We made our third trip to Dallas in October. Nathan did a great job on the plane rides…he played and watched videos on the way there, and slept most of the trip home. I think it helped that he had his own seat without a carseat this time.

It was great to see my grandma (”GiGi” to Nathan) and so special that she got to spend time with Nathan. My Uncle Allen took us out to the Arboretum in Dallas, where we had a really neat opportunity to get professional pictures of Nathan taken. The weather was perfect, and there were gorgeous flowers blooming and pumpkins everywhere. It was a really great day.

Frontier Village. Nathan loved running through here.

Pumpkins

Running through the frog fountain

We also made our 3rd trip to the Dallas Aquarium, which we love. Nathan still talks about some of the animals we saw. Uncle Allen bought him “Curious George at the Aquarium” and he loves pointing out the octopus and penguins to tell me “I saw that at aquarium!” He also thought it was pretty neat to see a jaguar there.

Uncle Allen feeding birds

One morning my Uncle brought over his guitar and played Itsy Bitsy Spider for Nathan. Nathan was interested in checking out his guitar, but the neatest part was when he hopped up to the piano and they played some music together.

My Grandma invited some family and friends over one afternoon, which she often does when we come. We were surprised and happy to have so many people come. I know it meant a lot to my grandma and I love seeing as much family as I can while we’re there

Can’t wait to go back next fall!

We made our first trip to Ocean City a couple weeks ago and had a great time. This trip was with Gary’s family, and we’re going back later this month with just the three of us.

Nathan loved playing in the sand, but wanted nothing to do with the water. He and Gary built lots of sand castles and Nathan and I took walks to collect seashells.

Nathan was introduced to his first fresh Fractured Prune donut. I’d say he was a fan, but who wouldn’t be?!

As usual, we had fun feeding the ducks (and even geese!) on the canal in front of Oma & Opa’s condo. The seagulls were quite bold.

(Note: having your two year old throw bread to ducks off a pier with no railing is really nerve racking.)

And we took Nathan on his first mini-golfing adventure. He was a fan, especially when we got to the water and he started throwing his ball in. The place we went had several different courses. We did the safari with all the big animals, but he was really fascinated with the pirate themed course and couldn’t stop talking about the pirate ship.

And! We actually got some nice family pictures! It’s a rare thing.

Many more pictures from our weekend here.

We took our third trip up to Ithaca last week and I got the snow I’d been hoping for. I forgot how snow sticks around up there because it’s so cold, so when we got in Friday there was lots of snow on the ground and we had time to take Nathan out for his first time sledding.

Saturday we went to the Science Center. I think Nathan had a great time, and we had fun playing with him. He could have easily stayed there all day!

Gary and I got to go out and enjoy dinner while we watched the Ravens game. We watched the snow coming down the whole time we were out and got a little nervous about driving home, but made it back safely. We got at least 6 inches that night, but it was so cold we weren’t able to take Nathan out for very long the next day, especially because he wouldn’t keep his gloves on.

The drive was pretty good both ways. Nathan got carsick on the way up but nothing too bad, and there wasn’t any of the bad construction traffic we sometimes run into. My mom and Nathan played a ton and she had so many great toys that we hardly touched any of the ones we brought with us. Nathan also loved chasing the two cats around the house, yelling “kitty! kitty!”. I’m not so sure they loved him back, but they were tolerant. By the end of the weekend Nathan was calling my mom “Ama” for Grandma, and Grandpa Bob was “Ahbob”. He’s carried on some very cute pretend phone conversations with them since we’ve been back.

We took our second plane trip with Nathan this past weekend, and it was another trip to Dallas to visit my Grandma and other family there. Nathan was very excited when he saw all the airplanes at the airport and loved watching out the window once we were on the plane. I wasn’t sure if he’d get that he was actually on an airplane, but as we were walking down the hallway to board the plane he got more and more excited and kept pointing to the door and telling me “airplane!”

On the way to Dallas Nathan didn’t fall asleep until 15 seconds before we touched the ground. Literally. He was happy to be in his carseat for the first 90 minutes or so, and then understandably got fidigty, so we brought out the DVD player and just about everything else we’d brought with us, and I walked him up and down the plane a few times.

Having a snack before we got on the plane.

