Mountains or Bust!

We had anticipated Papa Sam and Lucinda's wedding for a while, but never made any firm decisions on whether or not my 8-months preggers self would join in the festivities, due to long-distance travel and high altitude. The plan was for me to stick around in good old Texas with Miss Lyla while Daddy bummed a ride with Aunt Mia's crew. However, being up to my neck in housework and stressful "nesting," I decided at the last minute that a long car drive with nothing to do might be just the thing I needed. Plus, I didn't want my Lyla to miss out on a chance to go somewhere new and see family she rarely sees.

So, Thursday when Luke got off work, I had mostly everything packed and ready to go. We zoomed off to Amarillo a little after 8:00pm, towards a beautiful (foreboding) lightning storm in the distance. About an hour into the dark drive, we were pelted with a classic Texas thunderstorm: cloud-to-ground lightning, booming thunder, minimal visibility, 60 mph winds. You know - perfect driving conditions! Fortunately, we were heading north as the storm was heading south, so we passed through it in about 30 minutes and managed to make Amarillo by 1:30am, laughing at our spontaneity all the while, and wondering if this may have been the worst idea ever...

Friday seemed like a much longer day, perhaps because we had to stop more frequently for food, stretching and relief, and also allow for some pauses on the interstate where there was road work. This didn't bother us initially, due to the lovely cool mountain breeze. We just opened the windows, sat and breather. Later on though, we were quite done. Lyla impressed us with her wonderful travel skills (aka watching videos on her DVD player, completely engrossed in "the zone"). She didn't complain once!

We arrived in Denver just in time for rush hour, extending our trip time by just a hair, and aggravating our star driver to no end. Got to the hotel with enough time to change clothes and head to Papa's house just a few minutes up the road for a visit and some appetizers before heading to a dinner. We wandered around Papa and Lucinda's gorgeous landscape and as Lyla got progressively more difficult to handle due to hunger and sleepiness, I concluded that Luke would be doing this dinner sans his Q-crew. Thus, Lyla and I soon found ourselves waiting exactly 7 minutes for our personal pan pizzas at the nearby Taco Bell / Pizza Hut and taking our meal to-go, back to the hotel. By this time, the previous night's sleeplessness and the loooong day of travel had caught up with my pregnancy hormones to have a little party, soon relieved by the arrival of the Wise-Guys to say their hellos and goodnights. Lyla and I were fast asleep after chowing down on our gourmet meal and watching approximately 2.5 minutes of Titanic on the La Quinta tube.

Day 3 consisted of wedding prep for most family members, Luke's part being repair work on Lucinda's burger-juiced Mac Book, my part being little black dress location and purchase, which proved to be a challenge. By "little black dress," I mean size 3T, which apparently isn't found at Target or Kohl's, leaving me at a loss. I made-do, as they say, by piecing together parts of various other outfits (which I planned to return later because I am sneaky that way!). Why might a 2-year-old need a black dress, you ask? Well, Lucinda had some adorable little butterfly wings for her to wear as an additional (and impromptu) flower girl, and the rest of the wedding party was wearing black. Even though I was dubious, it turned out very cute. Later on, we all caravanned to our new weekend home, the Columbine Inn, up in the mountains of Idaho Springs and discovered our new Mazda5 was not exactly made for 6% grades.

We settled in and relaxed a little while before reconvening for rehearsal dinner at a nearby Italian joint on the adorable main street of the town. Lyla did as well as she could for being a tired and hungry two-year-old, but admittedly, it's difficult to appease a busy, hungry, sleepy, overly-social little girl amongst a big crowd in a tight space. So, we spent a fair amount of time taking quick walks up the bricked sidewalk and switching off "Lyla duty" between Mommy and Daddy. Lyla was particularly fond of the piano man, and even boldly requested at one point that he play "Elmo" for her. We made it home pretty late that night and Miss Loopy-When-Sleepy spent a good 30 minutes jumping naked on the bed, singing loudly and cracking herself up.

Day 4 was Wedding Day. We had time to kill most of the day before the event was to begin, so we spent some time at a local park, wandered along the river, and ate at a pizza place down the street. My Aunt Debbie and family joined us briefly, there, and we were fortunate enough to visit for awhile, though departed in a dash to get to the nearby gold mine tour on time. Yes, that's right. Gold mine tour. It might have been a likable experience on a less stressful, cooler day, with no deadlines, having taken a nap and minus the 30 minute old-man lecture and dreadfully boring black and white mining video. By the time the actual tour began, Lyla (and Luke and I) were so worn out, instead of unloading the tram at the top of the mountain, we rode it back down and left. Lyla still talks about "the bus" as one of her favorite parts of the trip. A shame, though, we never saw the actual mines. In hindsight, it was a very good decision to select nap-time over mine-time. Also in hindsight, maybe 2 years old isn't an ideal starting age for any kind of "tour."

