Wedding Season: The Hires

A few weeks ago, we headed to the Maryland coast to celebrate Andrew and Melissa's wedding, bay-side. This marked mine and Jody's first getaway together without Zoe. Needless to say, we were pretty excited...and a little nervous to leave our girl. It helped that we knew she'd be in great hands with Jody's mom staying with her for one day/night and then my parents coming in from Michigan for the rest of the weekend. She had a blast with her grandparents and she was a great girl for them all.

Now, onto the weekend. We flew into Baltimore on Thursday morning and stayed at Lisa and Avi's place on Thursday night. It was so awesome seeing them all. Jody and I got there before Lis and Avi were home from work, so we got a chance to babysit and play with Edin and Adam. So. Much. Fun. The kids adored Jody. He was the ultimate play pal. He taught them all about underdogs on the swings, gave them Gatorade and did plenty of chasing, jumping and upside jiggling. Edin even asked me, "Can we keep him?" So sweet.

On Friday, we headed to St. Matthews, a cute waterfront town along the Chesapeake Bay. Friday night was the rehersal dinner at the Crab Shack. That night there was a high tide in the bay, which meant the rehersal dinner was a bit, well...wet. The water came up above our ankles. So we ditched our shoes, the guys wore shorts and we all enjoyed splashing around as we enjoyed fresh crab and fried chicken. On Saturday, Jody played golf with a bunch of the guys, while I tooled around town with Steve, Jeremy and Karen before the wedding Saturday night. The ceremony was right on the water and so beautiful. Melissa was a gorgeous bride and they were both so happy. The reception after the service was a blast. The dancefloor was insane and Jody got to learn some sweet new bouncing dance moves with The Europeans. The alligator/"Taking Care of Business" dance that some of you may remember from our wedding actually originated in Hire's family. So, of course, that was a real crowd pleaser. We had so much fun all weekend celebrating with great friends. Congrats Hires!

Wedding Season: The Walshes

The happy couple bustin' a move

We've had a fun couple of months of celebrating weddings. First up was on "my side" with Katie and Michael's Chicago wedding back in July. Katie was one of mine and Courtney's first friends that we made our freshman year at IU and we remained great friends our entire time there and beyond. Katie and I lived together when we moved to Chicago and spent that first year out of school trying to figure out real world. Now, 10 years later, it was awesome to see her getting married and starting a new life with a great guy. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Walsh!

The wedding itself was fun. Katie looked beautiful and both the bride and the groom had huge grins plastered across their faces the entire day. The reception was in the Saint Ignatius cafeteria. And the word "cafeteria" is a total injustice. It was such a cool space, with a ton of windows and a gorgeous courtyard/garden.

Courtney and Jeremy stayed with us for the weekend, which is always the biggest treat! Last time Courtney was in town, she won over Zoe with her iPhone. This visit, she busted out the big guns with the iPad, and Zoe was all hers! Of course, I know it's more than just Court's sweet technology that Zoe loves, but it sure does help break the ice.

Our senior year 801 roomies (sans Katharine).

Butter Baby

Zoe may be a mini Jody clone, but on the inside she has plenty of me in her. Last night she proved that she doesn't share some of Jody's strange food aversions when we headed out to Stanley's for dinner. Zoe has been kind of hit or miss at restaurants lately, so we were thrilled that she was behaving herself and having fun. I credit her happiness to butter. Yup, butter. (Butter happens to be in Jody's top three most hated foods along with chocolate and all things white and creamy.) When Zoe saw the butter packets on the table she went to town. She actually took a handful of my coleslaw, dunked it in a butter packet and ate it. Jody's worst nightmare. Here she is dunking her french fries in the butter and, of course, offering some to Daddy--who was literally cringing at the sight of all that butter.

Swim Fans

A couple weekends ago we headed out to the 'burbs for a day with the Kleinfelders. It turned out to be a gorgeous day despite some major thunderstorms in the morning. Zoe and Mason did some bonding in the baby pool. Zoe was her usual cautious self in the water, but eventually she warmed up to it...well, as long as the sprinkler wasn't going at the same time.

Charlie also joined in the fun, running around, swimming in the lake and enjoying some serious doggy time with Favor. Even though Favor plays it super cool with him, I think she likes having a fellow four-legger around. Zoe got a little freaked out watching Charlie swim in the lake. I'm guessing that seeing just his head bobbing around in the water was a little scary for her. But every time he came out of the water and shook off, she calmed right down. Very sweet how protective she is of Charlie these days. We had a great time, as always. Thanks to Bonnie and Roger for being such awesome hosts!

Teething Much?

For the past couple weeks Zoe has been in teething hell. She has about four teeth coming in at once right now. She's been dealing with it all reasonably well, although meal times have not been the most fun. She's also chewing on pretty much anything she can get her hands on. We need to always have some sort of chewy toy/food/etc. ready. I learned that lesson today when we were on our Charlie walk and Zoe decided her shoe looked like a tasty thing to gnaw on. So gross.

New Scootitude

After getting sick of his Rocketa scooter dying at the end of every summer, Jody decided it was time for an upgrade. Enter the Honda Metropolitan. A much nicer, more reliable and all around cooler scoot than his starter scoot. I, of course, still refuse to ride it. But I am tempted because this new one is a pretty sweet ride. Jody's been enjoying scooting to work, the beach and all around town this summer. He's still working on building a scooter gang, so let him know if you want in.

Better Late than Never

For some reason or another Jody and I felt like we didn't really need to do the whole child-proofing thing. Maybe we were just lazy. Or maybe we just had too much faith in our little girl. Probably lazy. Zoe's been on the move for a while now, but she is not quick enough or quiet enough to really get into any major trouble. Well, wait, I should put that in past tense. She was not quick enough. She is now. A couple weeks ago, I finally had enough and told Jody we had to get some child locks. Stat. (He came home from work that night with enough locks to childproof 8 condos!)

Every time I turned around, Zoe was playing in the pantry, in the pots and pats, under the sink, everywhere. She didn't get into anything dangerous, but she sure enjoyed making a mess of everything. The thing is, I felt really bad putting locks on all the cabinets. She loved playing in the cabinets, and she loved her pantry diving most. Find Puffins, open box, dump all over floor and, finally, enjoy a snack of crushed Puffins on the kitchen floor with Charlie. Good times.

So far she has been handling the new locks quite well. A little frustration and confusion at first, but now she mostly just steers clear of her former fun zone. And I am a lot happier not to be stocking and restocking the pantry 20 times a day. Below is video I took for Jody when he was at work, so he could see her first reaction to the anti-Zoe cabinets. So sad.