Hunt Family Connection

Happy 4th of July!

I’m sitting in bed and just got done editing the pictures I’ve got so far from the weekend. The neighborhood fireworks have just started and I have the perfect view of what must be an illegal fireworks display in someone’s yard (they are far too big and pretty to be legal!)

There are a lot of firecrackers going off on our street and I saw some of those parachute ones floating outside of my window. So far I’ve seen a couple of the cats race in here and under the bed. Graham hasn’t been fully awakened yet, but I do hear him fussing in there a little bit.

The picture is from earlier today as we were getting ready to head out to Art in the Vineyard. I went out there last night too, but with some girlfriends…

 
from left to right: Kara, me, Louisa, and Teresa

We set up our chairs in the shade, everyone that could got a glass of wine, and then we headed over to the food court. Kara and Teresa really seemed to enjoy their buffalo burgers (with giant chunks of bacon on top – YUM!)

After dinner we walked around to check out the art – I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do, but  here are a couple of my favorites…

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are always so many creative and colorful things to look at. Also a lot of fun and pretty jewelry to admire.

After browsing a bit we went back to our chairs to chat before the music started again, and before long someone mentioned dessert and we were back in the food court. We went back to our chairs with ice cream and spent the rest of the evening people-watching, listening to music, and chatting. It was a wonderfully relaxing (and yummy!) evening. We went back to Kara’s and caught a fireworks show taking place after the Ems’ baseball game.

I was pretty tired this morning, so Graham and I played at home this morning. G did a fantastic job of letting me rest up a bit. After his nap we got dressed and ready to head out to Art in the Vineyard. We saw Grandma Chery and walked around with her a little before she had to leave, then we found a shady place on the lawn to put down our blanket. We went for a walk and found a nice little kid area where Graham went “fishing” for some little toys/prizes. His favorite is a whistle (that he is still learning how to use!)

We walked over to the food court and got pad thai and a fruit parfait for dinner, which we enjoyed together on our blanket while listening to music. Once we finished that up it was time to get back in the stroller and make the trek back to the car and then home to play a little more before bedtime. Here’s a shot of Graham playing with his new little toys while I cleaned up…

Which brings us to where I started this post – Graham is still sleeping and the fireworks are still going strong….seriously, who are these people?? For a backyard display, this is pretty awesome! It will be fun when Graham is old enough to stay awake for this :)

The Park, a Picnic, and Our Pool

What a busy day we had here! Graham and I were invited to play with some friends at a local park and bring along a picnic lunch. We got to the park (a rather large and impressive park at that!) around 10:30 and played with Jeffrey and his mama, Jenna.

 
Graham played some on his own and also played with Jeffrey a bit. It’s still hard to share and take turns, but we’re working on it.  You can see they were both quite content on this play structure – Jenna and I took turns cranking the bar that made this ‘boat’ travel across the river.

We had a yummy picnic lunch in the shade around 11:15 – Graham and I traded one of our Oreo cookies for some goldfish crackers. I’m told it was Jeffrey’s first Oreo – such an important milestone I think ;) After lunch we had one last swing (I need these in an adult size please!) before heading home for naps…

Graham was more than ready for his nap and slept for 2 hours (yay!) After nap, we asked daddy if he would help get the swimming pool blown up and filled. I picked one up that was on sale at Target…I had no idea it was going to be as big as it is!  I am excited though that there is more than enough for Graham and I  - in fact I think there’s room for the whole family in there!

Graham had fun helping to fill the pool – it looked a little like this when we started…

Then he got brave and started playing a little more with the water (and squealing because it was a nice cold shock to the system!)

And finally he was getting so wet that I finally stripped him down and got him into the pool as it finished filling up – he had a BLAST!

I think he’s really going to enjoy having the pool in the backyard and I know that I will – it’s much easier to sport the maternity swimsuit in the privacy of my own yard than with all of the ‘pretty/skinny moms’ at the tennis club pool.

I’m going to shop for a little bug strainer and some pool toys tomorrow while G is at daycare – the next few days are supposed to be pretty hot so I think we’ll be more than ready to spend some time in the pool. I’m also planning to reward myself for all of the hard work organizing and decluttering by going to a movie tomorrow.