Sleepy, but not sleeping.

Since Great Grandma is a handful to say and Nathan already has a Grandma, I started calling my Grandma, GiGi. Nathan picked up on it fast and was calling for GiGi during the entire weekend. I’d tell him we were going to find GiGi and he’d run to where ever she was yelling “GiGi! GiGi!”. It was very cute, and so sweet to see how much he loved her right away. He even called for her a few times after we got home, which was a little sad since he couldn’t see her.

Every morning we took a family walk to Whole Foods for breakfast and coffee. It was a nice way to start the day.

Saturday we went to the Dallas World Aquarium with Uncle Allen. We loved this aquarium. You enter in at the top and spiral down through a rainforest that’s filled with fish and other animals. There are also other great areas with fish, sharks and land animals.

Saturday evening we visited my Aunt Helen and Uncle Arthur and then went out to dinner. Nathan was not entirely thrilled to be at a restaurant, so we took turns walking him around outside until food came. Gary found a dog statue that Nathan had fun with and it kept him entertained.

Sunday morning was low key at home. Since we didn’t bring lots of toys with us, we had to keep Nathan busy and ended up spending time outside playing in the leaves. The weather was gorgeous most of the weekend.

Sunday afternoon my Grandmother had friends and family over to see Nathan. I’m so glad she does this when we visit because its really nice to see everyone and for Nathan to spend time with family he doesn’t see much. Once everyone left Uncle Allen broke out his guitar and played a little for us. Nathan was fascinated with the guitar and loved the music.

Nathan started trying to copy how we look when we take pictures. Here he is pretending to use GiGi’s camera.

GiGi & Nathan (and me).

Monday morning it was time to pack up and go. By this time Nathan was just bursting with energy and didn’t want to listen to anyone. I think it was a combination of wanting to express his opinion and independence (which he’s been wanting to do a lot lately) and having been in a new place and different timezone with a new schedule and us constantly keeping after him to make sure he didn’t get into anything he wasn’t supposed to. We were lucky that he slept well throughout the trip (minus the 5am wake up the first morning), and on the plane ride home he fell asleep before we even took off, and slept about half the trip.

As usual, I went way overboard on pictures, but they’re all here.

We took our second trip to Ocean City last weekend. This time it was just Nathan, Gary and I. Lots of sun, LOTS of heat, and it was a lot of fun. We went to a water park where Nathan could play in the kiddie pools, walked the boardwalk, played in the sand, fed the ducks, and ate lots of junk food. Perfect!

Nathan LOVED playing in the sand. At first he was tentative and he had no desire to get near the water. But once he noticed all the birds, he just took off chasing them. And eventually he plopped down and ran his hands through the sand, picking it up, letting it fall through his fingers, covering his feet in it…

Even tasting it…

Here, Nathan is giggling at Gary’s fake hiccups. Lately, this has become a guaranteed way to make him laugh.

Watching the kites on the boardwalk.

Taking a break.

On the way home we stopped in Rehobeth for lunch, and I loved the boardwalk there. Much less crowded and low-key than the OC boardwalk and lots of nice stores to browse. And did I mention it’s like 5 minutes from the outlets? Yeah, another plus. Maybe next summer we’ll visit there again.

More pictures here.

Sorry if you get to the beach and find the flowers on your deck are somewhat mauled. Nathan decided it would be fun to grab the buds a few at a time and throw them off the side, over and over. And I had to take a few pictures before I made him stop, because it was cute.

Love, Danielle

So we went to Ocean City this past weekend (post on that I am sure is coming from Danielle). While we were there we visited Candy Kitchen and were subjected to the kid-wants-something impulse purchase (not our first, we also had to buy a rubber duck in the grocery store because he saw it and started whining). They had a bunch of beanie babies at kid’s eye level and Nathan really wanted one. We found the husky one and bought it for him because he likes Fen so much.

Now he’s played with stuffed animals before but usually he was just casually interested, but this time he just loved it. He played with it most of the weekend and slept with it on the ride home. In fact as soon as we got home and came downstairs he took his new dog (Slushie) and put him in Fen’s crate and closed the door. Unfortunately I was too slow with the camera to catch that one.

