New Baby & A Nasty Cold

Good Morning,

If you're surprised that I actually made it here today, so am I. I didn't know how the day would play out but I am still feeling pretty crumby so Jason went to get a hair cut and go to the dentist while I putter around the house. When he gets home I need to go replenish my cold medicine stock as it has diminished by my symptoms haven't. Honestly.. who gets sick in the summer?

Anyways we left off yesterday at our 4:30am wake up call on Monday! As I said I wasn't totally surprised that Lindsey went into labor, I suppose neither was Jason because when Dave called his cell phone he flew out of bed answering the phone with "Is it time??" Dave said we needed to hurry and luckily knowing I would be going over there bright and early Monday I had already packed a back pack the night before, so I grabbed my stuff and Jason got his work stuff and we headed out. We had a quick good luck exchange in the front of the house and they were off.

Jason still had some time before he had to be at work so he decided to rest his eyes on the couch...

Chloe decided to join him.. this picture is actually pretty hilarious because Jason isn't a huge dog person and after taking this picture Chloe slowly inched her way over to Jason and was trying to get on his lap! It was hilarious morning entertainment, Jason finally peaked out from under his hat to ask what the dog thought she was doing.. clearly he didn't get that she starts her day with a morning snuggle. 

I couldn't go back to sleep, so I made a coffee and enjoyed Netflix until the girls woke up. Believe it or not Lindsey and Dave left the house at I would say about 5:10am and Colton was born at 6:12am!!!! Lucky we got there when we did as the hospital is about a 20 minute drive away! I wont share too many photos because they aren't really mine to share but I have to let you see a picture of this gorgeous new baby! 

The picture makes him look a lot bigger than he actually is, he is SO TINY and PERFECT!

The girls did visit their new brother but we made our way back to the house after to meet Jason for dinner and get ready for bed. The girls did really well considering they are not use to being without Lindsey and obviously things were a little different than usual. We weren't home long before Jason arrived so the girls wanted to wait, they pulled out their little camp chairs and in true toddler fashion were over the waiting in about 2 minutes!! 

Hilarious! 

We had Chinese food for dinner which was a hit and then had baths and tidied up and waited for Dave to come home for bed time. As it had been an early morning for everyone, the girls and Jason rested while they waited.  

I'm not going to lie this picture melts my heart! 

The following day we saw the baby again and played at the house with the girls, we knew Lindsey and Colton wouldn't be home until Wednesday. We also got to visit the baby again.. let me tell you, I am in love! There is just something about new babies! 

So that was basically our week, after that it was just resting as I am still not feeling well and getting ready to come home! We left last night after Jason got off work, we didn't hit any traffic at all and made it home in exactly 4 hours! 

Jason just got back from getting a hair cut and I am going to get ready so we can head out and grab a few things for dinners and stuff while we are here. Jason has a dentist appointment at 11am which hopefully wont take long and then we plan to putter around town and enjoy the house! 

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, make the most of what is left of summer! Thank you as always for stopping by, after writing this post and attaching all the pictures I plan to use my actual camera more because these iPhone pictures SUCK! My apologies! 

Have a great weekend! 

Ps- I wrote this all this morning then the internet went out and I haven't had it all day until now! I thankfully decided to copy everything I had written into word just in case and its a good thing I did because it deleted most of my post! Ugh.. internet! 

National Harbor & Gilligans

Good Afternoon,

So I said I would try and make it back here today and tell you about our weekend and I wasn't sure it was going to happen but here I am.. I'm pretty impressed with myself. I should be doing a bunch of other things but I do believe it will get done before Jason gets home and we get on the road to head home!

Last Friday we were deciding what exactly what we were going to do on the weekend not sure when Lindsey was going to be going into the hospital as she was suppose to be induced and we would be watching the girls. Turns out they moved her induction to Monday so Jason and I thought we would head to National Harbor for the day on Saturday and check it out. Although there isn't a lot to do in Waldorf for the most part there is a ton to do in the surrounding areas so we have been taking advantage. National Harbor is about a half hour away and we figured we wouldn't spend the whole day there but we wanted to explore all it had to offer.

Its a super beautiful place, right on the water as you can imagine being a harbor and all. 

