Vermont Vacation

So, I took the weekend off from blogging and work, and the family and I decided to head up to Vermont for the 4th of July.  I was so excited because normally we only go to Vermont for Christmas and sugar season (March), and although those are fun times - summer is fun too.  So, I was really happy that my husband decided to take a weekend off during the summer (his busy time at work) and head up there.

Every time we make the drive to Vermont we leave earlier and earlier.  This time we decided we'd head out at 4am.  My husband wanted to leave at 3am but I convinced him that 4am was much better.  And actually, it turned out to be a great time to leave.  It would have been better if I had gone to sleep before midnight, but three hours of sleep with a nice cup of coffee did the trick.  Why was I up until midnight??  Oh, because we were fixing our bikes at the last minute.  We were determined to bring our bikes to VT since we now have a bike rack and we were finally going in the summer (not much biking in the middle of winter).  Except Ivan's bike was a bit broken.  However, my friend Allyson (she is a cyclo-cross super star and knows everything there is to know about bikes) came over and helped him fix it - it just took over two hours.  And she didn't get a chance to come over until 9pm.  So, although we got the bikes fixed - we were a little late getting to bed.

An early start is always good though.  Because a lot of this happens.

Evan is getting a bit older though, and he doesn't sleep the entire way anymore.  He slept until around 7:30am and was content for a few more hours.  We probably stopped around 9am for breakfast and to stretch our legs.  We are all about stopping on road trips.  I know plenty of people pack a lot of snacks and just go and go until they get to their destination - but no, we stop and stop until we get to our destination.  We actually used to stop a lot more but now we don't like to stop unless Evan is awake so it usually ends up only being twice.  And notice how close I am to him?  Yup - after he woke up the first time I sat in the back and played and read with him until he fell asleep again.  Now that we don't have the doggie (sad face), there is more space in the back.  Not a ton, but a bit more.

The scenery to Vermont is so much prettier in the summer (it's pretty in the fall too).

The winter is usually just brown unless there has been some snow and then it's pretty.  This past Christmas it was snowing like crazy and the roads were a mess so we couldn't concentrate on the scenery - we took pictures of the snow freezing to our windshield instead.

We arrived in Vermont around 3:15pm.  Not too bad!  It's so much better arriving earlier because it felt like we still had so much of the day left.  We used to arrive around 7pm or 8pm and then we'd turn around and go to bed and the entire day would have been spent in the car.  I am definitely a fan of the early morning departure time.

As you can tell, the weather wasn't amazing.  It was nice and hot the day we arrived but then the next day (4th of July) was cold.  Actually it was freezing.  I wasn't very prepared and only brought shorts and short sleeves for Evan (and one pair of pants for me) - so we were a bit cold that first day (it warmed up after that).  Luckily we didn't have much planned - just a family BBQ (with my awesome aunt who now lives just 8 miles from my parents!!).

That morning I headed out and did a six mile run.  It was nothing short of a miracle because I pretty much always slack on running when I'm on vacation.  I was motivated by the cooler weather though, so I headed out.  The scenery is amazing, but the running isn't.  This is the road my parents live off of (kind off, they live off a dirt road off a road that is off this road) - beautiful right.  And this road isn't too bad - not a lot of cars.

However, after you turn off this road, the next road is a small highway (although it sounds far, this road is only 1 mile from my parents' house).  And the speed limit is 40mph.

And cars FLY by you.  And do you see a shoulder?  Any space to jump when a car is coming at you???  Just down the hill into the ditch.  Let me give you a closer look.  The road.  Someone's property.  Not much else.

But every once in a while I wasn't dodging cars and could look and see beautiful things like this.

And barns like this.  I mean, how pretty is that!

And you could see the road forever.  This is where I ran - all the way down this road.  Notice that the speed limit changes to 50 on that road, but there was a tiny, tiny shoulder that you can kind of see.

And lots of cows.

So, it was worth risking my life.  I guess.  I sure wouldn't take Evan in his jogging stroller though.  I guess if I lived there I would have to drive to a better place to run if I had to take him.  Or I'd run with him on the smaller road and just keep going back and forth.

Ok - that is all I'll leave you with for now.  I'll recap the rest of the trip next time.  The bus was delayed this morning by an entire hour because a restaurant caught on fire on the side of the highway and the road had to be shut down - but it didn't give me enough time to write about the entire trip so I'll save that for later.

