Our trip to Folly Beach, SC

DAY ONE
Friday, September 24th

After we had lunch, and packed up the car, we headed to Charlotte. We had decided we were only going to go half-way and stay in Charlotte with Chad and Christina. Natalie absolutely HATES riding in the car for any length of time, so we knew that in order to keep everyone sane, it would be better to just drive 3 hours, as opposed to 6. The first part of the ride was ok. We have a portable DVD player for the car, and that definitely keeps Abbey entertained, but Natalie doesn't really care about it so much. She was getting cranky, so I started feeding her some Goldfish crackers. A few minutes after that, she threw up. Oh joy. I assumed it was just car-sickness, wiped her off a bit (it was just a tiny bit of puke) and we just kept going. I think she might have napped. Then, we were about 15 minutes from Chad and Christina's and Natalie really starts puking. We had to pull over and everything. I felt bad for her, but after a few minutes, and throwing up about 3 times, she seemed to be doing alright enough for us to get back on the road. We got to Chad and Christina's, cleaned her up (and the car) and she was just about right as rain. We enjoyed a fairly chill evening at their house. Natalie made herself at home in Jaw's crate.

DAY TWO
Saturday, September 25th  

Saturday, we didn't head out of Charlotte until after lunch, since we couldn't check in at the beach house until 4. So we had Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then left. Natalie did ok. She was very fussy and cranky until I sat in the back with her. Probably kind of dangerous seeing as I wasn't really in a seat, but perched on top of luggage, but you know what? It made her happy. And it stopped the crying. And we all just wanted to get where we were going! Although I did have to get back in my assigned passenger seat for the last 20 minutes of the ride to help Matt figure out where we were going. In this 20 minutes, Natalie screamed the whole time and Abbey kept yelling that she had to go pee. So we did find a place for Abbey to go to the bathroom, and we FINALLY got to the beach house! Norman and Robin were already there, Chad and Christina had followed us, and Carly would be coming later (she works in Charleston so was coming afterwards).
After a quick look around the house, and figuring out what rooms everyone was going to get, we headed straight to the beach to check it out!

 

Abbey was hesitant at first, but after realizing how fun it was, she finally let the water touch her feet!

 Natalie had absolutely no fear (as always) and went straight for the water.

DAY THREE
Sunday, September 26th

This was a BEAUTIFUL day. We couldn't have asked for a better start to our beach vacation. The water was warm, the sun was shining, and everyone was in good spirits!

 Unkie (Chad) and Abbey building a sand castle. Abbey ADORES Chad.

 The beach

 Natalie playing in the sand.

 Back at the beach together after 6 years!

Carly and Natalie playing in the sand.

 Abbey loves her Daddy too (I love this picture SO much).

 I love looking at this one. Amazing to see the size of the ocean in comparison to Abbey!

  Three lovely ladies!

After dinner at the Charleston Crab Shack, Noni (Robin) and Abbey cuddled up and watched Brother Bear together.

DAY FOUR

Monday, September 27th

RAIN RAIN RAIN. A storm blew in Sunday night. And I mean, BLEW IN. The house was rocking and swaying all night. And it rained just about all day long. We used this day to go to the SC Aquarium. Abbey had a BLAST and Natalie liked looking at the fish for about 10 minutes and then wanted to go off on her own. Day 3 (third day in SC anyway) of vacation is ALWAYS rough for me. I don't know why, but I'm always a cranky butt on Day 3, but I tried to get over it and have a good time. The aquarium was interesting, but I found myself trying to contain Natalie most of the time we were there. But thank goodness for my wonderful family of in-laws. Without them, I might have lost my mind. :)

 Matt, me, the girls, Chad, and Christina went out to eat at Taco Boy for lunch.

 The otters were probably our favorite thing at the aquarium. I couldn't get a very good photo of them (those suckers are fast!) but here are Robin and Abbey taking a look.

 Chad in the shark cage.

 Abbey picked up and held a sea urchin (I didn't get a photo of that, there were too many people crowded around this area) but she would NOT touch a sting ray. Natalie on the other hand, was keen on diving right in there, and would have if I didn't have such a death grip on her. :)

 This is what the beach looked like that evening.

DAY FIVE

Tuesday, September 28th

This was our last day at the beach. :(

Luckily, it was another gorgeous day! Natalie took an early nap, and Matt, Abbey and I enjoyed some time down at the beach together. We even saw dolphins! I didn't get a photo of them, but they were SO close and there were about 10 of them, and they kept surfacing. It was so neat!