Our first stop was Starbucks as I was dying to try the Strawberry shortcake frappucino.. it was quite good! 

We toured around the entire place, truth be told it isn't a full day adventure.. its not a huge place but it was beautiful and totally worth the time we spent there. 

Came across this guy.. not sure what exactly it is. Looks like a snake with legs.. gross. 

I'm not sure who this guy is buried in the sand, I think it was suppose to be Jesus. 

After a lot of wandering we decided we wanted to get something to eat. There were a TON of restaurants to choose from but we decided on Redstone American Grill. I had an AMAZING smoked turkey sandwich, if you are in the area I highly recommend this place! 

I told Jason I was going to take this picture.. so he continued to walk in front of me because he apparently wanted to be in it. 

After touring around National Harbor we decided to visit the Tanger outlets as they we two minutes from where we had parked. They of course didn't disappoint but were extremely busy, we didn't stay long but managed to score one good deal. 

The day turned out to be really hot so we got back to the apartment and decided to head over to the pool. In the half hour we were in the apartment the weather cooled which was fantastic which made our time at the pool that much more enjoyable. We are so fortunate that although our community pool is available to a ton of people no one really uses it. 

Sunday we met Dave and Lindsey and headed to Gilligan's Pier, they had been before but we hadn't and didn't have anything planned for the day. We are trying to enjoy the beach as much as we can while summer is still around and there is definitely lots of possibilities around here. The place is basically a tiki bar on the beach which was amazing! The girls swam and played in the water and we enjoyed the beach. 

There were palm trees and everything! They aren't native to this area so it was super exciting to see them. 

We had a really great afternoon and lunch. Funny story.. while the girls were playing on the beach Lindsey and I noticed that Lily was holding something while sitting in the water, it looked like a big piece of sea glass or something, little did we know she had picked up a JELLY FISH!!! Thankfully it didn't sting her, Lindsey and I flew out of our chairs yelling at her to put it down, I think we scared her more than anything. Its funny now that everything was fine but it definitely could have turned out differently. 

That's that crappy thing about the water here, there are jelly fish and we saw a water snake which to me was way worse. There's nothing you can do about it, at least it wasn't a shark I guess! 

So that was our weekend, we left Dave and Lindsey thinking that it was definitely possible we could have gotten a call that night that Lindsey was in labor.. turns out it came at 430am the next morning! 

I will fill you all in where I left off tomorrow. We are heading home tonight and I have a bunch of stuff I need to get done before Jason gets home from work! 

I hope you all had a great week, I have had a terrible cold since Sunday and am only now starting to feel back to normal, hopefully by the weekend! 

Oh and in case you missed it Tom Brady's appeal was overturned this morning and he wont be missing any games! Get your FREE BRADY shirts HERE haha! Regular season starts a week tonight, look out Steerlers.. we're comin' for ya! 

My Week in a Nutshell

Hi Y'all!

My bad, again another week has passed and I have barely blogged but in my defense its been a busy week! I woke up feeling really crappy on Sunday morning, I don't know how I managed to get a cold in the summer but it definitely hasn't been getting any better.

Monday morning we received a call at 4:45am that Lindsey was in labor and we needed to get over there to stay with the girls! I wasn't totally shocked about the call, she was to be induced that morning anyways but when I saw her the day before she said she wasn't feeling great. Jason and I jumped up and out the door! Needless to say it was a busy day with the girls and we didn't get home until later and I showered and went to bed. Yesterday I woke up feeling a million times worse but spent the day with the little ladies again, hanging out!

Today I am catching up around the apartment and just resting because we are leaving tomorrow night to head home for the long weekend!

I want to tell you all about our weekend and this week so far but its not going to be today. I really just want to take a nap to be honest and feel better so my whole weekend at home isn't ruined.

I will hopefully get at least one post up tomorrow before we leave and maybe one Friday from home! We'll see how things go!

Hope you are all having a fantastic week!! Can you believe its September? Where did summer even go?

No Words...

Good Morning,

Its true y'all.. I just don't have much to say recently and for any of you who know me in person I'm sure you don't believe it. Everyday I think about blogging but I just have nothing to report. None the less I thought I would stop by today and at least tell you whats going on, although there really isn't much.

