I had a pretty severe moment of homesickness for New York this past week. I mean, they come and go, really...so this isn't abnormal. But it can be strange, the things that trigger them.
In this case, it was a picture of lilacs. Not really any lilacs in particular in any special place, just a vase filled with lilacs. Lilacs used to always make me think of my original home in Parma, Ohio, where we had several lilac bushes in the backyard. My friend Megan (a fellow lilac-lover) and I would sit back in the lilacs and dream of someday-weddings dripping with purple. Lilacs very quickly became my most favorite flower.
In New York, lilac season is brief but beautiful. There is a Lilac Walk in Central Park that is just divine when it's all in bloom, but even if you never make it into the park, you can't miss lilac season because they take over all the flower stands outside the bodegas on the street corners. You smell them as you pass by, a welcome floral fragrance on an otherwise typically smelly street. Their happy, perfect little purple blooms just signal the coming of summer and for me, always put a smile on my face. When I would see the first lilac bunches on those flower stands I would get so happy, and Eric would bring some home for me regularly as long as they were available. Our apartment smelled heavenly.
We don't have lilacs in Florida. We have gardenias, which are also intoxicatingly fragrant and my second-favorite flower, but no lilacs. And I miss them. I forgot how much I missed them until I saw that photo, and then I just couldn't get the image of them in street-side flower stands out of my mind: those happy little purple flowers, a little taste of my childhood, right there in the middle of the noisy, crowded, smelly city that I adored. I love that image.
I realize I haven't updated you much on how things are going with our transition lately. I promise to get a post in that regard up in the coming weeks, after we return from our trip. We're about to really kick-start the Teach For America chapter of our adventure and it's all very exciting; it's what we've been waiting and working for. I will definitely share more soon.
In the meantime, however, we leave today to kick off our midwestern road trip. I will put New York out of my mind as I explore new (to me) parts of the country with my most favorite people. There will be time for homesickness later.
I do have a few posts scheduled to go up during our absence - just a few more things I've been meaning to share with you but haven't quite gotten to yet. (So it won't even feel like we're gone, aren't you excited?!) And when we get back I'll have lots to share about our trip and the next phase of our journey.
Everyone else, allow me to tell you a little story.
Ever since I had Ellie's newborn photos taken, I've been looking forward to having a one-year photo session for her, too. At the time, I didn't realize that we would be back in St. Pete around Ellie's birthday, but I still was hopeful that we would be able to figure out a way to have a session with Jason Angelini, our wedding photographer who also did a NYC session for us and captured Ellie's baptism. When we did end up in Florida at the right time, I was psyched!
We scheduled Ellie's photo shoot for the week of her birthday. Unfortunately, at that time she was in the midst of a nasty cold plus teething plus general grumpiness. Hoping for nothing less than all the smiling one-year-olds I see on the Angelini blog from these types of sessions, I decided to reschedule Ellie's shoot for a couple weeks later, when she would be happier. In the meantime, I agonized over the right time of day for the session (so as to not interfere with naps), the right amount of outfit changes (to minimize her stress), the cutest backdrops, etc. This was going to be perfect.
When we arrived at the shoot the day of, everything was off to a good start. Ellie was in a good mood, having just seen a doggie nearby (that can brighten anybody's day, right?). We got some great family pictures right off the bat.
*** All photos by Jason Angelini Photography ***
Then, we did a quick change and took another photo I really wanted to capture: Ellie sitting in front of a clothesline holding all her most notable dresses from her first year, namely her Easter dress (also the very first piece of clothing we bought for her when we found out we were having a girl), her award-winning Hoboken Baby Parade dress (Best Dressed Child!), her baptism party dress, her Snow White Halloween costume, her Christmas dress and her Alice in Wonderland birthday dress. Ellie wasn't super smiley for these pictures, and she really wanted to crawl away, but they still turned out great.
