Kind of.

Our last full day there, we drove to the far southeast edge of the island and started off with a scrumptious breakfast at Doe Bay cafe, which uses organic ingredients from local farms and area waters.

(awww, our only group photo–sans baby & dog)

I had the yummiest scrambled eggs with salmon & goat cheese. I’ll eat anything with goat cheese in it (seriously), but throw some salmon from a neighboring island in the mix and….taste explosion! Oh man, that was so good.

Elise enjoyed her breakfast while I enjoyed a lovely view.

After a hearty meal & plenty of coffee, we drove up to the top of Mount Constitution, which is the highest point in the San Juan Islands—about 2500 ft. up.  There was an old observation tower, and thanks to the sunny day, we could see all the way to Canada. Can you believe that’s still the closest I’ve been to Canada?! Ridiculous, I know.

Elise was snuggled up all warm in the Ergo carrier, and Molly the Dog enjoyed sniffing around on the snow.

Christmas card family photo….oh wait, Elise isn’t actually visible. Scratch that idea.

Shauna pointing out the island named after her family (or so we tell ourselves).

I told you we climbed a mountain, and I did not lie—we just climbed it in our cars, ha! But we did actually do some exercise to burn off the thousands of calories consumed the previous day. All six of us adults, the dog, and the baby sleeping in the carrier took off on a hike to Summit Lake—which ended up being about 2 miles roundtrip. Or was it 2 miles each way? I don’t know. I was distracted by the scenery and concentrating on not falling off the cliffs.

It wasn’t too strenuous of a hike, but it was plenty cold & kinda slippery. And despite none of us really being dressed for a hike like that, it was a success. Nobody fell off the mountain or lost their limbs due to frostbite. After all, I was wearing knee high boots, a thin sweater & a puffer vest that didn’t fully keep me warm from the chilly temps—but I was also wearing a mini space heater who was completely bundled up, so that helped.

But who really cares what you’re wearing when the views are phenomenal…

my hottie toddy.

And other than the fact that the guys’ car got held back by the ferry crew to wait 5 hours for the next one, it was a fantastic trip.

Not too far away, but still far enough that it would be a great getaway. It’s nice when you can leave your house on a Wednesday morning and by the time lunch rolls around, you’re off on an quaint little island mingling with the small town folks.

As seasoned of a traveler that Elise is, it was nice to have the travel broken up into smaller segments so we could all get out and stretch our legs/take bathroom breaks/breastfeed (ok, that was just me). Plus, Molly the Dog was along for the trip, and she enjoyed getting out of her crate to sniff around and meet other dogs.

just like her Grandpa S….excited to ride the ferry.

relaxing on the ferry with ‘uncle’ Jason.

Mad props to Ryan for finding this house. We weren’t sure what it would be like since there weren’t many reviews for it online, but it was super. Okay, the beds could’ve been bigger—Todd & I claimed the kids’ room with bunk beds & a futon—but had a great kitchen, bathrooms & living area. Plus, check out the sweet view looking out onto the Sound.

Most of our time there, we all just lazed around, played games, drank wine, read books, ate good food….it was fun.

(some people Todd drank wine from a sippy cup he found in the kitchen)

Next blogpost….Elise dresses up as a turkey!!!

15 1/2 pound turkey & a 15 1/2 pound baby.

Hoping you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, wherever you are.

Feels good to be an aunt, now I have one baby to spoil and one baby to nurture.

Cousin comparison. Elise kinda looked like a tank compared to little B, but she had a six week head start over him.

We hung out together a couple days in Kansas City, then all five of us headed back to my parents’ farm so the babies could spend some time with their grandparents.

There’s an old song that perfectly described how I felt on our drive…

Clowns to the left of me…

Jokers to the right….

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you…

But I wasn’t ‘stuck’ back there, I loved it. And I could have sat there all day long and watched them, each quietly snoring in their own cute way. I remember thinking to myself, THIS is perfect. Well, except Todd wasn’t there with us and there was a dog breathing down my neck half of the drive, but you know what I mean….

Baby invasion!

I think it’s safe to say that Grandpa & Grandma were just over the moon with both babies in the house. I found it humorous that when one baby would be occupied with feeding or sleeping, it kind of became a friendly fight of who got to hold the available baby. There definitely was not a lack of willing arms wanting to hold Miss Elise, which gave this mommy a nice break.

~ cuddle time with Aunt Kim ~

No trip to the farm would be complete without some overalls, right? She had fun doing a little two-steppin’ of her own on the makeshift piano we set up. A baby HeeHaw skit, perhaps.

Remember that show? Good stuff.

Melts my heart.

Melts my heart even more.

We are cousins! Best Friends Forever!

Or, more realistically….“We’re not really aware that the other one is here. Why does everyone keep taking pictures?”

I’m really excited to see these two grow up together. My cousin Leann and I were about a month apart in age and we were the best of friends growing up. Inseparable. P.S. I miss you a lot, Leann, we need to chitchat soon. Guess this means we’ll just have to make more frequent trips back to Kansas so the kiddos can hang out (and little B will need to come visit us too…hint hint).