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How was your 4th?

When you go for a run - do you just go out your front door or do you drive somewhere?

Sometimes the week is more relaxing that the weekend

This past weekend was reminiscent of weekends past...before baby...when life was sometimes more hectic on the weekends that during the week.  It was one busy, golf-filled weekend and I didn't crawl into bed until after midnight last night.  So let's be honest - I'm exhausted this morning, drinking a regular coffee, and may not be able to catch my spelling mistakes.  I usually don't get all my mistakes on a good day, so this blog post could be riddled with grammar errors.  Or just not make any sense.

When I'm tired I crave sugar and the first thing I did was eat a few handfuls of my caramel chocolate popcorn from Friday.  It was good, but didn't wake me up enough.  Coffee, please hit my bloodstream now!

This weekend was all about golf.  I had golf Saturday morning like usual, but then we had a Father/Daughter Golf event in the evening from 2:30-7:30pm.  So, I finished classes at noon and then was back up at the course at 2:30pm.  Yeah - it was a lot of golf.  The girls really had a great time golfing with their Dad's though, so it was worth it.  For some reason they seemed so much happier than they did with Mother/Daughter golf and I have no idea why.  The girls just seem to like golfing with their fathers more than their mothers.  Then on Sunday I coached two little kid classes (5 and 6 year olds) for my brother-in-law, so that means I had golf on Sunday too.  Boo.  Especially since it was Father's Day and having to coach golf right smack in the middle of the day meant that I didn't have much time for anything else.

I did make Tres Leches cake.  I made the cake part before golf and this is what it looked like when I got home:

Hmm, someone ate the corners.  Ivan insisted it smelled too good to leave alone!

Here is the finished product:

Instagram: mapleandmud

Ivan had mentioned he was really craving tres leche cake so I found a recipe on The Pioneer Woman and gave it a try.  It was a bit complicated because you had to beat the egg yolks and then beat the egg whites and then mix them together and then whip the cream.  It was a lot of beating and whipping and waiting - for cakes to cool and milk to soak up.  But the end result was pretty delicious.  And Ivan was really happy with it, so that is what counts.  He also got a belt (that was too big) and a new golf shirt from Evan.

Ivan really is a great Dad and Evan is obsessed with him these days.  If Ivan is not around he is constantly saying "Where's Daddy" over and over again.  It's adorable and I'm so glad they have a good relationship.  Hopefully it will continue to go strong and they will watch soccer together for years to come.

This is my favorite picture of them!

And because it was Father's Day and I love my dad, here's a photo of my Dad and me** from my wedding:

Aren't we cute!  I still wish I hadn't picked such a low-cut wedding dress.  I really didn't think it was going to be that low cut when I bought it.  I loved everything else about that dress except that it was a bit too low.  Oh well, not really a big deal.

**Also, because someone will want to correct my grammar - here is a short grammar lesson about when you use "and I" and "and me". 

"I" and "me" are personal pronouns.   For some reason, people are obsessed with using "and I" for everything - they say "John and I went to the movies" and "This is a photo of John and I" but only one of those sentences is correct.  You only use "John and I" when you are the subject of the sentence (the first example).  You use "John and me" when you are the object of the sentence (second example). 

A really easy way to remember this is: take out the other person and does it make sense to say "I" or "me"?  

For example, in the first sentence (John and I went to the movies), if John wasn't there it would make sense to say "I went to the movies" rather than "Me went to the movies.  Therefore, when adding John you should still say "John and I went to the movies". 

In the second example (This is a photo of John and I), if you removed John would it make sense to say "This is a photo of I"?  NO!!!  You would say, "This is a photo of me."  Therefore, when you add John you should keep it the same and say, "This is a photo of John and me." 

Please do this because I see this grammar error EVERYWHERE  and it drives me crazy.  Even smart, intelligent people constantly post pictures on Facebook and their blog and always say "This is X and I in San Diego".  No - that is not correct.  It is "X and me in San Diego".  Would you ever say, "This is I in San Diego"????? 

If you want a great explanation, hit up the explanation in the Oxford Dictionary.

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Do you notice any consistent grammar errors on my blog???  

What did you do for Father's Day?