This weekend is Art and the Vineyard so I’m hoping to spend time there with Graham and with my friends. Lots of fun summer things to look forward to :)

It just won’t be the same…

This is my Wednesday “lunch bunch” friends/co-workers:

I am bummed to report that this picture was taken at a going-away-party for Megan (2nd from the left). Lunch will definitely not be the same without her colorful stories and comments :) Megan sits right next to me at my office downtown (which is not an easy spot for someone to fill with all of my personal space issues!) and I will miss having her there too. She has such great energy and positive spirit – and awesome fidgets! She has a love of all things organized and I will miss that too. Luckily she isn’t going far – she is moving to Portland so we will still be able to see her every now and again (if she doesn’t forget us!) We are also hoping to bring her to lunch every now and again via Skype – gotta love the technology :)

I am definitely happy that she is doing what’s good for her, but I’m sad for me and our team at work – you will be missed Megan!

I’ve added other pictures from the going-away party to the ESS Celebrations album – we are also saying goodbye to another awesome co-worker (Melissa R.) who will be greatly missed. Change is no fun sometimes…

Memorial Day

It was a very good day :)  It was wonderful to get up not dreading a Monday – relaxing in bed until Graham woke up….heading downstairs to make muffins and play….walking to the park with a bucket and shovel…heading back home to hang out with Wil and have lunch. 

After lunch Graham actually asked to go down for his nap – while he was sleeping I managed to clean up my desk (it was a bigger task than I had anticipated – how does it get so messy when I hardly ever sit there?!)

Later in the afternoon Pa-Paw, Grandma Chery, Kara, Brian, and Sam all came over to hang out and have a BBQ. We had a blast playing inside and outside – there was a LOT of laughter….love that :) 

I leave you with a few pictures from our day…

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Pooped on….both figuratively and literally :)

Yep – I came home from work this afternoon and proclaimed to Wil that I had been pooped on…repeatedly…today.

I won’t go into details on the first “incident” (mostly ‘cause it’s boring) but I was feeling a LOT underappreciated at work today. It’s a tough time of year – so much to do and just not enough time….blah blah blah.

So I left for my afternoon meetings, and walked right into a very difficult meeting that I never would have anticipated being difficult. My conversations with the parent prior to the meeting had gone very well and I felt we were all on the same page. The student’s therapist, invited to the meeting by the parent, was on a very different page and proceeded to make what should have been a 10-15 minute discussion into an hour long debate. I felt pretty beat up and attacked by the time the meeting was over, and again…..”pooped on” – lol

The final incident took the pooping from the metaphorical to the literal… I went to pick up Graham from daycare where I found the kids playing in the backyard. Graham came running over to me and wanted to be picked up. After holding him for a bit I put him back down and noticed that he had “stuff” on his shoe. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that he had stepped in some dog poop while out in the yard. Sure enough…after having picked him up I then had poop on my pants – nice.

I’m very pleased to also report that there were bright moments throughout the day – it certainly wasn’t all poop :)

It was Wednesday, so I got to have a nice lunch with Kara, Melissa, and Megan. It’s always so nice to step away from the craziness of work for a few minutes with good friends. And last night was date night! We branched out a bit since Pa-Paw and Grandma are out of town, and tried a new sitter. It went great and we are told that Graham was very good. Apparently he is perfectly capable of listening AND following direction ;)  Krystal says they had LOTS of fun and he went to bed with no troubles – yay! Wil and I had a quick dinner together and then went to the new Star Trek movie. I have to admit that it was much better than I had expected and was even pretty funny at times. Of course there were also a few moments that were pretty emotional and made the pregnant lady all teary-eyed, but it was all good in the end.

So here’s hoping that tomorrow is poop-free, both figuratively AND literally :)

More about our weekend

So at the end of my last post I mentioned that I was sure Graham would fall asleep eventually for his nap….ummm, not so much!  For a whole hour he just chatted, sang, and bounced around in his crib until he decided to call for me to come get him. I got him up and ready to head out – a little nervous about what the rest of the day would hold with a little boy who hadn’t napped.

We were on our way to Saturday Market, but after chatting with Kara, I decided to change direction and meet her and Sammy at Skinner’s Butte Park. Of course Graham fell asleep on the way there :)  When we arrived at the park we went for a little walk in hopes that Graham would sleep some more (he never did really fall asleep, but was resting quietly….almost asleep). After the walk we hung out with the boys at the playground.

