My brother is getting married this weekend!

I can't believe my brother is getting married this weekend!  I am really looking forward to it, although I think I would be much more excited if we were going by ourselves and not taking Lola.  I really want to be able to enjoy time with my family and it's hard with a toddler who likes to scream and run around like a chicken with her head cut off!   We got a babysitter for Saturday night of the wedding, but we are taking her to the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. 

The wedding is going to be outside (in Chicago) and the weather is looking to be absolutely perfect!  High of 72 and low of 59.   In the month of September, Matt will get married, graduate from graduate school, and turn 30!  That is quite a month. 

I will post pictures when we get back. 

clothes

Lola and I went shopping at Gap this morning for some jeans (for her).  We are doing a photo shoot for a local magazine on Wednesday and we are supposed to wear jeans and a neutral top.  Her jeans were too small and short, so off we went.  Nothing like buying jeans when it is 100 degrees outside.   I really don't like shopping, which I don't think is totally normal for a girl.  When I do go I am usually in and out in a matter of minutes.  I hate browsing sale racks for hours, it's something my friend Tracy does well, but I just don't have the patience for.  I picked out some jeans for Lola and off we went to the dressing room.  This was a new experience for me.  I have never had Lola try any clothes on before in a store.  I actually left the dressing room door open so the stroller could hang out - it was a bit tight in there.  It was pretty fun.

As we were browsing around, I noticed a pregnant girl and her mom picking out some maternity clothes (maternity is temporarily in the middle of the infants/toddlers department while they remodel).  This gal was a little pregnant, I could see the beginnings of a belly, she is probably due in January or Feb at the latest.  Her mom is picking stuff out for her and she is commenting on how big everything is and that she can't possibly wear that because it was so big.  I snickered to myself, remembering when i actually bought a few XS maternity tops and outgrew them in a matter of weeks.  Now I wonder why they even make XS maternity anything!?  Pants maybe, for the teeny gals, but no matter your size, an XS top will not fit you very long.  They bought quite a few things, all in XS, and went on their merry way.  I remember the point at the very end, 36 weeks and on, when even the size larges seemed to be getting too short.  That is when I realized why they make the larger maternity clothes so long -  they have to be otherwise your huge belly will hang out of the bottom!  I'm not a big person, but I had a few XL tops at the very end and I was thankful for those.  Not sure I will even pull out the XS tops next time around!   :)

Vacations!

I've been on 2 trips in the past 2 weeks!  Ryan and I went to Sonoma at the end of July for a little wine tasting and relaxing.  He wanted to visit some wineries that are very small and up-and-coming.  A couple of them already distribute their wines in Missouri, but a couple of them don't, and he is hoping that changes.  Our wine tasting trips are not exactly like other people's wine tasting trips, he actually 'works'.  We don't swallow very much wine, we spit most of it (unlike the girls we saw during lunch one day who were hammered from tasting wines all day).  We ate at some wonderful restaurants - one in San Francisco called Dosa, which is a Southern Indian Restaurant.  Different than a normal Indian Restaurant in that the cuisine is somewhat based around a Southern Indian tradition of Dosa's, which are puffy bread like things.  It was wonderful.  We also ate at a couple of great restaurants in downtown Healdsberg (Sonoma county).  We couldn't have asked for better weather either. 
My parents watched Lola for a whole week while we were gone!  It was nice to have some alone time.  When my parents picked her up from our house and took her to Fort Scott, this is the picture they sent us of the car ride home.  Isn't my child amazing!?  Look at the tricks she can do with her toes!  Gross....   :)

Anyone want a cracker? 

We stayed at Forth Winery in their guest house.  This is one of their vineyards.  They are a very small production winery. 

Jann and Gerry Forth have sheep roaming their vineyards, and these are the dogs that watch over the sheep!  Rather large eh?



So moving on to my 2nd trip, my future sister-in-law, Sara's, bachelorette party in Steamboat Springs, Co.  It was a great time, although one more day there would have been nice.  I had met Sara's sister Blake before, but not her older sister Becky or any of her friends.  I knew her friends would be cool since she is, and I was right!  It was great getting to meet everyone - there were 12 of us total.  It will make the wedding so much more fun now that I know all of the bridesmaids and her close friends.

The whole gang - we went on a hike, it was beautiful!

I was going too fast for Becky to take my picture...

Sara (center) with her older sister Becky (left) and younger sister Blake (right)

Bad day

I’m already annoyed with a lot of things today…


1. My husband, who is being a complete ass right now. I make all kinds of accommodations for his crazy work schedule, and I’m always okay with it. But the one week I ask him to help me out with my schedule since I am going to be gone this coming Friday thru Sunday, he is super grumpy because I’m messing up his workout/running schedule. Seriously!? We got into a huge fight last night.

2. This heat and humidity – 84 degrees at 7:30am and with the heat index it felt like 90. Why do I live here again?

3. The carseat in my car. It’s pink with flowers (Britax, very expensive, given to us secondhand by a friend who only used it gently for 2 years). I hate having a pink carseat in my car. Every time I see it I hate it, but it was free, and if I would have bought it outright it would have cost me $300. So I deal with it, but today it is bothering me more than usual. It’s not even a pretty pink, it’s a mauve-ish color. Gross and cheesy.

4. The gas station on Grand street. You have 8 pumps, and 7 of them are not working! Really? Yes, I know you are a crappy gas station that has a bad rap because there have been some shootings there (they don’t call it murder-mart for no reason), but if you are going to let all of your pumps fall apart why don’t you just get rid of them? That way I won’t drive through, my car running on fumes, and have to go somewhere else that isn’t exactly close.

5. Family Pictures. We got them taken 3 weeks ago and guess what? It was almost 90 degrees that day by 8am. I sweat through my shirt within the first 5 minutes. Lola was not cooperating at all. The whole point of taking them was to get some good 18 month shots of her, and to get at least one good family picture. Well, we failed with the second part. All the family pictures were horrible. My hair frizzed up immediately and my bangs looked like one big sweaty chunk. Ryan wore flip flops which looked really bad, he has very ugly feet and they just didn’t look good.

I think that’s all for now. I know this is a very negative post, but I feel so much better for getting this off of my chest. ;)