Our Anniversary Trip to Delaware

Hi everyone,

Okay, we'll try this again. Since Butterfly is happily sittingg in her...I mean, MY new toy...I can try and tell you about our trip. Yes, we took our almost 3 month old on vacation with us and had a ball!

We got all ready, dropped the puppy off at her kennel, drove out of the DC area and stopped to get gas in Annapolis. Butterfly decided to get fussy while we were getting gas so we were talking about getting out her pacifier. Which was in our backpack. Which was still sitting on our bed at home. D'oh! It had all of our tolietries in it. Juice convinced me that we shouldn't drive the 2 hours back to the house to get it and I convinced him that we should at least stop by a store and buy things like toothbrushes and toothpaste. Imagine, he was ready to stink all weekend long! :)

We crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which was 14 miles of road above the ocean. Not a place I would like to be in a storm! We also passed into Delaware. There was a house right next to the sign and in between the Maryland and Delaware sign. Where do they live?

Butterfly was pretty fussy the rest of the car ride and was very happy to get out of her car seat when we got to the hotel. The people at the check in counter just oohed and ahhed over her. She's so cute. :)

We were able to have dinner at the hotel restaurant, but we only stayed long enough to eat the appetizer and order our food. Butterfly decided that it was time to be done. She smacked her head on the table while Juice was holding her and she was just unhappy after that. Poor thing! So we ate our dinner in our room and it was much better.

On Friday, we journeyed out to the beaches. Juice got a good map of the area and we were planning on going to a beach about an hour away but Butterfly had had enough of her car seat. We picked the closest beach to us and it was really nice. It was called Bower's Beach and it was basically deserted. It was great to have almost the whole thing to ourselves! I worried that Butterfly would get burned the whole time, but we had a cute little tent and also a shade umbrella. It worked out great. Doesn't she look sweet in her sunglasses?!

Friday night the power went out at our hotel because of a huge lightening storm. See part of it here: http://www.jusspress.com/day.php?userid=8523¤tDate=20050805&currentTime=202836

Saturday we drove/walked around Dover. We ran across the place where they became the first state, which was pretty cool. I was thinking about it and I have now been where the Mayflower left England, where they landed in America, where they fought part of the Revolution in Boston and now, where the Constitution was ratified. Pretty interesting for me! We also went to a few museums in Dover and that was interesting as well.

All in all, a good trip!

Until next time,
Safire, Juice and Butterfly

I hate blogger...

All,

I just wrote out a great post about our trip to Deleware and was about to publish it because Butterfly is fussy but I thought I should spell check it first. Bad idea since it just erased it all. I knew I was a bad speller but come on...not that bad! But since Butterfly needs me now I'll have to type it out again later. Sigh...

Safire

New on the blog!

Hi everyone,

Alright, with my title I just had a flash back of some New Kids on the Block songs that has to relevance what so ever. Sign up your email to get a notice when I post! It's at the top of the page.

Gotta go...baby needs a diaper change.

Love,
Safire

Visitors, visitors

Hi everyone,

Sorry for being gone for awhile but family came to visit. And since I think Andrew and Mom make up half of my readership (hi Zuke and Jill! the other half) they knew what was going on. But Zuke and Jill need to hear about my vacation so here's a short (hopefully) synopsis of it.

My parents and Juice's parents arrived on Friday, July 1st to fairly nice weather and lots of work to be done at my house. They were nice enough to clean and put up a cupboard in my bathroom while everyone kind of passed Butterfly around. We were trying to get the house and food ready for her blessing on the 3rd.

The blessing went really well. Our neighbors came to the meeting, along with Naomi and her son Jaron. It was a good blessing, and Butterfly cried all the way through it. But she looked so cute!

All white and frilly. Juice says watching my mom and is like watching 2 girls with their doll. True...but this doll actually gets bigger. :)

We spent a nice quiet 4th of July at home while everyone kind of did their own thing. (See Andrew's blog for more details if he ever gets around to talking about it...hint hint.) We went to a bbq at our parent's hotel and watched the fireworks.
Butterfly handled the fireworks really well and didn't seem to mind the noise too much. The show was very good, and I got to play with the firework feature on my camera. What do you think?

On Tuesday, we caravaned up to Baltimore and saw the National Aquarium. (www.aqua.org) It was very cool. They had a huge tank full of rays and sharks and one turtle right when you came in. And from there, you went up to different levels. Each level was showcasing something different. They had things like fish and wetland habitats around the area, alligators, the Amazon river, and more. It was really fascinating to see all the fish. The best part about the whole aquarium was strangely not fish related. They had a rainforest mock up that you could walk through at the top. (Juice says complete with humidity...not like we needed any more of that.) It was beautiful and had animals just hanging out in the enclosure.

