mother's day saga: the final installment

finally, mother's day has come to a close with the arrival of grandma! we shopped, we dined, and what better to do with grandma's first visit than break into the pool for a little dip! ok, we didn't have to break in. we have a key. but it sounds so exciting.

bella has no choice but to love the water, but she had never been in the pool. that is no longer the case! we hit the pool 3 DAYS while grandma visited! and even went once at night!

in true bella form, she jumped right in and started kicking and blowing bubbles. i even got her to go under water a few times! she wasn't a huge fan of the waterfall, but she tolerated it. of course her favorite thing to do was cruise around in the float that she borrowed from another little boy.

do i sound like the uber-proud mommy that i am?? well, it is mother's day (week)!

we also introduced bella to the joy that is.........

STARBUCKS! and as you can tell, she loved it too! (don't worry, i didn't actually let her have any). but i may just have a future addict on my hands.

bella got to spend a whole night with grandma while mommy and daddy went out for a date (thanks mom!!) and was so good, grandma offered to keep her again the next morning!

all in all, i have thoroughly enjoyed celebrating my first mother's day(s). now on to the next celebration.......because, i mean, any reason to party. right!?

mother's day, part 1

for mother's day this weekend, we decided to go camping!! what a great idea, honey!!!

hmmm.......did i actually say that? i mean, camping is fun. don't get me wrong. campfires, s'mores, grilling, swimming in the lake, hiking, sleeping in a hot tent on the ground with a 4 month old who still wakes to nurse 3 times a night.....wait. how did that last one get in there? and how did that not DRASTICALLY sway my decision?

well. that might have SOMETHING to do with it. i miss the water! i miss waking up every morning, looking out the window and having the OCEAN as far as the eye can see. so, this is a pretty good argument. isn't that gorgeous?! and for a last minute trip, we didn't get a bad spot. right on the water.

and here's another reason. this baby LOVES the outdoors! i'm telling you, she is so happy when we are outside. it's her element.

don't get me wrong. at 3 in the afternoon, it was a pretty miserable 92 degrees, with some high humidity. but we solved that problem (somewhat) by hopping in the car and going geo caching. if you don't know what that is, it's basically a treasure hunt done with GPS coordinates. not like the GPS in your car (which is great, since ours was stolen......grrrr), but a hand held one with actual coordinates and a compass. for mothers day, joel bought himself a pretty high tech one, (while i realize that this i said he bought it for HIMSELF for MOTHER'S DAY, he also did spoil me, so i forgive him). so we took off with our GPS and hit the treasure trail. on friday night we went 2 for 2! and found some other really cool places along the way. my favorite cache was a bunch of scrap metal, formed to look like a dog with a big wagging tongue. then a plastic squeaky bone was wedged into his mouth, which held the actual cache. TOO cute! (pics to come later!!)

saturday we woke up bright and early (you know, cause we slept outside), and headed towards charlotte. we hit a few more caches on our way, but didn't have any luck. we DID however get a chance to take in some amazing scenery, as two of the caches were at the dam to the lake we camped on! it was beautiful! and made up for not finding a thing.

after our morning of caching and sightseeing, we headed for charlotte! part 2, coming soon!