Memorial Day Weekend!

What a great weekend we all had!

We went down to Wilmington on Thursday morning, so I could go to a mediation in Jacksonville that afternoon. Jeff stayed at my mom's with Jacob and Jacob truly wore him out! He's into everything! We semi-babyproofed mom's house using pillows to block off the dangers. On Friday morning, I had a mediation in Wilmington, and Jeff took Jacob down to see his mom in Ocean Isle Beach. Jacob had a lot of fun with his Grandma and Jeff reports he liked riding their black lab, Sissy. Jacob was so dirty, Jeff had to give him a bath before he brought him home! I had to put stain stick all over his outfit before we washed it!

On Saturday, Jeff and I went over to my dad's pool and swam for a bit. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon. That evening, we went to Heather & Jed's for a cookout. We had some wonderful steaks and baked potatoes! It was like eating at a steakhouse, but better! Thanks guys!

On Sunday, Jeff and I had planned to meet some friends at dad's pool, but Jacob had other plans to nap during that time. He slept the morning away, and finally we went over to dad's for around an hour to let Jacob swim a little bit. He loved it. We'll post those pictures soon!

Sunday night, Jeff and I checked into the Wilmingtonian. It's a quaint all-suite hotel in downtown Wilmington. We last stayed there on our wedding night. We didn't have the exact same room (it was booked), but we did have the room right below it! We did some walking around downtown that afternoon, and to our surprise, Front Street Brewery had reopened. This is one of our favorite places to grab a beer, and we haven't been in two years. In the meantime, they had closed for 8 months and just reopened last September! We love the Raspberry Wheat ale! After a little browsing around downtown, we found the Little Dipper, where I REALLY wanted to eat dinner. It's a fondue restaurant, and the menu looked wonderful! We made a reservation, and went back to our suite to rest up and shower. We went back for dinner around 8 p.m. and started with wine on the deck overlooking the river. Then, our table was ready, so we moved inside. We had a Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato cheese fondue, which our waiter aptly described as "pizza-dip." It was very good. We both had the chef-salad, also very good and rather big! For dinner, we shared the Dinner for Two - Surf N Turf, with filet mignon, shrimp, and lobster-stuffed ravioli. It was so much food, we could not finish the filet mignon! For dessert, we had the "Half-N-Half" - one half smooth peanut butter and one half dark chocolate. This was the best chocolate fondue I've EVER had. They even give you a cinnamon-sugar-graham cracker mixture to dip your dippers in after dipping in chocolate. Delicious!!!! I can't wait to go back!

On Monday, we leisurely slept in until 8 a.m. How wonderful! We went back to mom's, and had planned to meet the Prince William Tall Ship. My dad is the President of WHET in Wilmington. He and other WHET members have been working for a couple of months on getting the ship to stop in Wilmington. About a week ago, the captain of the boat invited my dad and other WHET members, as well as the media to board the ship in Morehead City on Friday and to sail around for the weekend, arriving in Wilmington on Monday. The ship arrived around 12:30 p.m. We made it downtown a little after 1 p.m. and met my dad and his wife. After spending a little time with them, we headed on home.

It was a great weekend all-around. The best part is, we kept Jacob on a great "sleeping schedule". He slept great at my mom's in the pack-n-play. Jeff gets a lot of credit too for putting Jacob down for naps in the pack n play right away on Thursday! Her house is just two bedrooms, so Jeff and I actually set up camp in the living room, so as not to disturb Jacob's slumber! It worked though!!! For several weeks now, he's been sleeping 10-11 hours a night! Knock on wood!

Peace College Reunion Weekend!

This past weekend, May 19-20, I attended the Peace College reunion with my 3 roommates from Peace, Kim, Heather & Jenna. We had such a wonderful time! This is Peace's Sesquicentennial (150 years, founded in 1857) Year, so the Reunion weekend was much grander than usual. They offered alumnae the chance to stay on campus, but it was rather expensive, so the girls, at the suggestion of my husband, opted to stay at a nearby Embassy Suites. I'll try to post a few pictures of us as soon as I can get them downloaded from the camera!

The other "interesting" thing going is on that Jacob has not been to Chrissy's since last Thursday! Her son, Evan, has been sick, and has even had two hospital overnight stays due to dehydration. (He is doing better now though.) Fortunately, Nicole kept Jacob 1/2 of Thursday, all day Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Today Jacob is at Angie's, another friend who is a SAHM. She is the sister of my law school friend, Katie, but also a friend of mine for the last few years now. I'm so fortunate to have such great friends to help out! Tomorrow and Friday, Jeff had already planned to take off work because I have mediations for my work in Jacksonville & Wilmington, so we are all going to Wilmington on Thursday morning and staying through the holiday weekend with my mom. Jeff will probably take Jacob to his mom's on Friday and I imagine we may go to my dad's on Saturday or Sunday. Jeff and I are contemplating sleeping in my mom's living room and giving Jacob the guest room to try to keep some semblance of normalcy to his sleep schedule! He slept until 6:30 a.m. this morning! His sleep is WONDERFUL right now! Keeping fingers crossed this continues!!!

Jacob's first pool pictures!

Pool Pictures from this past weekend at my Dad's house!

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LG Update

Ms. LG underwent her transplant surgery on late Monday/early Tuesday and the 2nd part of the surgery was completed about two hours ago! So far, she is not out of the woods, but her recovery is going well. Thank you for your thoughts & prayers!

