The title of this blog comes from my days back in Vegas. Upon my return to work after giving birth to Cooper I was in a meeting where a person made a comment about me 'essentially coming back from vacation'. I turned to him and said 'believe me, being home with an infant is no vacation'. So, about a week ago, we got to take a 'vacation' away from home and the 'vacation' I've been on since Olivia was born! We flew to Phoenix (Olivia's first flight) and got to see Nonna and Papa. Olivia and Papa had never met and oh what a magic touch he has. Whenever she was fussy, I gave her to him. Where are Nonna and Papa when we need them at 2:00 am??!? We spent about a day in Phoenix and then drove up to Pinetop to visit with our Gran/Great Gran. We've been going every year now since we were married and it is a week that we look forward to for months ahead of time. We spend time with her at the cabin, we get massages, we go for walks, we take hikes; it is truly a relaxing and wonderful time every year. It is one of our favorite places. We took our annual trip to Greer and went hiking for the day where Cooper decided to get in the creek. He was too little last year but was definitely interested in trying it out this time. However, the first part of it was really muddy and I wasn't sure how deep so I took my socks and shoes off, hiked up my jeans and took him in. I've never been a big fan of wet clothes and I hate wet jeans even worse. Was I nervous about dropping Cooper in the creek and getting completely soaked? No. But I was nervous about getting the bottoms of my jeans wet and the possible icky feeling of that!! The things we do for our kids... he had a great time and ended up getting his shorts soaked (but not because I dropped him, phew).
This picture reminds me of a story. Ahh yes, we were headed home from lunch (it was a short two minute drive in the club where Gran lives) when Ryan pointed out what seemed to be a bee buzzing around her windshield. She started to close the sun roof so he wouldn't get in, when he came up with some sort of super bee speed of light flying and LITERALLY dove and crashed into my chest. I thought he bounced off... but then I felt some tickling inside my shirt. Yes, the bee had flown so dangerously close that he landed inside my shirt. I have zero affinity for bees, I thought for sure after reading The Secret Life of Bees I would be less inclined to detest them as I do. Sadly, that was not the case. I felt as closely as I could to him and PINCHED him between my fingers. You'd think that would kill him but he was apparently a very strong YELLOW JACKET and was still trying to find the best spot to sting me, I just know it. So, by this time, Gran has stopped the car so I could jump out and do a fun dance to get him out of my shirt. I narrowly escaped near death without question. Bees, pshhh...
After about a week in Pinetop, we drove back down to Phoenix where a multitude of people and parties awaited us. Apparently, we're kind of a big deal... or I should say, the kids are! First, we had Friday night Party Night with the Smiths (now the Smiths/Pickards/Kolsons) and some really old family friends from Wisconsin, the Tuttles (which is not to say they are actually really old, just that they've been friends with my parents since college). It was just wonderful to see all of them. Of the group, we had three brand new babies, Toni (born 7/1), Olivia (8/4), and Connor (9/9... awesome day). We took tons of pictures, I'm talking paparazzi amounts of pictures of the three of them and the group of us with all our kids. I thought there would be hundreds of great pictures, but it turns out that it's REALLY hard to get a good group shot when there are three new babies, a two year old, and a three year old. It was just practice for next time!
The next day, we had a little open house so some family and friends could come meet Olivia. It wasn't too big as we were trying to be careful about too many people around Dad and it was just lovely. Everyone was there to see her and hold her and eat good food! On Sunday, we spent time with the Hadleys because they couldn't make it Saturday. It was good to see them as always. I always have a great time with the Hadleys and I laugh A LOT!
Enjoy the pictures!