    An amazing double-rainbow! The colors playing off the water were so cool. What a nice end to our stay!

And, it would be wrong of me not to mention this lovely lady:

This is a fertily statue that I found in the room Matt and I were staying in. I found it within SECONDS of us deciding to stay in there, and IMMEDIATELY removed it. I hid it in Chad and Christina's room! It became a game between us and Matt and I would find it back in our room, and we would hide it in theirs again. I can't say much more (since Christina might be reading), but let's just say that this game isn't over yet! *insert evil laugh*

We drove the entire 6 hours back on Wednesday. It wasn't bad at all. Natalie stayed fairly content, and slept the last 2 hours. YAY! You could definitely tell she was happy to be back home though! I think we all were.

Overall, it was a WONDERFUL time. I love being at the beach. There's nothing like the ocean to remind you how small you really are, and how big the world really is.

FLEAS!

TreeBeard. That darn cat.
Let me start by saying that the flea situation is taken care of. I hope.
I suppose it all started when TreeBeard, one of two of our indoor cats, escaped into the wild for 3 days in July. I'm guessing some rogue flea laid eggs on him or something. There wasn't much sign of the horrible pests until a couple weeks ago when I noticed both the cats scratching. I thought to myself, "Self, you should probably go get some Frontline or something." But then I didn't.
And then it got worse. And then I noticed little black things coming off of them when they scratched and when I brushed them. And then I saw an ACTUAL flea. So I brought home some Frontline.
I applied it to both cats (I'm sure Olive is REALLY happy with TreeBeard). And the next day, it was like the fleas were running for it. Jumping ship, but not really. They were flocking their poor faces, and the cats were running around like someone had lit them on fire. I was cleaning the house like I'd never cleaned before. Matt said he wouldn't mind the fleas sticking around if it meant I would be cleaning this much. Oh ha ha ha Matt.
Well the Frontline seemed to do the trick, but I still got a couple Capstar pills that would make sure to kill 'em dead. And giving the cats the pills wasn't nearly as death-defying as I thought it would be. In fact, I would say it was EASY. No blood-shed or scratches or anything. Awesome.
And Matt is bringing the carpet van out to clean the carpets. So yay!
Let's hope the fleas stay away!!

In other news, TreeBeard managed to escape again the other evening. We didn't even notice. I think he must have gotten out when I came home from work one evening. It got to be about 8:30 pm, we were watching some tv, and I heard a cat howling at the front door. "What cat is THAT?" I said to Matt. He goes to the door, opens it a crack and then says "It's TREEBEARD." Gracious. At least we know that he may still want to get out, but he's not keen on spending DAYS out there.

We love you TreeBeard.

It's Happening!

So, the house is officially FOR SALE!

Wish us good luck while we try and sell our house and look for another.

Natalie's 15 month check-up

Natalie had her 15 month check-up last Friday.
15 months?! What?!
Yeah.
She's weighing in at 21 pounds, and she's 31.5 inches tall. Tall and lean they tell me. I think she's just perfect.
Here's a photo of her while we waited for the doctor to come in.

Then she got TWO shots. She's a real champ about it really, but she gave the nurse a look of pure hatred when she was done. And even as we were leaving she was pointing at her as if to say "Did you SEE what that woman DID TO ME?! And you're just letting her get away with it?! DO SOMETHING! She's RIGHT THERE!"

After the doctor's, we headed to Backstreets for lunch with my mom. Natalie enjoyed the baked ziti, and some ham & pineapple pizza. We loved spending time with Grandma too. Out of several attempts, here is the best picture we captured.

Then we headed home, and Natalie passed out in the car. Matt and I even got to enjoy watching half of a movie while she napped at home!

Well...