After the brief nap, we got dressed for the wedding and headed out to the breathtaking mountaintop where the ceremony was to take place. Now, I use "breathtaking" seriously. Breathtaking views, yes. Also breathtaking elevation (*gasp... gasp* lungs... collapsing...) and breathtaking panic on the way up (I thought we were going to roll off the narrow, steep, curvy mountainside and die). If he hadn't been busy getting groomed-up, I would have slapped Papa Sam upon our final ascent. The last part we had to walk up a rocky hill. Some of us in heals. And pregnant. In his defense, though, I guess I didn't technically have to attend. (And it was quite stunning).

The next several hours were spent taking photos, filming my sweet butterfly flower girl and trying to keep her from falling off a mountain-top. My nerves having gotten the best of me on the way up and completely dreading the journey down (in the pitch DARK!), I was mostly a useless, exhausted, anxious lump. Lyla really enjoyed her part, though, and upon completing her flowerly duties asked loudly to "do it again!" She also loved dancing with her cousins and exchanging glo-stix as the sky grew darker and darker. Needless to say, we survived the trip back down the mountain, and I am pretty sure apart from our early rise to hit the road back home, it was the best night of sleep I had the whole trip. Thank you, nerves.

We arranged to take two days to drive back to Texas, just in case, but we hoped to accomplish it in one day so we could use the second as a relax/recoup day. Success! We left the Inn at 6:30am and made it back to Keller at 9:30pm. What a long, long day... but we managed it! We were so happy to be back in our own beds. Regarding the messy house and still-to-be-done-nesting, not quite so happy.

Thanks to my parents and sister for taking care of our pets while we were away - we had a great time and hope to return to Colorado soon, hopefully able to partake in more outdoor activities and visit with family when they aren't busy getting married!

More Colorado/wedding pics and other September pics are HERE!

Behold: The Future!

"Behold!" is something Lyla has been saying quite often lately, particularly when staging herself on Gia's fireplace and sweeping her hand broadly in front of her (having no idea, of course, what this means or why she does it), as taught by her Uncle John, and immediately followed by a loudly sung version of ABCD's or Itsy Bitsy Spider.

She is a total ham!

Here are some of her other antics of late. I wonder what the future brings for our uber-smart, multi-talented, happy-go-lucky, strong-willed "big girl..."

She also specializes in drama (particularly elaborate fit-throwing), nursing (boo-boo rinsing and Bandaid application), decorating (rearranging and misplacing Mommy and Daddy's stuff), painting (painting "jus' on paper!"), modeling for Mommy (sorta), nutrition (Gummy vitamins) and absolute independence (ignoring, defiance, bold assertion, you know... two-year-old stuff!). Oh how we love this girl!

Then July Flew By...

I'm not sure where July went, but apparently it's gone!

We must have been busy for it to fly by so fast! I had to look back through our photos to make sure I could remember some of the things we've been up to.

We celebrated the 4th on the 3rd in Roanoke, at Aunt Shannon's house. We were lucky to have our cousin and her family visiting from out of town and I had a great time taking their pictures at the party. As usual, the Davidson's went all out with a bounce house/water-slide combo, grilling out, sparklers, and tons of yummy summer treats. Lyla anticipated the fireworks all day long and was quite impatient for them to start. When they did, she grabbed hold of her daddy's face, surprised at the depth and delay of the noise (but not at all afraid - ha)!

After nearly two weeks of rainy weather, the fireworks were an uncertainty, but the skies cleared for the night so we could enjoy them. It isn't to say, though, that we weren't enjoying the rainy weather!

Since the heat started to climb, we've spent as much time in cool water as possible. We got to go to Bedford Splash with Mary Jo and her kiddos. It was the perfect little waterpark for toddlers and young'ns. Lyla loved it! We also visited Pleasant Glade with some old daycare buddies, who Lyla misses dearly (and mentions daily), spent many hours in Pap's pool, and consumed at least one box of 100 count ice pops.

Other than that, we've tried to get as much activity in as possible while beating the Texas heat. Lyla did a gymnastics trial and really enjoyed it. She's been a bit of an artist lately, as well, favoring watercolors over crayons, and stamping her hands/feet over using paintbrushes. We've watched plenty of movies (if she had her way she'd watch them all day, every day). Favorites include Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Wall-E, Toy Story 2, Bolt, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo, and most recently, Shrek. One day did almost everything from the covert, air-conditioned surroundings of a living room fort.

Being such a good tube-magnet, Luke and I took her to her first movie not long ago. She impressed us with her amazing sit-stare-snack-slurp ability. All in all, she did surprisingly well for a two-year-old. She loves to retell the story of going to the movies with "Mommy and Daddy and Lyla and eat popcorn and candy and juice and watch Woody and Buzz and Jessie and Bullseye and the bear and the toys in the box..."