Mother's Day Weekend

{I didn't take any pictures this weekend for some reason so I'm interspersing adorable pics of Evan through the months for Mother's Day - since he made me a mother}

He was so little here!

I have a bit of a dilemma - my bus friend now moves over for me to sit next to him in the mornings.  I'd much prefer to sit alone in the mornings because it's my time to blog and sleep.  However, I feel rude walking past him when he has clearly already moved seats so I can sit down.  Then I don't get my very important nap though...and I can feel the difference as I try to get my work done.  It's painful and makes me want regular coffee instead of the decaf I fixed.  Ugg.

This weekend was great though, so I can't really complain.  On Friday I met up with two of my friends from the community college where I took nursing pre-reqs.  We went to Panera and chatted about nursing and all things that go with it.  It was so fun.  One girl is already in the nursing program, I start in the Fall, and the guy is starting next spring/fall.  It was so nice catching up. 

Before his first haircut!

Saturday was golf in the morning and then normal grocery shopping in the afternoon.  The golf girls were pleasantly calm today (at least my group).  It was a nice change from the running around that they normally do.  Kids can be crazy, especially with golf clubs!  Evan was taking a long nap so I was able to sneak out and grocery shop in peace.  Evan isn't too horrible at the store yet, but it's still more peaceful to go alone.  It's also more expensive.  Somehow I only had about ten things on my list but still managed to spent $150.  And I didn't even buy anything fun - definitely not going to be making any candy purchases or baking brownies or cake this week!  The grocery store is a money suck - I need a budget diet!

And then Sunday - Mother's Day!  Hubs went into work in the morning and Evan and I slept in until 8am.  Quite glorious.  Well, I was up at 7am, but cuddled with Evan until 8am.  Nothing like a Mother's Day cuddle.  Then I wore up and opened my present from the boys: a new pair of TOMS!  Yay!!!

Look at that face - and that hair !!

Then we got up and made blueberry muffins, bacon, and eggs (for Evan and Ivan) and oatmeal and coffee (for me).  We watch a little of The Voice and relaxed and then showered.  We had plans to go pick up my nun-friend and take her for lunch.  She's not a mother and her mother passed away years ago (my nun-friend is 85!), and so I thought it would be nice to take her out again.  So, we drove into the city and picked her up and headed to Panera.  I love going there with her because it's relaxed, we can chat for however long we want, and Evan can move around a little more than at a regular restaurant.  I ended up ordering something off their "hidden" menu - Steak Lettuce Wraps.  It was pretty good and not nearly as greasy as some of their other food.  Did you know Panera had a secret menu?  It's on their website but not listed on their in-store menu.  You have to ask for it at the register and know what you want.  Pretty sneaky, huh.

After we came home Evan took a nap (he has really been into 3-4 hour naps these days) and I got a meal in the crock pot, the dishes done, and dinner cooked (the crock pot was for Monday).  My plan was to get all of dinner ready so I could go for a run with Evan when he woke up.  Total fail.  He woke up at 6:30pm but then was super clingy until after 7pm. He wouldn't let me put him down or change his diaper and he just wanted to hide his face in my neck.  By the time he was ready to go in the stroller it was too late to get a run in with playground time, so we just ate dinner.  Oh well, should have gone in the morning.

Evan's first race!

We ended the day with a Skype to my mom.  Evan loves Skyping with Mimi and the minute you mention it he runs to find his bird (my mom made two stuffed birds, one for her and one for him and they play with them on Skype) and comes and sits in my lap.  It's adorable.  He was a bit wild yesterday and was throwing golf balls, climbing on everything, and throwing a few fits, but it was still a nice chat.  Then off to bed he went and I followed shortly.

Evan with his Mimi!

 Now I just have to get through another week at work and being away from this kiddo - which is hard when he's adorable and cuddly and a little easier when I spend all night dodging golf balls!

The rest of my vacation recap with a ton of photos

Evan was not happy this morning when I woke him up to head out the door.  He's gotten to sleep in for three whole weeks and today it was back to a 6 am wake-up call.  First he had a week at another daycare, but that place didn't open up until 7:30am so I let him sleep in and when he woke up I brought him over there.  Then I was on vacation for a week so we both got to sleep in, and then my husband had to take a week off for his cataract surgery so he got to sleep in some more.  When I woke him up to change his diaper and brush his teeth (since he still nurses at night I am very diligent about brushing his teeth the second he wakes up), he kept saying "night night".  I felt badly, but hopefully he'll go back to bed at my sister's.  He's been going through a bit of separation anxiety and cries (or screams) when you drop him off - so not sure if that is conducive to falling asleep.  We'll see.