Then, I got greedy and went for a spontaneous outfit change before the next set of pictures, to be taken with a bunch of balloons. She started out okay, having fun with Daddy...
And being generally adorable...
But then, it took a turn.
A drastic, tearful turn.
She was unhappy...
And that was just all there was to it.
So, we decided to head inside for the next round. She cheered up on the way back to the studio so we decided to give it a go with another backdrop. We did manage to get a decent shot...
But the rest, well...see for yourself.
Yeah, those are totally getting blown up on canvas and hung over the mantle.
We took a brief break from baby torture so I could nurse her to settle her down. Then we went into the Smash the Cake portion, in the hopes that getting to play with something edible would distract her enough from her Worst Day Ever that we could get some fun birthday shots. Well, she was intrigued at first.
But then, when she actually got her hands into it, she was on to us. And she was not amused.
She most certainly would NOT eat the foul stuff.
I tried to pick her up, carry her around, take her outside, show her some doggies...all the usual things that calm her down when she's really upset. But, nothing worked.
We did manage to get one quick sweet look, and some precious fingers-and-toes shots...
But that was it. She just wasn't having it. Hey, we should all be so lucky to live in a world where birthday cake is the worst thing to ever happen to us, am I right?
Regardless of Ellie's mood, big thanks to Jason and Lucia for these pictures. Jason can even take lovely pictures of a screaming baby! And it was so nice to have them be a continued part of our growing family.
As for Ellie and the Birthday Cake of Doom...we'll just hope she'll warm up to it a bit before next year.
As you know, our Sea World trip was a great opportunity for me to cross something off my bucket list. But, that is not the only bucket list item that will be attended to this summer. Oh, no sir.
We are leaving on Friday (this week already!) for a 17-day midwestern road trip, in which will be visiting eight cities in five states. We will be crossing off one of my favorite bucket list items, and will be visiting three new baseball stadiums in pursuit of Eric's goal of seeing a game at all 30 (this will bring his total to 20!).
Are we crazy to do this with a toddler? Oh, you bet. All I'll say is that Ellie has gotten much better at sleeping in the car as of late, and as you saw during my Sea World recaps she is clearly able to fall asleep in the carrier (this is a new and very welcome development), and we reserved almost all suites hotels so she can have her own space at night to keep any potential disturbances at a minimum (that did work out well at Sea World, so we're hopeful). Aside from that, let's just not talk about our temporary insanity, okay?
Instead, let's talk itinerary. Obviously we know that with a baby in tow, we can't do these marathon days where we see a bajillion things in 12 hours like we used to do on these sorts of trips. We've had to scale it back quite a bit, allowing for naps (so optimistic!) and early bedtimes. Instead of a set itinerary at each destination, we have a rough idea of what we want to do on each day (usually just one or two things) and plan to be flexible based on Ellie's needs. So, although our destinations are set in stone, our daily itineraries are a little vague. (Also, our food plan is a little sketchy in some places, so if any of you have any "Must Eat!" tips for any of these cities, please share!)
In general, this is our plan:
On Friday, we will fly to St. Louis, Missouri. We will rent a car and check into our hotel. If we have time/ambition, we might check out the St. Louis City Museum in the evening. It looks incredibly cool, unlike any museum I have ever seen before: made up of all sorts of things to climb on and through, up and down. Sort of like an enormous playground, I think. I'm not sure how much we'll really be able to do with Ellie tagging along, but it just looks so cool that I'd really like to just see it. And apparently there is a toddler section, so naturally we'll be sure to head there.
The next day we'll just be hanging out in St. Louis. We'll probably head downtown, check out the Gateway Arch, maybe do a riverboat tour. You know, play it by ear.
On Sunday morning if we're feeling up to it, we'll check out the St. Louis Zoo for a couple of hours. Then, midday we'll hit the road in our rental car and head to our next destination: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
St. Louis to Milwaukee
The drive from St. Louis to Milwaukee is about six hours, so we'll arrive there on Sunday night and hang out. Monday we'll be going to an afternoon Brewers game (MLB stadium #18 for Eric), then on Tuesday, Eric will golf at Whistling Straits while Ellie and I have a relaxing girly day at the hotel pool.