• I woke up yesterday to the horror that was the slaying of the Virginia news crew. I'm not going to lie I had to turn it off once I knew what was going on, I just cant stand to watch stuff like that anymore, it seems constant. Those people were innocent and their lives ended far too soon, its just terrible... everything that surrounded it is terrible. This is why I don't watch the news. 

• We still don't have the truck back! We dropped it off 10 days ago today to have some scratches taken care of, an arrangement Jason made when we got the truck. Well he booked the appointment before we left to go home and when he took it in on Monday night (the 17th) they said not only did he not have an appointment but they didn't have a rental car for him either. Naturally Jason pitched a mild fit and they kept the truck and gave him a demo car (a little Ford focus) and we haven't gotten the truck back since. Apparently they use a third party shop who wants to do a fabulous job because its a brand new truck, who knows. We are suppose to get it back today but I wont lie I don't have high hopes. 

• I haven't been reading as much as usual, I need to put a few books on our tablet because I cant seem to get them on my Nook for whatever reason. I need to get it together because I have a few books laying around that I want to pass on. 

• Last night we went out for dinner, we knew we wanted BBQ and let me tell you it didn't disappoint. I love cornbread. 

• Lindsey is going to have the baby on Saturday and I wont lie I am super excited! There is something about new babies, I tell ya!

• These bullet points make it look like I have a lot more to say than I actually do. 

• I haven't had much for sleep this week, I don't know what my issue is as usual its just one of those times when sleep and I are not friends. Its hot in here at night, I cant get comfortable, Jason wont stay on his own side, I'm deep in thought about the most recent episode we've watched of Sons of Anarchy.. the norm! None the less by 3:00pm everyday I am exhausted and the rest of the day feels long, I always debate napping but I just cant. 

• We finally got bar stools for the apartment and I am excited for Jason to put them together. Since we've been back we managed to put up a New York picture we bought years ago, we got a new bed side table lamp for the bedroom and the bar stools have arrived, I love that things are coming together and feeling more like home. 

• The last two days the weather has been amazing! No humidity and just downright enjoyable, its been FANTASTIC! I have been really anxious for fall as the weather here has been sweltering for weeks but this weather is reminding me to hold onto every second of summer because winter is a bitch. 

• Getting out of a gym routine is the worst possible thing you can do because getting back into one is for some reason outrageously hard. 

• I am addicted to Polar carbonated water, I think my favorite is the cranberry lime but it may also be the pomegranate. I am basically addicted. 

• I really want to go shopping. 

• This week is dragging on for some reason, probably lack of sleep. I look so forward to weekends as Jason doesn't have to work and we always find something fun to do. 

Ok basically that's it. I am going to try and finish a few books so I have some reviews, I am no longer getting a monthly subscription box so I'm not really trying new products.. you see my friends life is in a little bit of an adjustment phase.. bare with me while I work out the kinks! 

I hope you are all having a great week and have a great weekend! Thank you as always for stopping by! 

Weekend Recap ~ Mini Golf & Chesapeake Beach

Good Morning,

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend, we sure did and I thought I would stop by today and tell you about it!

Last week absolutely flew by, I couldn't believe when Friday rolled around that the week was over already! That generally never happens when we come back from being at home even if it was just for a weekend, I always feel like the week will drag on but last week was quite the opposite!

Friday is Jason's day to get off work early and although his hours were changed while we were away he still gets off work 2 hours earlier then he does throughout the rest of the week. I spent most of the day with Lindsey and the girls at the park, it was finally a beautiful day with no humidity and it felt so great to be out and actually have it be enjoyable rather than sweltering and miserable.

Friday afternoon Jason got home and we just hung out for awhile and decided to watch an episode of Sons of Anarchy while we had dinner before heading out to meet everyone for mini golf! (Side note: We are obsessed with SOA right now and only have a few episodes in the series left, I plan to blog about it when we are finished the series which will hopefully be this week!) Just before I started to get ready the buildings fire alarm started going off, I was soooo annoyed!!! Everyone was piling out of the building outside and I continued getting ready.. I know that's bad but I swear every apartment we live in this constantly happens and there has never been a fire! We finished getting ready and just left even though we were early because the noise in the apartment was too much to handle! We decided to go to the new site Jason is on and check it out, its so different from what I am use to seeing as we never arrive on a project this early! I should have taken pictures!