So, what else did I do on my vacation?  Besides sit home and watch TV?  Actually, there wasn't as much TV watching as I'd like because I don't like to watch TV when Evan's awake and he's awake most of the day.  I did catch up on Parenthood (it was the season finale already????), NCIS, Believe, and The Voice though.  And I got in a bunch of 19 Kids and Counting, my new Netflix obsession.  

Aside from that, I decorated a wedding cake for my co-worker.  I alluded to it yesterday.  I worked on it for about a week.  I started with molding the chocolates into seashells.  This was easy but you could only do so many at a time, so it took a while.  I ended up making way more than I needed, but I put them in goodie bags and gave them away at the shower.  I then bought "mini" Adirondack chairs and a picket fence.  The chairs turned out to be way less mini than I had envisioned.  They said "garden fairy gnomes" but I guess garden fairy gnomes are a lot bigger than I imagined.  I then had to paint the chairs and fence because they were unfinished wood color and didn't look great.  I also got little hearts that I painted and wrote the bride and groom's name on.  Then I finally got started on the cake.  If I am decorating a cake I usually buy the cake mix and then make the frosting, so that is what I did.  I made a 9x13 cake and then a heart shaped cake.  I also made 12 cupcakes because the heart pan only used half a cake mix. Then the next night I frosted it, but a bunch of gold balls around the outside and some brown sugar sand on the top.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out, just sad about the enormous chairs.

Here's the cake in all it's glory!

Not too shabby, right.  Here are the cupcakes.

They also turned out nice.  I was excited and my co-worker loved it, so that was all I wanted.  Now I am on cake hiatus for a bit...making cakes is exhausting, especially the cleanup.

The rest of the week was spent playing with Evan.  He had a ball taking things out and making a mess - like all his numbers.

And all the bowls and pots and pans.  Here is is making soup.  He even has a whisk!

But no worries, most of the time he cleans everything up!

His is obsessed with cleaning supplies these days - vacuums, brushes, brooms, wet paper towels to wipe the floor.  It would be great if this continued into his teenage years, but I am not going to hold my breath.

We also went hiking again, my favorite thing to do.  He loves it also, but he really loves hiking off the trail and walking straight into the woods.  Now that it's getting nice out I am nervous about ticks so I'm going to need to invest in some insect repellent that isn't too toxic.  Any suggestions?

Evan has recently entered the "chase me" stage and thinks it's really fun to stare me down and then take off running in the opposite direction.  It's funny when we are in the woods all by ourselves, not as funny when we are at the grocery store with a million other people.

 
He also still loves trees in all shapes and forms.  He wanted to run up to every tree and touch it (kind of a challenging goal in the woods), and was super excited to see some fallen trunks that he could sit on.

We also spent a lot of time at playgrounds.  It was a gorgeous week (so much sun and beautiful warmth - I was in heaven!!!), so I was more than happy to go outside.  I comprimised with Evan and we'd go for a run to a playground - that way I got a run in and Evan got to play on the slide.  Win win.  This was a little tot lot we came across during our run and it worked out perfectly because it was small and there was no one there.  Just how we like it.

His favorite thing is still the slide.  He just goes down over and over again and even says "weeee", which I think is too cute.

 He also found some Easter eggs in the sand volleyball court.  He had a blast filling them with sand and then dumping the sand out.  I had less fun finding sand all over his body when we got home!

And then my last day of vacation we met my sister in Philadelphia!  She was in town for a work event and we decided to drive up to see her.  It was a beautiful day and so fun to walk around and eat some delicious food.  Here we are at the Irish Memorial - for the tiny bit of Irish blood we have in our bodies.

And this is my favorite picture - the tulips are out in full bloom and if there aren't any deer around to eat them, they looks so beautiful!  

Ok - that is enough of my recap!!  Back to regular scheduled programming in my next post - whatever that is.  Thanks for reading and sorry I was AWOL for so long!!!