We will depart Milwaukee early Wednesday morning, en route to Cleveland, with a stop for lunch in South Bend along the way to check out Notre Dame. We'll arrive in Cleveland Wednesday evening.
Milwaukee to Cleveland, via South Bend
We will be in Cleveland until Monday morning for my annual family reunion. We plan to have dinner with my friend Megan on Thursday, then Eric and other Hesterman folk will golf on Friday. On Saturday we're all going to an Indians game (the second stadium of our trip, although it's a repeat), Sunday will be church and Monday will be departure. I'm pretty excited to see all these people again, especially the three great-grandbabies, who will be far more mobile this year - look out!:
Group shot at last year's family reunion! Look at all those little shrimps in the front. They sure have grown in the last year!
When we depart Cleveland on Monday morning, we will drive the four(ish) hours to Cincinnati, where we will catch a Reds game (MLB stadium #19 for Eric) and try to eat some chili or some such thing. We'll stay the night there.
Cleveland to Cincinnati
When we leave Cincinnati on Tuesday, we will be headed to Memphis for my most anticipated stop of the trip. But first, we'll stop midway for lunch in Nashville (BBQ, naturally). We'll ultimately arrive in Memphis on Tuesday evening.
Cincinnati to Memphis by way of Nashville
Memphis is going to be awesome, because let me tell you about why we're going to Memphis: we're going to march with the ducks at the Peabody Hotel. Are you familiar with this? At the Peabody Hotel, they have several ducks that live in a little Duck Palace on the roof and spend their days swimming around in the fountain in the hotel lobby. Each morning, the Duckmaster goes up to the Duck Palace and brings the ducks down to the lobby on the elevator, and then they walk up and into the fountain via red carpet. HOW ADORABLE IS THAT. Here, perhaps a video would help you fully understand the awesomeness of these ducks:
VIDEO: Peabody Ducks on Animal Planet's Most Outrageous Pet Digs
This, my friends, is Item #36 on my bucket list: Stay in the Peabody Hotel to see the Marching Ducks. Hence, Memphis.
But it doesn't end there. Thanks to my incredible husband, not only are we going to see the ducks, but I get to be an honorary Duckmaster. Oh yes, that's right. We will stay in the hotel on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m., we will go up to the Duck Palace with the Duckmaster, retrieve the ducks, escort them downstairs in the elevator, and walk them along the red carpet. We even get an honorary Duckmaster cane to use! Aaaaah! I am beside myself with excitement about these crazy ducks.
When we (read: Ellie) have had our fill of downtown, we'll go check into our new hotel (we're only staying at the Peabody one night), eat some more BBQ for dinner and relax. On Thursday morning, naturally we'll hit up Graceland. Because, duh.
Thursday afternoon we'll bid Memphis farewell and head back to St. Louis.
Back to St. Louis, completing the loop!
Yes, this is weird. But you know what else is in St. Louis? Another baseball stadium, home to a team that does NOT have a home game during our weekend in St. Louis at the start of our trip. So, back we go to catch an evening Cardinals game (MLB stadium #20 for Eric), and maybe eat a Bratzel Dog:
Yup, that's a bratwurst wrapped in a pretzel. I'm guessing it might taste mighty fine accompanied with a nice, cold beer.
Then, we'll be leaving St. Louis yet again - possibly that evening right after the game, or perhaps the next morning (a detail still to be decided!). Either way, from St. Louis we will drive the 2.5 hours to Bloomington, Illinois to my cousin Molly's house.
Up to Bloomington - retracing our previous route!