They did make us check our stroller so we had to carry Butterfly around in her sling but she doesn't mind that too much. My dad was carrying her at one point and a lady came up to him and couldn't believe that we had a human baby in it. She made my parents show her Butterfly.

After the aquarium, we went out for food at a seafood restaurant overlooking the harbor. Now I'm not a big seafood eater (can't stand the stuff) but I did have a hamburger and watched my dad and Andrew enjoy their Maryland crab cakes.

Andrew and Angela left on Wednesday morning and Mom and I dressed Butterfly up in her blessing dress once more and took her to get her first professional pictures taken. We went to Sears and the gal that did the pictures was very good. She even got a small smile out of Butterfly .

Juice's parents left us on Friday morning and my parents stayed till Monday. It was a great vacation for everyone!

Since the company left, Butterfly has been cooing and talking up a storm. She is finally recognizing Juice and will calm down for him. She is discovering her hands and will look wide eyed at them. She is also starting to roll from her back to her side or vice versa. The best thing that she does is smile though. And I caught a doozy on camera.

Isn't she just so cute?!

Until next time,

Safire, Juice, Butterfly and Soot

We're smiling!

Hi everyone,

Yes, that means everyone in the house is smiling. Okay, maybe not the dog but the rest of us are very happy. Butterfly has such a cute smile too! She has one dimple and it makes her look lopsided but very sweet. She also will laugh in her sleep which is really funny too. Take a look! (The video is kind of long but she does smile towards the end...stick with it. :) )

http://www.jusspress.com/day.php?userid=8523¤tDate=20050626&currentTime=185222

Until next time!

Safire and Butterfly (Juice and Soot are still here too.)

check this out!

http://www.jusspress.com/day.php?userid=8523¤tDate=20050512&currentTime=132604

Hi everyone,

Sorry for being on hiatus but as most of you know, Butterfly entered our world just a short month ago. I took a break from the blog for a while to get used to this whole mommy business. It's pretty fun. But to catch up, I thought I'd talk about Butterfly and share some new, never before seen pictures. :)
May 10th, 2005 Butterfly entered the world at 8 lbs, 10 oz, 22 inches long. She cried briefly but was so quiet even the nurses took note of it.
 

We went home 2 short days later with jaundice but got over it and survived! She slept a lot and ate a lot and regained her birth weight.
 

She met the puppy who was very intereted in her. The noises that Butterfly made were facinating at first. She's gotten over the facination now and accepted Butterfly into the pack. Exept she is a little jealous and will crawl into your lap if you don't have the baby.
 

Butterfly met Nana and Grandpa when they came out to visit her.
 

Nana espically had fun holding and playing with Butterfly.
 

At 2 weeks old she was very cute, although still swimming in clothes. But nothing is sweeter than a sleeping baby! Especially to her very tired parents.
 

We were now a family of 4, including the puppy. Juice and I call our family the 'pack' and think it's funny when Soot has to greet every member of her pack when we get home.
 

Butterfly is now one month old.
 

She's getting cuter every day and has many cute expressions. She can mostly hold her head up and doesn't cry a whole lot. We are a champion sleeper but last night she was up from 3am till about 4:30 am just chatting with me and asking to eat. She asks that one a lot.
 

I'm in charge of feeding her, and Juice is in charge of changing her when he is home. He's also in charge of her on Saturday mornings so I can get some sleep. Butterfly isn't hurting in the sleep department though! She sleeps between 12-15 hours a day. Lucky girl!
 

So...do you think she has "the Eyes"?
Love you all,
The Pack
 

Blogging Fun

Because I don't get all of them...I've picked a few "You know you live in Maryland when..." phrases.

You can pronounce and spell "Pocomoke," "Mattaponi," "Accokeek," and "Havre de Grace"

You prononce "Bowie" BOO-ie not BOW-ie or BAUW-ie

1 hour is an easy commute to work

You refer to your state as "Merlind"

You don't think that Assawoman Bay is a strange name for a body of water.

You color with "Crowns", take a "Share" with "Wooter" and think the president lives in "Warshenton."

And just for fun because Virginia is so close to us:

Speed limits are just suggestions

You have at least two friends who have no idea what their relatives do...because its "top secret" government work

When people ask where you're from, you tell them DC because its easier to explain

You are amazed when you go out of town and the people at McDonalds speak English

You or someone in your family has a Smart Tag

An inch of snow and you miss 3 days of school

Subway is a fast food place. The transportation system is known as Metro, and only Metro.