Oh hey, look, finally a photo of me & Elise (those are rare to come by). Also, I finally cut my hair. Got tired of her spitting up in it and we all know I hardly ever spend more than 5 minutes on my hair anyways, so I needed something easy.

I went on this trip knowing that spending time with my family was #1 priority, but I was able to squeeze in a last minute date at Houlihans with my lovely friends, Kaddie, Erin & Cat. If only we lived closer, I’d already have 3 great babysitters lined up!

A lot of people have asked me how Elise did on her first plane ride.

She did pretty great. Our little seasoned traveler.

I will say that the 4 hour nonstop flight back to Seattle was less easy. Let’s see….I got peed on before we even took off, had to change a poopy diaper mid-flight (you think airplane bathrooms are small, try changing a baby’s diaper in one!) and spent most of the flight looking at my watch to see how much time was left until we landed.

Apparently other passengers thought she was a good baby because I had quite a few tell me that, so I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Maybe it just seems worse when you’re the one with the fussy baby, but most people are pretty accepting of a little crying.

I learned that I should not book a flight that occurs during her evening fussy time.

And I learned that traveling with a baby all by yourself is a difficult undertaking.

You’d be amazed how many people see you struggling and don’t even offer a helping hand. Thankfully, there were also some very nice people along the way who offered to help me out when I looked like I was overwhelmed by baggage & baby. I did politely decline the offers half the time though because, well, I’m a stubborn person. Silly of me.

I was VERY glad to see Todd again when we landed in Seattle. Sometimes it’s nice just to have someone (trustworthy) to hold the baby so you can go to the bathroom alone.

Lunchtime somewhere in Montana. Or Wyoming. I dunno, the states all blurred together at some point.

Warning: a little bit of breastfeeding talk is about to commence.

Before we left on the trip, I got Elise to start taking a bottle of pumped milk. Bottle feeding isn’t my ideal way to feed her, but we knew that in order to survive this trip as sane parents, it’d be faster for me to do that instead of pulling over to feed her every time she needed to eat. (I was told that back in the ‘old days’, women just pulled their kid out of the car seat and breastfeed while moving. Or, did we even have infant car seats growing up???) Thankfully, she took to it like a champ. And I got really good at pumping in the backseat of our car. Pump. Feed. Clean everything. Nap. And repeat. Every 3 hours. You have no idea how relieved I was to be back home and not have to do that. But I’m also grateful for a hospital grade breast pump, car power adapters & Medela Quick Clean wipes. Oh, and a very supportive husband who loved to take Elise on walks around the rest stops and burp her. We had quite the system going.

.    .   .    .    .

Living the (not so) glamorous hotel life.

While it looks like Todd is wearing a silly white hat, I’m pretty sure that’s the lamp shade behind him. I could certainly be wrong though.

.   .   .   .   .

Family time is the best.

The main event: Kaddie & Kevin’s wedding. Big thanks to my parents & Todd for taking care of Elise while I was off doing bridesmaid-y duties and tooling around town on a party Trolley, drinking some adult bevs. Hey, I deserved them.

Waiting for Ben to bring us fried Oreos while watching the mutton bustin’ at the Johnson County Fair. Tiny tots riding sheep and hanging on for their dear lives…hilarious.

.    .    .    .    .

She got to meet lots of new friends.

The Jacks. SG, Drew, Jonah.

Posed for an early engagement photo with her future husband.

Hugs & sleepy time with some of her ‘aunties’. Sadly, a few play dates went undocumented.

Chillin’ with Cadigan (aka baby Moose). Moose & Squirrel, friends forever.

“Let’s hold hands.”

“Okay.”

On the way back home, we made a very quick visit to our old college town. She did not start the day wearing a K-State onesie, but when we pulled into Manhattan, she had an ‘accident’ and this was the replacement outfit Todd grabbed out of her bag first. I think she planned it that way.

Future Wildcat!

We then stayed a few days in Denver with some friends. I got to spend one day hanging out with 2 of my old college roommates. Bonus!

We enjoyed crashing at the Hinman’s house for a couple days and started a daily stroller brigade.

Doting daddies

Stella!!!

.    .    .    .    .

Final stop was Portland, where we celebrated Todd’s (30th!…..shhhh) birthday in style at Deschutes Brewery and stayed at a fancy hotel. They had bathrobes & slippers! Am I the only one who’s never (knowingly) stayed at a place that provides those? Todd made fun of me for being excited.

Life on the road….it’s rough. We are glad to be home.

(Elise at almost one month old right before we went on our adventure. Seems so long ago.)

It’s never too early to start traveling the world and seeing exotic places….like Kansas.

Who ever thought we would’ve survived three weeks of traveling with a newborn? I’m sure most people thought we were crazy, and I don’t think that’s an unfair assessment.  But we knew way before she was even born that we’d be embarking on a trip back to Kansas City for my dear friend Kaddie’s wedding, so we figured–why not make a longer visit out of it since Todd gets a month of paternity leave anyways (thank you for that awesome benefit, Big Software Company)?