We met Dave, Lindsey, the girls as well as another of Jason's coworkers and his wife and daughter at the mini golf place. It was a gorgeous night and we had a really great time, I figured with the girls being so small that it wouldn't be a lot of fun for them just a lot of sitting and waiting for us to play, truth be told I didn't even expect them to have clubs the right size for the girls, but they did and they played and had a great time, we all did!

Saturday morning we were up early and packing bags to head to the beach! With the weather being so hot there is really only one way to enjoy it and we are so close to the beach that we figured why not take advantage! We met Dave, Lindsey and the girls and got on the road! We decided to go to Chesapeake Beach because none of us had ever been there and it was pretty close, 45 minutes. 

We were a little shocked when we arrived at North Beach (in the town of Chesapeake Beach) that they wanted $15 an adult to get on the beach and $8 a child! Highway robbery if you ask me, but we were there and all unpacked so we paid.. although I doubt we would do it again! The beach was nice, they had areas that were enclosed in the water to prevent crabs and what not from getting in where everyone was swimming.. I kid you not! There was an area that you could swim where it was deeper and although Jason ventured in there were jelly fish over there and two kids got stung. That's the crappy part about being further south and going to the beach.. you have to worry about those kinds of things but lets be honest its way to cold to both going to the beach in the north anyways. 

Crappy iPhone pictures I know.. but the girls had a great time swimming! The water wasn't super deep so it was perfect for them! 

Sadly the beach was overrun with ducks.. good lord! I've never seen ducks like this on the beach running around like seagulls trying to steal peoples food! You all know how I feel about birds of any sort. 

After a couple of hours at the beach we decided to get something for lunch, we did some looking and came across Neptunes which seemed to have a little bit of everything which worked well for a diverse crowd. The girls had swam and played their little hearts out, they needed a lift to lunch as their little legs were a quite tired. 

Jason held onto Ava for dear life, haha he was so scared she was going to fling herself off his shoulders. 

After lunch we sauntered back to the cars but not before stopping for an ice cream cone.. when at the beach!!! We really had such a great day! We got home at a decent time so Jason said he wasn't finished with the water and wanted to go for a swim at the community pool.. sadly it was closed as they had an incident and had to drain it and refill it so that didn't happen.. oh well.. home to watch SOA! 

Sunday was pretty laid back, truth be told both Jason and I got sun burnt on Saturday. I'm not sure what happened, we both put on sun block but my back is really bad.. even today!! We did a bunch of running around in the morning yesterday, got a bunch of errands done and then decided to try out the pool again! 

I couldn't believe on such a gorgeous day that there was literally no one there at all. Jason swan for quite awhile and then we headed back to the apartment for dinner. After dinner we managed to get in an episode of SOA or two and I snacked on my new favorite thing ever...

I never snack after dinner but this stuff is ADDICTING! I absolutely love dill pickle chips but they are a Canadian thing so you cant get them here.. this is the first time I have seen this stuff too and its soo good! 

Today is pretty boring.. cleaning, laundry.. all that fun stuff. I'm off now to vacuum which if you ask me is the worst household chore EVER! 

I hope you all had a great weekend, I cant believe summer is almost over.. where did it even go? I see people posting pictures of first days of school and I seriously cant believe it! In a way it feels like we haven't been in Jersey in a million years and in another way it feels like just yesterday! 

Hope you're having a great day and making the most of whats left of summer!

Trip Home August 2015, Part Two

Good Morning,

Two posts in two days, you're impressed aren't you? I am.. it definitely hasn't happened in awhile that's for sure! But none the less here I am, and totally ready to recap the second half of our trip for you guys!

Monday morning which was our second morning there we had plans to go white water rafting! I wont lie I have never been and its never actually been on the top of my list of things to do. I was a little anxious that morning not knowing what to expect. We stopped and got a coffee on the way and then headed over to the Nantahala River. We booked our trip through the Nantahala Outdoor Center which was a really great place, there are restaurants there as well as gift shops and stuff definitely a great place for an adventure and a few other activities there.

When we arrived we checked in and then checked out the river, I was actually pretty shocked because the river didn't look as though it would be good for a white water adventure at all.

