A Snapshot

It's raining and H is napping after a really long and eventful week. I'm sipping my 'Kellie's Bridal Shower Tea" tea and thinking of what I need to do. But instead of doing any of it I will write a short and sweet update.

What I am Doing:
I have less than a week til school starts again for me. Full-time ESL paraprofessional at a pretty cool school. One thing I'm not looking forward to is many of my little kiddos not having practiced English is 6 weeks. What I am jazzed about is that in addition to teaching I'll be coaching this year! Girls and boys soccer. I love love it.

What H is Doing:
He has (finally) begun to walk like a Frankenstein baby. Stiff knees and all. He loves the attention but still would rather speed crawl anywhere.
He also is going to be hanging out with a stay-at-home grandma close to Jon's work. She has a 19-mo old grandson and a funny little dog that H seemed to really like. We're going to do a dry run tomorrow morning. Sigh...

What I am Eating:
I've gotten into cooking oatmeal in the morning for us, topped with raisins or blueberries and milk. I pat myself on the back for being just so healthy :) Okay...and some brown sugar.
I haven't introduced strawberries to H yet, how does one do that? Neither of us have food allergies so why so nervy?

 Those chocolate-dipped strawberries are delicious and healthy...

What I'm Reading:
I almost finished The Lost City of Z. I consider it done because I spoiled the ending by watching the documentary on netflix. However it is an awesome read if you like the Amazon, pirahnas and beign grossed out by bugs that lay eggs in people's bodies.

What I'm Watching:
Jon and I have come late to the party and are now watching The Wire. I really like it, we're just starting the 3rd season and I'm ready for it to get crazy!

What I'm Doing to Exercise:
Cycling and burlying the baby a lot more. Have I told you I love my bike?

especially when it holds coffee from Bigbys

What I've Got Planned:

I'm heading to LA for my sister's bach. party! Leaving straight from work at 5pm Friday and coming back on the red-eye to arrive in GR for work at 8am. That is painful even to write!

What I'm Going to Do Now:

Nap and netflix.

Other People's Children

Today was the first day of my search for H's new caregiver. It consisted of only 2 people. I canceled a woman whom I was meant to meet up with "at the starbucks on alpines" as she put it. When I replied asking her for a cross street to said 'bucks she answered "you don't know where alpines is?". Call it motherly or human intuition but I'm guessing our communication styles do not match up.

The next lady ended up being a 13 min drive away from the house. The slip and slide that slipped into the road was a red flag. The chihuahua that "ignored the babies" ended up jumping up and down on H was another. Yes she meant well, but her house was sorely ill equipped for any toddler. Away we went.

The last lady, a grandma, called us into the house as she was washing up her grandson who was painting. Immediately there was both a cat and a lap dog at my heels. Sigh. However, after the initial let down of animals (small ones) I got to look around and see the active, jabbering 19 mo old boy show us around the house. H was out of my arms in a minute and after being licked clean by the dog he was in the toys throwing balls around. I stayed there for an hour and it was nice. Just the two little guys playing peek a boo and chucking toys at each other. We left with vanilla wafers in our hands as they waved bye bye from the porch. Kind of precious.

Three more tomorrow.

As a side note I made H laugh so hard today we were both dying for a solid ten minutes. Days like this make it hard to be okay with going back to work.

A Bear in the Woods

H practically begged to go down to his first nap at 8:45a. Why so sleepy? That is perhaps the worst thing about camping with a 13 mo old, the readjustments. H is all about his schedule, for the good and the bad.

On a whim a few weeks ago we decided to look up Sleeping Bear Dunes campsites. I had heard about them through a co worker and since it is on my 27 THings to Do While 27 I thought why not go there? As luck would have it, the campsite we were aiming at had one night available amidst weeks of being booked up. We registered for it on the spot, 15$ campsite. I was happy about it already :)

So we woke up at 4:30 Saturday morning. The car was (very wisely) packed the night before. I only managed to forget both of our toothbrushes. We loaded a sleepy bear into his car seat and took off with coffee in our hands and cautious anticipation in our hearts!

It took us 3 hours and 15 rounds of The Ants Go Marching sung by me in the back seat to get to our first destination. We arrived early at the Platte River and loaded up the little one in the borrowed 25+ year old Gerry baby carrier (the BEST contraption and the winner of What to Bring While Camping with a Baby). We got to see large nesting cages of endangered birds. Discovered that we should have brought waders to ford the river and also maybe should have bought a map. But the river felt delicious on our feet!

Jon flashing some skin to avoid the water.

We lounged on the grass and ate some snacks while planning our next stop. We decided to head to our campground to see if our spot was open and then continue on to the Dunes.

View from the car, just the first of several dunes to Lake Michigan.