7 Random Things 'bout Me

Nearly a week ago, I was tagged by Emily to give 7 random facts about myself... a meme (an idea shared from blog to blog.) Well, I'm finally getting around to it. Emily's son, Gabe, had heart surgery yesterday (he's doing well!) - that's his cute mug right there at the top left of this page!

So, without further adieu, my seven random facts:

1. Drew Barrymore was enrolled in my third grade class. (She was filming Firestarter.)
2. I was born in Ohio and we moved to Carolina Beach when I was 8 years old. We lived 3 blocks from the ocean.
3. I've been to London.
4. I cannot stand having my face wet, in the shower, pool, etc.
5. I've lost 50 lbs since January 2001.
6. I'm one-quarter Swedish. (My Grandma Elsa was born in Sweden.)
7. I scored a 4 out of 5 on the AP Calculus exam, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about Calculus now!

And now I must tag others.... Kellie, Tracy, Christine, Julia, and Terri. I hope some of you will decide to play!

Mother's Day Weekend

First, some pictures!

Jacob Napping

Making a mess at dinnertime!

New use for the pacifier he doesn't like?

He prefers boxes to his toys!

He likes boxes!


We all had a good Mother's Day weekend. Jacob is still fighting off this cold. He had his 9 month (well) check up on Friday. He was about 18 lbs, 2 oz and 28.5 inches long. I'm not sure the weight is quite right because he was squirming and the scale they use is too small for him now. He did drop down a few notches on the growth charts, but this was to be expected since he is so much more active now. He pulls up all the time and is crawling everywhere!

On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for our friend's Chris & Nicole's 2 year old daughter, Devyn. She is so cute! They put the cake in front of her to blow out her candles, and she said "Where's a fork?!!"

For Mother's Day, I got a lovely card from Jacob and another one from Jeff. I also got a Mother & Son keepsake box by Willow Tree and a necklace to wear my Mama-Baby charm on that Jeff gave me when Jacob was born. (My other necklace broke in February!)

Later, we drove to Wilmington for the day to see my Grandma Elsa who is visiting from Florida. Odd, since it was Mother's Day that we were with my Dad! But, our moms understood. My mom was here the previous weekend, and Jeff's mom will be here this weekend. We let Jake swim for about 10-15 minutes in Dad's pool with his new baby float.

This thing works GREAT! He loved, loved, loved it!

I don't want to jinx us, but Jacob has been sleeping soooo good for about 2-3 weeks now. He's going to bed at 6:30p to 7:00p, and he sleeps until the next morning around 6:30a. He did wake up at 9:30p last night, crying, but I went and checked on him and no fever, no wet bed or anything. He settled back down and stopped crying. I don't think he ever actually woke up though. Maybe he had a bad dream?

Somber Day

It's somewhat of a somber day around my office. For those of you who don't know, I've worked in State Government for a little over 2 years now. When I first started, a coworker, we'll call her LG [she's a very private person, so I want to try to protect her privacy], showed me around and even attended some of my first meetings with me, riding 2 hours in a car each way together. Shortly after, LG switched jobs, but was still in my Section, so I'd still see her, but we didn't work together.

About a month ago, we found out LG was in the hospital. She's young, around 29 years old. Apparently, she was born with some type of congenital condition with her liver. She had reached a point that she was in desperate need of a new liver and had been placed at #1 on the Duke liver transplant list. This all came as somewhat of a shock to our coworkers, who had no idea she was sick. About two weeks ago, we all took a picture of our entire staff wearing Duke t-shirts, framed it and gave it to her because she is a huge Duke fan, and in fact is at Duke right now. She was very impressed, especially because probably at least 1/2 of our coworkers detest Duke sports, and love UNC or Wake, etc.

Today, we were told that if LG doesn't get a liver in the next few days, she will not live. She's reached a critical point, and her kidneys have failed. In a conversation just yesterday, I was talking to some other moms a few years older than I am. (They have teenagers.) One was telling us that she has found that even when things are grim, you have to count your blessings, and pray that God's will be done. That is so hard, but right now, I just keep thinking, Thank God that LG is still healthy enough to receive a transplant. The Lord has a plan for all of us, and he does work miracles. I would ask that you keep LG in your prayers, as well as her family at this difficult time.

Nine Months Old!

Jacob was nine months old on Tuesday. That evening, he had a "first." He pulled himself up to standing at the bottom of our stairs! (Of course, Jeff and I were standing right there in case he fell, but he did it all by himself.) I think it's entirely possible he will be at least "cruising" before he is one. He has also been sleeping just great from 7:00 pm until about 6:30 a.m. He will occasionally cry out during the night, but he quickly goes back to sleep on his own. We are SOOO lucky!

Jacob has been on antibiotics since Thursday and he seems to be doing better. He's been going to Chrissy's this week, and you can tell he is so happy to be there! Yesterday, when I dropped him off, I put him on the floor with Sam. He went to crawl over Sam, remember - Santa baby, and he got stuck because Sam's belly is so big! Chrissy helped him crawl on over. Chrissy says they are so funny playing together and that it reminds her of little puppies! Jeff said yesterday when he picked Jacob up, he even cried a little because he didn't want to leave!

I've been on the road for work - Monday in Wilson; Tuesday in Statesville; and Wednesday in Fayetteville. Also, Monday through Wednesday, we had our house painted. We thought we had picked a shade of tan (Sea Sand by Porter Paints) that would be darker than our yellowish tan, but it looks almost like the same color. On one hand this is a little disappointing, because it's not what we were going for, but on the other, we will not have our HOA breathing down our neck for not getting the color approved ahead of time! In any event, we are glad it is done, because it needed painting! We have hardiplank, but the house is 10 years old this year!