When it was time to go they had us watch a little video before heading down to the spot where we would put in the river. The video was TERRIFYING. I sat there trying not to cry, sure that I was going to die on this trip. They honestly basically tell you that you are going to fall out of your boat and most likely you will hit a rock and break something or die unless you listen to every single thing they say. I'm a good swimmer but the idea of flipping over in a rushing river that will likely drag you miles.. not fun in my books. Just me? Ok. 

Jason knew I was terrified, he kept trying to assure me it would be fine and I kept trying not to cry. We got our life jackets.. which SMELLED TERRIBLE, the only thing I will say is if you decided to take part in something water related through the Nantahala outdoor center I highly recommend bringing your own life jacket because theirs were disgusting. Anyways we got our paddles and got on the bus to head to the drop in point. 

The first thing I decided was the water was freezing, and that was before I even had two feet in the water! I was terrified and rightfully so.. I didn't change my mind the entire trip! The water was freezing cold, I was absolutely frozen to the point of blue lips, it was terrifying basically. Jason laughed at me the entire way and I have never been happier than to get out of a boat in my entire life! We had a two person inflatable raft that we never flipped which was a blessing and when we arrived at the take out point I asked how cold the water was and they said it was 50 degrees.. 50 DEGREES!

Jason took this picture along with a few videos but he was the primary paddler so it was hard to get good shots, and I was in no condition to focus on taking pictures as I was shaking far too bad. 

Basically the river is dam released and comes for a 200 foot deep lake which is why its so cold, as the morning goes on the water becomes rougher and rougher. By the time we arrived back at the outdoor center I couldn't believe the difference in the water and how rough and high it was. 

We changed and got into dry WARM clothes, and decided to have lunch before we headed off to our next adventure. As I mentioned before there was a restaurant right there so we had some BBQ which is always the way to go. After that we decided to drive up to Fontana Lake/Dam, the drive was absolutely beautiful and the lake was GORGEOUS! If you are ever in the Great Smokey Mountains it is totally worth your time to check it out! 

There was a visitors center there that gave a bunch of history about the dam which was really interesting, you can view some of the information HERE if you are interested. We decided to head back to the cabin because they were calling for rain and we needed to either start a fire and hope to cook dinner before it rained or figure something else out. Sadly it rained as we were getting there but it didn't last long and we managed to still have a fire and dinner which was great! 

I wont lie we were sad to leave the following day, but had a great trip planned home! We decided to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway up through Cherokee, we wanted to end up in around Waynesville because Jason found a gun range where he wanted to shoot. Although it was pouring rain when we left it stopped before we made it into town so we grabbed coffee and toured around a few gift shops, I had the best Maple Latte I've ever had in my life. 

God love Jason who stopped every 5 minutes for me to take pictures. 

Thankfully the day cleared up before we arrived at the gun range. Jason was dying to shoot his guns and I was really worried it wouldn't happen due to weather but thankfully it cleared off. There were two older gentlemen there shooting but otherwise it was quiet.

After shooting we decided to grab sandwiches and get on the road home! 

Sadly about two hours from home we hit some really bad weather and we were driving with it so it didn't get better. 

Basically we couldn't see anything for a long time, and it was absolutely miserable... on a good note we didn't have to water the lawn when we got home! Glass half full. 

The last week of our trip was laid back, we did some touring around town and went to the driving range! 

Yes I golf in flip flops!

While we were home we also started watching Sons of Anarchy because we never got into it while it was on the air and we were looking for a series to watch.. that's another post for another day but I will say.. I am ADDICTED! 

Since we've been back we have just been getting back into the swing of things, catching up on things and with people. Tuesday I spent the day with Ava and Lily, they make any day a good day! 

Water babes! 

The bag lady, she generally carries a purse but not this many at once! The ensemble wasn't quite complete without her sunglasses either.. obvi! 

So that's our scoop, I'm really sorry for the hiatus, it wasn't my intention but I thought there was a chance there would be some radio silence around here for awhile although I am hoping next week to get back on some sort of schedule and post more regularly again! 

I hope you all have a great weekend, we are thinking about checking out Ocean City, Maryland for the day! 

Thank you as always for stopping by!!