy strawberries that Grandma sent on top! She was right.. they were GOOD.


After Kate took a nice long nap (naps are always cool on Girls Weekend), we shopped until Kate dropped. She got some new clothes and a couple of toys. I know what you're thinking... "whew! That poor child needed more clothes and toys."

Then we went out to eat - at Nanna and Pop's. Hamburgers! Yum!


Finally, we made it home in time to play with our hair. Kate had this great pink bow that might be balanced on her head in this picture. I tried to put it in what little hair she had (see below), but it looked strange on the back of her noggin.



So there you have it! Girls do rule!! We saw one boy (Foster, our dog) and he was drooling. But with an n=1, I'm not ready to draw any hard scientific conclusions. We'll have to solve that part of the saying next time when Don's in Brazil.

Girls Rule!!

Isn’t it great that when Don goes off hiking through the wild yonder, I’m not at home alone anymore!?! I actually have a buddy to hang out with and do girly stuff with (including changing the look of the blog!!). We can eat Java Chip ice cream and watch movies in our PJs. We can sleep in and eat all the pancakes we can handle. We might even shop till we drop and stay up fixing our hair, if we’d like. And to top it off, we could go to Starbucks and read a book or eat lunch at a fun little café downtown! This is what you do on a girls’ weekend, right!?

I know what you’re thinking… Kate’s only 5 months old and can’t even sit up without some support (much less stand). And you’re probably poo-poo-ing my plans to eat Java Chip ice cream b/c I’ll most likely scarf down some bowtie pasta with vegis and mozzarella cheese right before I try to convince Kate that rice cereal and sweet potatoes is the best meal she’ll ever have. There are probably some of you that are thinking.. “Get your baby off of her schedule!? You’re brave!” And maybe a few of you have even noticed that Kate doesn’t have any hair to fix and her idea of fixing mine is grabbing onto it as tightly as possible, pulling it partially out of the follicles until I yell and startle her enough to let go. I can see all of your points, BUT this will not stop us from having the coolest, hippest, worry-free girls weekend that a 5 month old and her Mama can have.

So, stay tuned, we’ll capture it all on film and show you that what you’ve heard is, in fact, true…. GIRLS RULE!*



*My cousin Courtney will point out that the secondary part of this phrase is that “boys drool.” While there is no scientific proof to support this claim, and I’ve never actually seen a boy drool, its possible that boys drool out of total jealously that girls’ weekends are so awesome.

Clemson Girl!

Hi everyone! This is Kate! I'm now 5 months old and Mama and Daddy said that it was high time I created my own post for you all, so here it is!

On Friday I went to this place called CLEMSON, which I've heard a lot about. It certainly lived up to its name. Lots of orange, my favorite color, and I got to see my cousin Courtney graduate!

I had to get ready for the day wearing my Tiger bib! Thanks Granma and Grandpa! It certainly keeps me covered!

I slept on the way up there.. Yawn... b/c it was like, a 2 hour drive!

Took my turn at the wheel so Mama and Daddy could hang out and eat lunch.

Since they wouldn't let strollers into the Coliseum where the graduating went down, I hung out with Dad.

Here we are with Courtney! I'm pretty sure if I study hard I might be able to graduate like her. Class of 1996, Class of 2009, and Class of 2030!


Mama took this video so I wouldn't miss anything!




So what did I do with the rest of my weekend?? Well, Sunday was Mother's day and so I hung out with my Mama. Because Mama's favorite breakfast is pancakes and coffee, my brother Foster and I made sure she got plenty of those! There are 2 pictures of us b/c Mama says that neither one of us can be still long enough to take a single picture.




I'm so glad it was cool on Monday! Here I am sporting my super hip BabyGap sweatshirt.


Another neat thing about being 5 months old is that I get to try some new foods. Cereal and bananas was getting kind of old. So... Mom let me try some sweet potatoes. I wasn't sure at first...

But I ended up liking them!

Finally, I played some with my super cool Ragedy Ann that Granma made for me. What an exhausting weekend! Hope everybody had as much fun as me and remembered to hug their Mamas!