When we left, she was a tiny 4 week old baby, and when we returned, she was a well-traveled 7 week old. At the end of our trip, we realized that she had almost been away from home just as long as she’d been at home. And that’s when we knew it was time to get her back to ‘normal’ life.

The beginning of our trip took us to visit Grandpa & Grandma H in Idaho for a couple days, and somehow we managed to leave our camera packed away in the trunk of the car.

Onward through Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and finally to Kansas City where she met her uncle Ben & aunt Kim!

(aunt Kim was 8 months pregnant, and baby Barrett decided to make his arrival the week we left to drive back to Seattle)

I think Elise was pretty enamored by Uncle Ben, and he now thinks that he’s the only one who can get her to stop crying…I’ll let him keep thinking that.

You know, for being out and about for several weeks, we really failed to capture many pictures. I guess that’s what happens when you have your hands full and are more concerned with tending to a baby’s needs.

Once Todd gives me some he took on his phone, I’ll post those, but for now all I have are these we took while we were relaxing on my parents’ farm.

Uncle Ben flew his plane up on Saturday morning to spend a couple more hours with us.

Somewhere in there, she also got to meet her great aunts & uncles and numerous relatives. I’m excited for Elise to get to spend many more summers back on the farm. It’s a great place to be.

And this….

And all of this….

Tough job, but somebody had to do it.

I’ve officially been told I have a big belly. Could be because the only things that are truly comfortable now are maternity shirts and they’re made to emphasize the bump, or it could be the fact that I ate a lot of shave ice & a massive amount of luau pork and it all caught up with me after vacation.

Either way, I love this belly—no matter how ‘big’ some say it is—because it means that we are healthy. Junebug/Squirrel/Baby Harris has become an active little boxer, and is packing on the ounces, weighing in at just over 1 pound. And judging from our most recent ultrasound images, quite the cutie. Ok, maybe we’re a little bit biased.

24 weeks down. ? weeks to go!

]]> http://toddandkatie.com/2011/03/09/hard-at-work/feed/ 0 http://toddandkatie.com/2010/09/19/one-year/ http://toddandkatie.com/2010/09/19/one-year/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 06:29:42 +0000 Katie http://toddandkatie.com/?p=2712 Exactly one year ago today, we were over here….

……immersing ourselves in the majestic beauty of Switzerland.  We spent our last couple days in Switzerland in the city of Interlaken.  At a 2-star hotel above a mexican restaurant, with the communal shower one floor below us and the toilet one floor up. Certainly not the fanciest of digs, but we didn’t care at all when we were so worn out from traipsing through the Alps all day.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love jumping?

And that I love Swiss cows so much they made me squeal with glee every time I saw them?  Look at them, just chillin’ in the Alps. No fence. No worries. Just a strange American girl squealing in their faces.

These pictures don’t even do the beauty of the Bernese Alps justice. Where else can you eat your lunch and spend a whole day hiking with this magnificent view as your backdrop? Perhaps in Heaven? (yes, that’s right. When I get to Heaven, I want to go hiking with Jesus.)

My words cannot even come a million times close to describing the awesomeness of it all, so I won’t even try.  I was so happy to be there, I frolicked in the wildflowers.  Switzerland, I love you love you LOVE you.

And then after a stop at Lac Léman in Geneva for a couple hours we hopped a train to Lyon, France for 2 days where we basically ate our weight in quiche, crepes, croissants and panaché. Mmmmm, panaché.

We talk about going back to Europe at least 5 times a week. Perhaps that’s why I’m super reminiscent right now.  I want to be there.  Amongst the gentle cows, the waterfalls, the Eiger & Jungfrau. Eating my cheese & grapes on a mountain bench.  Sitting at a sidewalk cafe sipping rosé and savoring creamy French crepes.

Lost in the languages, but happy all over.

Oh, the stories I have to tell (once I get unpacked, caught up on sleep, and my brain isn’t so foggy)….

For now, I will sum up the Russia trip in one word:

AMAZING.

]]> http://toddandkatie.com/2010/08/08/truly-amazing/feed/ 4 http://toddandkatie.com/2010/07/22/to-russia-with-love/ http://toddandkatie.com/2010/07/22/to-russia-with-love/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:06:40 +0000 Katie http://toddandkatie.com/?p=2622

Well, I’m off on the adventure.

My bags are stuffed to the brim.

Green one is clothes. Blue one is lots and lots of this fun stuff:

Snap bracelets, glow bracelets, whirlygigs, paper, googley eyes, face paint, pencils & pens galore…..etc.

There’s another larger suitcase full of fun goodies that had to be dropped off at another house earlier since it won’t fit in our car with both of us and these bags.  The kids will be happy.

Thank you to all who have donated money to help with this mission. I appreciate it SO incredibly much.

With God, I go. Catch ya in two weeks!