Last days of summer...

Summer is almost over and we are trying to enjoy each and every last moment. This means:

:: organic heirloom tomato and cucumber salad almost every day - we have A LOT of veggies to eat thanks to our CSA - Turnip Rock

:: celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary - can you believe we bought each other the same card AND the same gift!? So, so weird, right?

:: sleeping with open windows during the cool evenings - isn't this heavenly?

:: painting future masterpieces

:: mastering the art of riding a trike

:: finding bugs with a magnifying glass

:: making new friends at daycare - Eliot is loving his new home away from home and we love it, too! Thank you for being so fabulous in every way, Willow & Sprout!

:: and finally, camping, which was a huge hit for the whole family!

We had hoped to camp for three nights and four days, but because of the weather (torrential rain) we ended up camping for two nights and three days. I could have stayed for weeks. It was so fun. I love sleeping in a tent and cooking over a fire. I love being able to see all the stars at night and listening to the crickets as you fall asleep. It was so much fun to watch Eliot explore nature and spend all day every day outside. He was in seventh heaven. One of the days, we cleaned ourselves up a bit and headed over to the Schell's Brewery in New Ulm for a tour. They have incredibly yummy beer and scary statues of deer.

My own camp chair:


Hangin' out with cousin Behr:


Mud puddle adventures:



A nature walk:







The very scary deer:


I love watermelon!

I have sand in my underwear...

We're home from Mexico! We had a very relaxing and fun week and it only rained once! So much for that forecast, huh?! Our trip did start out a little rough, though. We had to be to the airport by 4:30 am to catch our 6:30 flight and when we woke up, we found out we had no hot water. Well, showers were required (can you say "stinky"?) so we restarted the water heater and waited 3o minutes for warm water. This meant we got to the airport about an hour later than planned and almost missed our flight. Stressful. Once we were on the plane, we realized that we had left our folder with some of our travel documents, health insurance cards, credit cards, etc. at the American Airlines ticket counter. Stressful. We needed some of those documents for our hotel stay and we were worried about the credit cards. We were able to work it out with the hotel and my mom was very gracious and drove to the airport for a second time that morning to pick up the folder for us, which had ended up in the Lost & Found. When we got to Cancun, the car service was waiting for us but didn't have the carseat we had arranged so Eliot got to sit on my lap the whole way to Playa del Carmen. Stressful. If you've ever been in Mexico, you know that sometimes they can drive a little crazy so I was pretty nervous for the 50 minutes it took us to get to our hotel. But we arrived safely and were FINALLY able to relax. Our days there almost all looked about like this:

7:30-8:00 am: Wake-up call (courtesy of Eliot)
8:30-9:30 am: Breakfast
9:30-11:00 am: Swimming in the pool
11:00 am-1:00 pm: Eliot's nap - Jason and I took turns laying out by the pool or reading in the hammock on our balcony
1:00-2:00 pm: Lunch
2:00-3:00 pm: Swimming in the pool
3:00-5:00 pm: Hanging out on the beach, playing in the sand, swimming in the ocean
5:00-6:00 pm: Shower and get ready for supper
6:00-7:30 pm: Supper
7:30-8:00 pm: Bedtime routine for Eliot
8:00-midnight: Jason & I read on the balcony - we usually had a fight over who got the hammock. I read three and half books during the week and Jason read one and a half. It was very luxurious to have so much free time for reading.












One of the mornings, we got up early and walked down 5th Avenue all the way to the other side of town to the beach/ruins where we were married five years ago. It was really special for Jason and I to be there again with Eliot and remember what it was like on the day we promised to be together forever... We took these photos there.







This was us five years ago on our wedding day.




Eliot made two friends while we were in Mexico. Manuel is a four year old from Guadalajara who played with Eliot all week - they are now pen pals.


And Fabiene is an eleven year old from Holland who thought Eliot was the sweetest thing ever.


We had great fun with both of them. We also found out that a waiter we had met when we were in Playa six years was working at our hotel. We got to spend a good amount of time talking with him and catching up. It was great to see him. We are so very lucky to have the lives that we do! In Mexico, the people who work in the hotels work six days a week, 11 hours per day. They don't get vacation, they don't get sick time, they don't get benefits. But they are so grateful for their jobs and they WORK SO HARD. We take so much for granted...

I also need to give a huge shout out to the ladies of Fresh, Meredith & Shawn. They helped us out with transportation and some yummy organic groceries while we were in Mexico. If you're ever in Playa and need ANYTHING, you must call them immediately. They're amazing! Thanks ladies!

The trip home was difficult and might best be described as awful. It involved flight delays, almost missing a connecting flight, long lines in security, running through airports, Eliot not getting a good nap and turning into a little monster, three hours of crying on the final leg our flight home, etc., etc. Lessons learned: (1) Direct flights are always better, (2) Never fly in or out of Miami if at all humanly possible, (3) Benadryl to help a child sleep is sometimes ok, (4) A "lap child" is a bad idea, (5) Mean, childless businessmen are horrible people without hearts but karma will take care of this eventually, (6) Travelling with a toddler is generally difficult and the sooner you accept that reality, the better and (7) As difficult as our day was, we're incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to fly somewhere on a whim.

Tomorrow it's back to work. No complaints here. I'm so thankful that we were so blessed to be able to take this vacation together as a family.