Because our site was still occupied we headed north to Glen Arbor (perhaps it was Haven?) for lunch and a stroll around the cute town. Very beachy. We grabbed some slices of pizza and H even convinced me to buy him his first ice cream (superman flavored) which we split. He was techni-colored around the face for the better part of the day.

Me and H decided to race up the dune...not a good idea.

The initial dune was huge yes, but I've done several before so thought nothing of it at first. But those dunes were deceiving us! Each time we crested the sand hills we just saw another looming in front with the false promise that the lake was right after that one. Well no it wasn't.

Jon reacts to seeing yet more hills between him and the water.

22lbs of precious cargo still feels like 22lbs.

H had a lot of fun removing his hat and throwing it to the ground while we climbed. Hilarious. But it really was a great hike. The best part was the descent though :)

The view before descending the big dune.

Another thing I learned was this, carry your camera everywhere if you want pictures. Sadly this is my last picture. This was taken at 6am Sunday morning while Jon was tearing down the tent and I placated a sad baby with crackers and milk.

To streamline the rest of the trip for you:

Things that went well:

H slept- from 10:30 to 5:30 the baby slept in his diaper between us. Little angel. It took him 2 hours of ping-ponging around the tent before he collapsed from exhaustion, cute but tiring even to watch!

We got to see such beautiful things in northern MI that we really want to go back. That along was a success :)

I made and lit a campfire (albeit with 6 matches but who was counting?) that lasted long enough for our hot dog dinner and smores.

We went through Traverse City on the way back- what a fun mix of Ann Arbor, Holland and Chicago. I want to go back!

Things that were less than awesome:

The camp stove was not our friend...a fire hazard for real! No pancake breakfast for us.

It thunder stormed as we woke up (which was actually pleasant) but packing up camp in it with a cranky baby not so ideal.

A loud raccoon got into our campsite and scared me silly. I couldn't see it and only heard piggy-like noises and lumbering about. Yeesh.

So that in a nutshell is what I learned. The best thing was we left tired but wanting to do it again. Success!

New York I Miss You

Today marks 2 years since I lived in NYC. Sometimes it feels like a lot longer than that, other times I like to close my eyes and "walk" around my old neighborhood of Washington Heights and I swear I can see every detail. That city really got me. I wasn't looking for it and wasn't planning on moving there but it happened and now it's stuck there in my heart. Sigh.

Grand Rapids is growing on me day by day. I'm exploring more of the city and discovering that I live a 10 minute bike ride away from pretty much anything I want. This morning H and I decided to hitch up the burley for an early morning ride around Reeds Lake. This mediumish lake is smack dab in the posh East GR (ooooh). It's amazing that traveling a few blocks north can dramatically change the houses. They are true brick beauties built a long time ago and they stink of money. Stink I tell you! That stench does not however make it very far down Philadelphia Ave to my neighborhood...

Anyway, this bike path is just lovely. It's wide enough for two burleys to pass. It should be wide enough for dog owners and a burley but tell that to some snooty dog walkers...ugh. Should there be a next time I might just have to run over some paws. But other than a couple of incidents with less than charming people the loop was refreshing and put me in a New York state of mind. It made me think of doing that Central Park loop, around 6 miles, on my bike. If you haven't done that loop, you might be surprised that there are some good hills there.

After our ride I woke the sleeping bear at the library (amazing! right on the lake with a large sunny deck in the back) for baby story time. We read some books, chatted a bit then packed up to go to the grass along the lake. We devoured our crackers, drank some water and H inhaled a whole banana before putting my cleats on again, clipping in and riding back home. 

No it wasn't exactly a New York day but it was a GR one and I think that might be just as good.

Mmmm, minty

I have heard about Mint.com several times and only when Jon came home one day and mentioned it to me again did I finally look it up. Now a month later...I am stuck on it. For the good and the bad.

So it's a budgeting site, yeah, sounds exciting right? Well, YES! If you know me at all you know I like to crunch numbers and see how far a dollar goes (you do recall I lived on 20 euro a week in Finland). This ridiculous crunching obsession began with my first job as a hostess (Need the Weed at Tumbleweed!) and continues to this day.

During the last 2 years of NY living my budgeting skills dulled as my shopping skills flourished. I blame that on Anthropologie and Filene's Basement, they are a blessing and a curse (and Anthro is opening in Sept, one mile away from my house, ah!).

Well nothing like a good wake up call to get your budget back. Thank you Grand Rapids job market and generally Michiganian living. So back to the numbers with mint.com.

I am shocked and appalled about how much a family of 2.5 can spend at Meijers grocery store. Appalled. I need some serious lessons in couponing or something because I do NOT want to eat all of my expendable income. But also, who wants to spend days clipping and carrying around that file-o-fax of coupons?

So after analyzing the past month's expenditures I am ready to tackle this month with a renewed vigor (and smaller income...on summer vacay for a month). Can it be done without clipping and toting a fanny-pack of coupons? Please oh please let it be so!