We will be there from Thursday night/Friday until Monday morning. Molly's son Santiago will be celebrating his first birthday that Saturday, and we are so excited to be able to attend his party! We'll spend the rest of the time visiting with Molly, Arturo and Santiago and checking out their new house (well, relatively new, but we haven't seen it yet!). I can't wait!
Can't wait to spend the weekend with this lovely family!
Then, on Monday morning we will head back to St. Louis yet again, but this time, it will be to catch our return flight home. And that will be it! Seventeen days, 33 hours worth of driving, five states, eight cities, three new baseball stadiums (plus one repeat), two rounds of golf, one bucket list item accomplished, one family reunion and one birthday party. That, my friends, is a road trip.
Now, let's all join hands and pray to the nap gods to bless Ellie on this trip. Amen.
After we checked out of the Nickelodeon Resort on Day #2 of our Orlando mini-vacation, we headed back to Sea World for a few more hours of fishy fun.
First, we picked up a little souvenir for Ellie: a bracelet with her name on it. They actually had "Ellie," not just "Elizabeth!" So obviously we had to buy it.
Modeling her super-stylish new Shamu ankle bracelet. Also, yes, she's totally rocking jellies.
Then, we circled the park in search of photo ops we may have missed the day before.
Shrub Shamu
Left: I liked these jellyfish topiaries in the kids' area! Right: She hates scenic views.
Shamu leaving his mark in the bushes
As I'm sure everyone knows, hotel check-out time is 11:00, which is not too far off from Ellie's nap time. So, by the time we arrived at the park, it didn't take much walking around before Ellie settled in for her midday nap.
Snoozing
We continued on our way and went through the shark exhibit, which was very cool. I love the aquariums you can walk through, so you can see the fish/sharks swimming all around and above you.
Ellie is very excited about the shark exhibit.
Barracuda!
Shark!
Sawfish
Giant fish
In the aquarium...again, Ellie is riveted.
After the sharks, we walked up to see the seals and sea lions. We even saw a mama and baby! Ellie (who woke up thanks to a loud tour group) was particularly excited about all the birds hanging out hoping for a fish.
Seals and sea lions
Birds!
Hoping for a snack
The mama and baby are way back in the corner - can you see them?
By that time, we were pretty hungry so we made a stop for lunch. Ellie was as cute as ever.
Just munching on some carrots, having a blast
Next up: the dolphin and bird show, which was my favorite of all the ones we saw. The "bird" portion was mostly people dressed as birds performing a variety of dives and other acrobatic feats, with a few real birds used to accent the whole thing. And of course, who doesn't love dolphins? I thought the whole thing was beautiful and very cool. Ellie also was entranced.
Dolphin tricks!
Bird acrobats and divers
Going for a ride
Nice form, dolphins.
After the dolphin show we went to see the Jewels of the Sea Aquarium.
Jellyfish
Three crazy eels, all stuck in one pot
Ellie checking out the fish
Then, it was over to Dolphin Cove to check out everybody's favorite sea mammals once again.
Hanging out for some sort of dolphin encounter
Hey guys, what's up?
Also, I can't let all these recaps pass by without mentioning how very "Dad-like" Eric was looking on this trip: loaded up with a backpack to carry all the family essentials, camera slung over his arm (or sometimes even around his neck), park map at the ready. Nailed it.
Dad Eric leading the way
After our second round of dolphins, we had one tuckered out baby on our hands. So, it was time to bid farewell to Sea World.
She Shamu-ed till she dropped.
Ellie may have been tired, but you're never too tired for a Shamu toy to keep you occupied on the drive home.
Hi there, friend.
And that's it! Our two-day mini-vacation to Sea World Orlando was a smashing success. We had a great time and everything went as well as we could have hoped. We have a big trip coming up next week (more details on that in my next post!), and this was an excellent trial run for that - you know, the whole "traveling with a toddler" thing. But the best part was just having two fun-filled days away with my fabulous family.
Happy family at Sea World
I just really kind of like those two crazy kids, you know?
.JPG)