We've been saving most of our outdoor play until after dinner, when things finally start to cool off, and we've had to get a little inventive as far as what to actually do outside. While placing a small slide into a kiddie pool might seem like the most fun ever for a typical two-year-old, Lyla is more interested in running up and down the sidewalk as scantly clad as possible. I'm sure our neighbors are very impressed with her (lack of) modesty.

As you can see, she likes to get messy. But... she cleans up pretty nice!

And as usual, there are more pictures posted at Picasa.

Beach Babe!

Our family trip to the beach in June was fantastic! We rented a perfect little beach house with some close friends and relaxed for a full week on the Gulf Coast, (sans oil spill goo, thankfully) enjoying the sound of the waves, collecting seashells, burying our feet, capturing tiny "crabbies," catching some rays, and riding the breakers. Lyla was hyped up about it weeks before our departure, telling me several times a day, "I wanna go to da beach!"

In anticipation of a long car ride down (aka "truck ride," thanks to Pap-Pap's loner!), Daddy and I invested in a portable DVD player and hooked it to the back of the seat in front of her so she could watch some of her favorites. So, the ride down was relatively painless.

We met up with some house-mates at a local (read: 40 minutes away from beach house) supermarket (read: Walmart) to stock up for the week's meals. By the time we got to the house, we were so ready to be there, and so pleasantly surprised by how immaculate and organized the place was. It certainly made for one happy Mama (who delighted in the fact that the owner had laminated scanned pages with the remotes on them delineating their uses and each button's function - woo hoo!).

Initially, we were disappointed by the lack of actual beach in front of the property. Since the hurricane two years ago, the beach beneath the deck completely disappeared. Sitting on the deck, though, with no land beneath us, felt like we were floating on the waves. Oh so peaceful and relaxing!

Apart from one trip to Moody Gardens and one fishing trip Luke took, we were total beach bums. Lyla seemed to enjoy the house as much as the beach, especially the loft and the stairs to the loft, which made for some slight stress. By the end of the week, she was a stair-climbing pro, though.

At Moody Gardens, we visited the Aquarium pyramid. Lyla enjoyed the seahorses and sharks in particular, and the underwater tunnel to view all the marine life. We then ventured over to the "Rainforest," which was another pyramid filled completely with plantlife (and humidity) and some animals to resemble an actual rainforest. We saw some really neat stuff, there. Lyla really liked the macaws we saw, and smelling the "root beer plant." From there, we visited the outdoor butterfly exhibit, which wasn't terribly impressive and unfortunately being at the end of our long day and outside in the heat, Lyla (read: Mommy) was kaput. All in all, an exciting day and tons of neat things you don't get to see every day!

Now, I know when I was a kid I loved the beach and swimming in the ocean, but it also had its drawbacks. I was nervous about big waves (still am) and not a huge fan of salty-eyes. My kid, however, was 100% sold on swimming and was brave beyond rationality (in my opinion). I'd let Luke take her out because I get a little too anxious about holding her and trying to balance my own (pregnant) self. That girl would try to swim away, not realizing that a.) she didn't actually know how to swim, b.) the waves would carry her away in a mini-flash, nor c.) what lurks in the unclear waters of the Gulf is meant to remain a mystery, yet something all should be wary of. When we put a swim ring on her to help minimize my slight panic-state, she would only swim off further and faster, singing loudly to herself and spinning around with a goofy grin on her face all the while. I loved, loved, loved, watching my sweet monkey go beach-bound.

We also set up Lyla's little pool on the deck, which was a life-saver for when we needed a break from the sun and salt. She was a complete ham, belly flopping in, spraying the deck with the hose and stripping out of her sandy suit to get clean.

One evening at sunset, Luke helped me take Lyla out in a cute little white dress to do a mini photo-session. The lighting was beautiful and I got a few photos that I'm proud of. It helps to have a completely adorable and photogenic daughter who totally mugs for the camera.

A couple of other times, we went out to the beach just before sunset, when it was cooling off. Daddy helped Lyla fly her Gabba Gabba kite, we searched for sand crabs and seashells, and played some Blongo-ball on the sand with our buddies.

Our last day there, it occurred to us to open up the canopy that we brought. We immediately regretted not having used it every day because it made the Texas heat so much more tolerable and we were able to stay outside for longer stretches of time. Live and learn, I guess! Being our last day, though, we milked every second of it outside.

Now, it may come as a surprise, but I took a few pictures. If you'd like to see 1/4th of them, please feel free to visit my Picasa beach album. We were ready to book another week at the beach immediately - it was sad to leave and return home to reality!

We had a great time!!!