Back to Work, Kinda

** I wrote this post last Tuesday but never got a chance to put it on the blog - so I'm taking you back in time so you can read it!**

Yesterday I headed back to work after a nice, long staycation.  I wrote a blog post on the bus but fell asleep while writing it and then it was deleted.  And I was jammed pack at work so I didn't have a single second to rewrite it.  So here I am, Tuesday, and hubs and I are at the doctor's so I thought I would try again.  Today is the day hubs gets his cataract surgery.  He is super nervous.  He had a serious eye injury about 15 years ago in Honduras and so now his eye is filled with scar tissue [update: eye surgery went very well - nothing to worry about at all!!].  So,  I came back from vacation for one day and now I'm off again.  Except I have a ton of work to do still, so I will try and put a few more hours in tonight.  I also have to make a wedding cake for my coworker.  I started a few days ago making chocolate candies to use as decoration.

I also made some with chocolate that are white and brown.  Today I'll make a few more with yellow and white.  And I'll bake the cake today and make the frosting maybe.  Then tomorrow I can decorate it.  It's not going to be too amazing because I have to take it on the bus and I am not taking a three-tiered cake on a bus.  I'll try my best though.  I bought mini Adironack chairs to put on the top (they are having their honeymoon in Hawaii), but they turned out to be less mini than I prefer...so I guess the cake will be mostly chairs! [Update: the cake turned out great - I'll show you pics in another blog post!]

So, are you wondering what we did while on vacation?  We didn't actually go anywhere, we just stayed home.  My sister was on vacation and daycare was closed, so I stayed home and played with Evan (well, the first week I worked from home and brought him to another daycare).  We had a good time.  Vacation started with a fun Easter weekend.  I went to see my nun-friend and we spent Good Friday and Easter Sunday together.  It was so nice seeing her.  Evan and I also dyed Easter eggs.

Ok, so maybe I did all the dying and Evan tried to stick his hands in all the cups.  Of course.  I started with 8 eggs but the hubs ate one before I had a chance to tell him that they were for Easter.

I also used brown eggs instead of white.  We always buy certified humane eggs and they are always brown...so brown eggs we had.  Evan didn't really care much. 

On Easter Sunday we went to church and Panera with my nun-friend and then Evan came home and took a nap.  While he was napping I hid the eggs and his Easter basket and when he woke up we had an Easter egg hunt.  Evan actually loved looking for eggs.  He totally got into it and understood what was going on.  It was so fun! 

 

He saw this Easter egg right away and it was so funny.  At first he couldn't figure out why there was something blue in his shoe!

Then when he saw this on by the TV he started catching on and understood that he was supposed to be looking for them and that there were many more.

Our neighbor gave him an Easter basket so we used it for him to collect eggs.  He liked throwing them in the basket, which resulted in cracked eggs (the hardboiled ones) and opened eggs (the plastic ones). 

 When the first egg split open, he realized there was candy inside (his blue eggs just had yogurt bites in them - the candy was for MEEEE!).  So, he then got distracted and started eating all the yogurt bites instead of looking for more eggs.

He finally located all of them though - and he only broke three or four.

I then hid his official Easter basket and he had to go find that.  That had his presents in it, rather than just candy.  I hid it in our closet and he eventually found it with some prodding.

This was his little basket from the Easter bunny, which contained some gifts from us and then some from my mom.  He had a nice little basket full of stuff!

We got him some bath letters - he was really excited about these and so was I.  I'd actually had them for over a month but was waiting until Easter rolled around before I gave them to him.  His favorite thing to do is dump them out!

He was really excited about his baskets!

We also bought him the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It is a bit too old for him now, but I think he'll love it when he's a little older.  The pictures are beautiful and the stories are fun and engaging.

I got him this car that I thought would be fun for him to play with, but really he just gets frustrated that that green ball thing doesn't come out.  He is always trying to pull it out and asking for help, but it doesn't come out at all.  So, it's not really his favorite toy.

My mom got him a puzzle and a few coloring books.  He loves to scribble in the books and is getting pretty good at putting the puzzles together. 

I think he had a pretty exciting Easter!  

By the end of the day he was completely worn out!  

I know this is probably the latest Easter recap out there, but I still wanted to share it with you!