Don’t they look super-serious about getting down that slide?! It was so crowded but we managed to find places to play without getting knocked around too much :)

It’s funny how much difference a year can make at this age. It’s even more amazing that in another year or so, we will hardly be able to tell that there is much difference in their age at all. I feel so lucky to have so many friends with children Graham’s age – we are never at a loss for playmates and I really appreciate the “mom” support we give each other.

Speaking of my girlfriends, I was able to get out with a few of them to a Lia Sophia party thrown by our friend Teresa on Friday night – very fun :)  I even came away with a little treat for myself – these silver earrings.  Thanks again Teresa for good food, drink, and fun!

We were outside again today – it was even warmer and sunnier! I have more pictures but will save them for another post. It’s getting late and I have a very busy Monday ahead of me.

Playdate

We had our friends Leila, Savannah, and Matthew over for a playdate last week - would you believe that the kids cooked dinner for us???

They didn't....but it was pretty darn cute to see them all playing together at Graham's kitchen.  In fact, none of them were really interested in food at all. I have to say they all got along quite well and everyone seemed to have a good time. I love getting to see and chat with Leila - she's such a great momma and has lots of wisdom to share :) 

We say it every time we get together, and I'll say it again....we really need to do this more often!

Our Friend Sammy is ONE!

We were very excited to help our friend Sammy celebrate his first birthday this past weekend :)

He seemed to really enjoy his very first bites of cake :) Shortly after Sammy started getting into the cupcake, I got this picture of his parents.... tee hee!

Once the bib was in place he was all set to dig in. I'm pretty sure there will be video of this too, so keep and eye on Kara's blog for that. I have a few more pictures HERE if you're interested.  There were a handful of little ones there so I spent a lot of time making sure Graham didn't  knock any of the little ones over :)

GREAT party Sammy - you've come a long way this year and we can't wait to see what you're going to be doing next! 

P.S. - thanks for the "Shake It" party favor CD - we've listened to it a couple of times already and love it :)

Where did that week go?!

I guess I'm still on blog overload from my daily blog posts in December....I think I'm coming out of it though, so hopefully I'll get back to more regular posts in these coming weeks.

On Friday I picked up a package at the post office that Nana and Papa sent from Wisconsin - all of the toys/gifts from Christmas that didn't fit in our luggage!

One of the first things he did was to pick up the animal he has there in his hands and turned to me to say "llama!" - mind you it came out as "mama", but I know what he was trying to say :)

Thanks for sending along all of these goodies Nana - it was like Christmas all over again here this morning!

We hung around the house most of the day then after nap went to watch the Ducks play hockey (our friend Scott is one of the coaches!) Graham really enjoyed watching the "people" skating around with the "ball" (his words, not mine!) We also enjoyed visiting with our friends Kara and Sammy

We also enjoyed visiting with Sammy's dad, Brian, and our friend Jennifer - good times!

Graham was up far too early this morning and didn't nap well, so we went to bed a little bit earlier and will hope for a much better sleep tonight.

It was pretty darn happy there...

We saw this in the sky as we entered the Magic Kingdom last Friday - funny....

 

As I was editing some pictures last night, this one also made me happy.

I really enjoyed wandering around the different countries inside of Epcot and Morocco was definitely one of my favorites. There were so many beautiful things to look at and it was rather peaceful because there weren't many people around when I was there.

I also got to visit a favorite place when I stumbled across a little bit of Venice, Italy - it brought back very nice memories from our honeymoon :)

 

Here is yet another happy moment from the trip - a group photo with the Disney characters!

This was the night of our private dinner and special dessert buffet at Epcot. Randy and Katie Pertiet were our generous hosts - they own a website called Designer Digitals. The rest of these women are designers and creative team members from the site. We have worked together for some time, but many of us had never met in person - it was such a treat to have everyone coming from different parts of the country, and even a handful of women from other countries. I felt like I already knew these women well because the work we do leads to us sharing scrapbook pages about our families and our lives, so it was wonderful to get to meet them and spend time chatting in person. You can see the work the creative team does by browsing around THIS GALLERY.