Nathan giving Slushie a kiss

The ride home

We made our second trip up to Ithaca, NY July 4th weekend to visit my mom and attend my15 year high school reunion. The visit itself was good and the reunion was not as torturous as I’d anticipated, in fact parts of it were actually fun. The drive was longer than we’d expected (why is there ALWAYS construction near Scranton, PA? Ive been doing that drive for 15 years and there is always some roadwork going on there that screws up traffic) and so it was kind of an exhausting weekend, but definitely worth it.

Nathan loved exploring my mom’s house and playing with all her cool musical instruments. I think his favorite past time was probably chasing her poor cat around.

She had a little yellow plastic chair that he’d push up and down her hallway.

And we had fun bouncing with him on her trampoline.

Is this house just a big playground for kids, or what?

Many more pictures here.

We took Nathan to Ocean City, Maryland this past weekend. It was his second trip down, but since he was three months old when we went last summer, this was the first time he really got to experience everything.

Turns out, Nathan really liked the beach. Here he practicing his cool beach baby pose.

Checking things out.

Playing in the sand.

Hanging out in the hole that cousin Jacob dug for him.

Trying to eat the sand…in fact, he really seemed to like it!

When we weren’t at the beach or the pool, we hung out with Oma & Opa and Gary’s sister’s family, watched birds from the deck, fed the ducks in the canal, went out for a few meals, and visited a friend in Bethany that hadn’t met Nathan yet. I wasn’t sure if we’d have enough to do since I didn’t know how much Nathan would like the beach, but we were plenty busy. And Gary and I enjoyed some downtime when Nathan was napping, either taking a nap ourselves, or catching up on reading. Gary even got to go hit some golf balls with Opa one morning.

Speaking of Opa, he and Nathan had a great time dancing.

And Nathan loved watching birds with Oma

And feeding the ducks. One morning there were nine geese that came for a visit, and Nathan got great at throwing the bread to them.

One of his favorite things to do- playing with Daddy’s Blackberry.

It was a nice, relaxing weekend. Nathan even slept great (minus waking up at 5:30am most mornings)!

Lots more pictures from the trip are here.

And our adventure begins!

Our trip to Dallas was great. Nathan did really well on the plane. He had no ear problems (thank goodness!), and he flirted with some of the other passengers so they helped keep him entertained (thank you nice strangers!) There was a 16 month old boy sitting near us on the way home and Nathan was SO excited about him, jumping all over the place to look at him, and the little boy kept coming over to say Hi to Nathan. It was very cute. Toward the end of the three hour flights Nathan got a little fidgity so we had to provide a lot of distraction, but all in all, he did great. We were very proud

The visit itself was also really good. My grandmother was just thrilled to see Nathan and it made me so happy to see her so happy. We saw lots of family and friends at the open house my grandmother had on Sunday. It was a good sized crowd, with Nathan as the guest of honor, so he was spoiled with warm Texas-mom (and dad) love. What is it about those Texan women (or is it southern women in general)? They just fawned over Nathan and gave him so much love. He was perfectly happy to visit with everyone and be held and carried around, no complaining, no stranger anxiety. It was great!

Besides the open house, we visited some cousins, listened to Uncle Allen play guitar and sing us songs, and just hung out at my grandmothers.

Listening to Uncle Allen sing

Using mom’s hair as a harness

He loved this big bear

Nathan didn’t sleep very well at night, but we managed by switching him between the pack-n-play, the carseat and in bed with us. Strangely, he napped great during the whole trip. And even with the time change and weird sleep schedule, he remained happy and charming.

Monday, Nathan woke up with some seriously gunked up eyes and didn’t seem to feel too well. It was the only time during the trip that he was kind of fussy. We had our pediatrician’s office fax a prescription to a local pharmacy and gave him drops before the plane ride, and they helped immediately. He was still pretty gooky on the plane, but it was an improvement at least.

Nathan started clapping while were there, and as mentioned in a previous post, got to try his first sippy cup. He also got to take his first shower and seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

Thank you to everyone in Dallas that lent us things for my grandmother’s house…the pack-n-play, the highchairs, the crib sound machine and the exersaucer were so so helpful.

Goopy-eyed baby on the flight home

And as usual, there are more pictures in the photo albums section. Check out the album titled Dallas January 2008.