If you stay on the same road long enough, it will eventually have three new names.

You have to dial the area code to call your neighbor

And for the state we left behind...

You can pronounce Tooele.

The U is not just a letter - Neither is the Y.

You have actually eaten funeral potatoes.

You've gotten both heat and frost burns off your car's door handle in the same month.

You are not surprised to hear words like "Darn, Fetch, Flip", "Oh, My Heck" and "Shoot".

Your tulips get snowed on three times after they come up and twice more after they bloom.

30% humidity is muggy and almost unbearable.

Somewhere in your family tree is a polygamist.

You know the difference between a 'Steak House' and a 'Stake House'.

The elevation exceeds the population

You've broken down on the highway and somebody stops to help you

You can see the stars at night

There is a similarity between a ward basketball game and the L.A. riots.

Cars in the slow lane are traveling the fastest; cars in the fast lane are traveling the slowest; cars in the middle lanes are always trying to exit.

Sandals are the best-selling shoes.

You're on your own if you are turning left.

People wear shorts and T-shirts if the temperature rises above 32 degrees.

There is a church on every corner, but they all teach the same thing.

People drive to Idaho (or Arizona) to pick up a gallon of milk so they can play the lottery.

In-state college football rivalries are bigger than the Super Bowl.

You think "You're a 10 cow wife" is a compliment.

Love, Safire

What kind of American do you Speak?

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Dixie

10% Midwestern

10% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Important life events all tie into horseback riding...

Hi all,

I did a great post about a new phrase that Juice and I use all the time, but then it got lost in cyber space as I tried to publish it. So look for that again in the near future when I can stop being mad at Blogger for loosing it.

Last week Juice and I went to our first child birth class. It was interesting. I think the only thing I didn't know about was the placenta. Yes, I knew it had to come out after the baby was born but how it looks when it comes out was a surprise to me. And how big it was! That AND a baby fit into my belly...Fascinating!

Anyway, we also learned about labor, when to call your doctor, what to do if you go into early labor, etc. The class was 4 hours long, and we go for the next few Saturdays. It was funny because as everyone walked in, you could see the other pregnant mothers checking out each other's bellies. I'm still the smallest one, even smaller than some of the ladies who are due in July! There is one other couple whose due date is before ours, and everyone else is due after us. We are also the only ones who are not having our baby at Shady Grove Hospital, which is where the class is. And why is that, you ask? Well, our local hospital is Shady Grove. It's about 10 minutes down the road from us. We decided (okay, I decided) to have Butterfly in Virginia at the hospital near my work called Inova Fairfax Hospital (http://www.inova.org/inovapublic.srt/ifh/index.jsp). Momentary laps of sanity, I think since it can take us up to an hour to get to this hospital in rush hour traffic. Although that's only during rush hour...it takes about half an hour mid day or after rush hour. And it is right across the street from my work. Also, my OB's practice is across the street from my work too and since I have to go there a lot, it was easier on my to just have to walk across the street instead of driving back home for every appointment.

So why did we decide to do our birthing class at Shady Grove? Well, they offered Saturday only classes. And we only have to go to 4 of them instead of 6 weeks of them. Inova doesn't offer that. And it was cheaper, we got a free breastfeeding class along with it, and it's so close to our house.

What does this have to do with horseback riding as my title suggests? Well, besides going over labor and birth in the class, we also went over some relaxation techniques. How to get your mind out of the way so that your body can work through the contractions. Every single thing she said I thought, "Oh, I used to do that when I rode." or "That makes perfect sense, that helped me when I used to ride." For example, we talked about muscles in your bodies competing for oxygen. And since your uterus is one big muscle and its working hard to get the baby where it needs to go, it needs all the oxygen it can get. If you clench other muscles, they steal the oxygen and make your contractions worse. So if you can relax the rest of your body, your contractions are a little more bearable. And you can relax your body by taking one limb at a time and telling it to relax. I used to do that all the time when I was on an especially hyper horse. I would start at my feet and move up my legs...Relax, relax, relax. Not only did it help me stay ON the horse, it also helped the horse relax because I was relaxed.

Another thing our teacher showed us was the pelvic tilt. It's used to help open up your pelvis to allow the baby to get into position, and also to strengthening your back muscles to help during labor. She showed us how to do it, and I thought, "Oh, posting." (That up and down motion that you do when a horse trots.) So I already knew how to do it.

So thanks Mom and Dad for letting me take horse back riding lessons. It's helped out in ALL aspects of my life...amazingly enough!

Love,
Safire