Elsa Turns 2

Wow! I was going through some of my old blog posts and it so hard to believe how fast the past two years went! Elsa smiles when she sees pictures of her as a little baby!

She was spoiled by having two birthday parties this year. None of which involved any children her own age--we felt like we deserved the worst parent of the year for that! Hopefully, next year she will have lots of playmates in our neighborhood and we will make up for this year. We celebrated the first one when my parents were visiting. We invited our friends the Turners over. Elsa had so much fun playing with the older boys and even managed to scrape up her face! Poor little thing, but she instantly got up and kept going!

Then, on the actual day (May 30th) we celebrated with Aunt Brittany and made her (Brittany's) favorite: red velvet cupcakes. NEVER again! The red velvet bleeds on to everything! Skin, clothes...carpet! But, Elsa loved decorating the cupcakes and I think her new favorite song is "Happy Birthday". We keep finding random people to sing happy birthday to and we light a candle so she can blow it out.

She weighs: 28 pounds (76th percentile) and is 35.24 inches tall (85th percentile)

Her favorite toys: her dolls (loves to push them in her baby stroller, feed them (read: pour water on their faces), change their diapers (this is quite funny to watch because she will actually pull out the changing pad, wipe their bottoms, say "pee-eww", and then put a diaper on them), and read to them)

Favorite songs: Happy Birthday, pussy cat pussy cat I love you, Old McDonald had a farm

VERY strong willed child

When daddy leaves the room, she always asks "Where's daddy, where'd he go?"

If she wants us to stop doing something, she will say "mommy (or daddy) poof" and hold out her hand to stop (it is hilarious and I am not quite sure where she picked that one up)

Loves to dance (we are already looking into dance classes in green bay)

Loves her Lady bug rain boots. I think she would wear these to bed if we let her.

Her favorite thing to do when I am in the kitchen is to grab the flash light and "hide" in the cupboard. Aaron also helped make a fort under our dining room table and she LOVES it. I think he is already making plans for a large fort in our basement with all of our moving boxes.

She loves to crawl in her toy box and throw every. single. last. toy out.

She will miss her Aunt Brreeneee

Had her first trip to the ER the weekend of her birthday. What we thought was her trying to tell us she was ready for potty training, ended up progressing into pain when she would urinate and fevers between 102-103. They had to cath her to obtain a urine sample (no wonder she didn't like the doctor the following week for her two year well baby appt) and put her on antibiotics for a UTI. But, since we had gone out to buy a potty, we tried to get her used to it. Although, she kept putting her dolls and Brittany's teddy bear on it. We were able to get her to use it twice (she did #2 of all things), but then gave up on it. I really think it is for the best until we get settled in GB. I told Aaron the drive home with her would be miserable if he had to keep stopping for her to go to the bathroom.

Note: this was right after we took the potty out of the box. We won't have the potty set up in the hallway :)

Happy Birthday precious girl! You have brought so much joy to your daddy's and I's lives!

Half Marathon Weekend

On New Year's Eve, I decided to set some fitness goals. I blame it on the bottle of wine I was drinking, but I felt like it would be a great idea to run another half marathon! I need to have a goal to work towards when running, cuz let's face it, I would fizzle rather quick if I didn't have one. I think Aaron had also been drinking, because he told me to sign him up too! So, I signed us up for the Santa Barbara Wine Country half marathon. I realized two things. One, never sign up for anything while under the influence of alcohol. And, two, check the course elevation changes of the route prior to signing up. The next day I realized that it was mostly uphill! Well, we found a great 16 week half marathon schedule and started training. I had to do most of my runs on the treadmill at 5am, but Aaron and I did our long runs together on the weekends while Brittany watched Elsa. Our neighborhood is EXTREMELY hilly, so it was good preparation for the course. Somewhere in the process, my parents mentioned they wanted to come out for one last visit before we moved. I mentioned they could come out during the half weekend--they could see Santa Barbara/Monterrey and watch us run the half (and watch Elsa while we did so). And, it worked out great because it was Mother's day weekend too! oh, and my Mom broke her ankle right before the trip, so it was interesting watching her try to get around.

We drove down the day prior to get our race packet and explore Santa Ynez (race finish). It was a cute town with a dutch influence.

The next day, we woke up at the crack of dawn for the half. It was a rather dreary, cloudy day, but the course was beautiful. There was a very steep hill (appropriately termed corkscrew hill) that most people walked up. You could definitely tell Aaron and I did our training in the hills, because we ran the entire way up. And, we ran the entire course. My previous halves, I started out way too fast and had to walk after the 10 mile point. I was so proud of Aaron for finishing and it was so much fun to run together!

Then, we enjoyed the wine festival afterwards for an hour and then took off to Monterrey. We LOVE Carmel/Monterrey. I think if California wasn't so expensive, I would have tried to find a practice in that area. We stopped at the Elephant seal viewing area. I have never seen so many seals in my entire life! There were hundreds of them laying on the beach. Elsa was so fascinated by them and threw quite a fit when we had to leave.

We did the 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach.

Here is Elsa smelling a flower. It cracks me up how she says "pee-eww" for anything she tries to smell. And, rather than inhaling the smell, she blows out her nose. Crazy kid.

Easter

We had a fabulous Easter around here! Aaron and I were asked by Brad and Laurence Turner (our friends that we met while stationed in England and are here at Travis too) to be their RCIA sponsors. For those of you not Catholic, it is the process individuals go through to receive the Catholic sacraments as adults. Aaron did this prior to us getting married too. It was an honor to join them on this journey! They received the sacraments at the Easter Vigil service (my favorite service of the entire year). Fortunately, Brittany came up to watch Elsa as the service usually is 2.5-3 hours long.

The next day, we woke up. I had to do my long run (I will be so glad when the half marathon is done!) and then we let Elsa explore her Easter basket and we colored eggs. I should have read the directions when I bought the dye at the store, because I think the key is vinegar for vibrant colored eggs. Water did less than a stellar job, but Elsa had fun.

We went to the golf club for brunch and then had fun frolicking in the lawn. Elsa was all decked out in her Easter dress and converse sneakers.

Then, we were honored to again stand next to the Turners as they renewed their wedding vows as new Catholics! What a great end to a fabulous weekend!

California North Coast

Last weekend, we took a last minute trip to the coast north of Bodega Bay. We had a three day weekend and I was supposed to be on call...but, one of my fabulous co-workers offerred to take call for me, so when we woke up Friday morning, we decided to do a mini-getaway. While Aaron went out for a run, I found a really quaint B&B ( in which we will never stay again with a small child!!) and started to load up the car. Aaron plotted the driving route through scenic wine country to the coast. I should have known that the route was going to be interesting when a man commented "make sure no one in your car is prone to car sickness". The road was one of the curviest, narrowest roads I have ever seen--Even in England! Thankfully not many cars (idiots) drove that way as the width of the road in most areas was only for one car. Yes, it was very scenic, but I think I would rather take more traveled routes :)

The hotel was very quaint and was right on the coast. I had to keep an extra watchful eye on Elsa since it was a steep drop off from the hotel to the actual water.

After we explored the area around our hotel, Aaron played golf at this course nestled within the redwoods. Elsa and I were going to ride along, but lets just say it was WAY past naptime. We dined in a local cafe and I drove her around while she slept in the car and Aaron played golf.