I suppose I'm not very good at this so far. Although, I shouldn't sell myself short. It's been incredibly busy for me lately. The students are back at VT, and that makes life a little more hectic. I just haven't had the time to focus on blogging.
A few things going on in our lives:
We're counting down the days until the beach! Abbey and I made a paper-chain counting down the days. I made the mistake of telling Abbey we were going to the beach back in July. So we've been counting down the days ever since! We're heading out September 24. I'm so excited! The girls have never been, and it's been several years since I've been.
We are in the process of getting our house market-ready. We'll probably be putting it up for sale in the next few months. I have to admit that I have my reservations about it. Am I ready to be out of that house? YES! We have outgrown it by a mile and the 30 minute commute to anything is wearing me down. But the process of moving and finding care for the girls...that's very nervous-making. Things will work out how they're supposed to though. And I have complete trust in Matt. He knows what he's doing.
Natalie is moving up in daycare-land. She's spending most of her time in the Toddler Room, as opposed to the baby room. She even has her very own little cubby. No more diaper bag to take to daycare. She'll be 15 months old tomorrow! The time does fly. Miss Francis at the daycare asked me if I was ready for her to be moving up to the other room. I said I wasn't sure about myself, but there is NO DOUBT that Natalie is ready. She's so over all the baby stuff. She's only nursing in the morning (sometimes) and then at night. I'm not even doing my "motherly-duties" at work anymore. I'm happy and sad about this change.
Natalie is such a different child than Abbey. I envision the way they will get in trouble in the future, and believe me, they WILL get in trouble. I imagine their conversation being something like this:
Natalie: Come on Abbey! Let's go do something extremely out of bounds and mother-terrifying!
Abbey: Sure that sounds like fun! I like having fun! Fun is fun!
Natalie has no respect for the word no. In fact, I do believe she thinks it means "keep doing that". She hits, she bites, she gets ANGRY. She's like a little Incredible Hulk. She screams and says "NO" in a way I can't even imitate. But she's also a real cuddle-butt and I love her oh so much.
And it's not like Abbey doesn't have her struggles. She's pushing her limits (and ours too) so much these days. Seeing how much she can get away with. She's been openly mocking our punishment techniques and laughing when we trying to be serious with her. She's been sent to her room several times in the past week. She hates having to go to her room and be all alone. No one there to react to her fake crying and other attention-seeking methods. For the most part she's a good kid, but right now she's just learning. And it's definitely testing my Mommy-Patience.
But man are they cute, and man are the a blessing, and man don't I just love them to pieces.

Natalie's Progress

So, not only did I neglect a few words from Natalie's vocabulary in the last post, she has learned some new ones in the past couple days. Maybe I can remember all of them now (although I'm sure I'll skip something because my brain hasn't been the same since I was pregnant with Abbey).

Words she already knew that I forgot: No, uh-huh or mmhmm (for yes, with nodding), Olive (the name of one of our cats), juice. (edit: she can also say "Wazzat" which means, What is that?, and "Wherdoh" which means, Where did it go?)
Words she just learned: shoes, Alana (the name of a baby at daycare), outside

She can also put her arms into her shirt, and her legs into her pants, and holds out her feet to put her shoes on. If she SEES her shoes, she HAS TO HAVE THEM ON immediately.

One day soon, I hope to post some videos. These girls of mine are a riot, and I just can't explain well enough with words how crazy they can be together. Of course, every time I get out the Flip to capture something hilarious they're doing, someone falls down or gets hurt, and the video just isn't what it should be.

Let’s Get (Re)Acquainted

So I've joined the blogging world. I figured it would be a good way to keep up with the ever-changing and evolving lives of friends and family, and let you in on some of the moments of our family as well. I may or may not be very good at keeping up with it, but I'm going to try!
For starters, I'm going to use this post to catch you up on the more mundane aspects of our lives as a family.

Susan & Matt: Our story is a funny one. Well, maybe it's only funny to us. We originally met in 1999 while I was at a party my parents didn't know I was at (sorry Mom!). I had a boyfriend at the time. I'm not sure if Matt knew that or not. If he did, it didn't stop him from sitting next to me on a couch, talking with me, and proceeding to put his hand on my knee. Can you believe it?! Well, I immediately removed his hand and said, "Um, I have a boyfriend." He scooted a little farther away and said, "Oh it's cool. It's cool. We can just talk." Which we did. But we didn't see each other again until...
About 4 years later, I was dating the same boy as before, and Matt was working at Taco Bell with a friend of mine. I was waiting in the lobby for them to close the restaurant so that we could get to my friends' party (another party? surely not! HAHA!). Matt says I looked lonely and kind of sad sitting out in the lobby by myself. I don't remember feeling that way. Regardless, he threw a couple Hershey Kisses at me to cheer me up. I still have them. We had an instant connection and within months we were inseparable. We were married on June 11, 2005. We're currently living in Pembroke, VA, but we hope to get back into the Blacksburg/Christiansburg area in the next couple years.

Susan: I'm currently working at Virginia Tech in the Hokie Passport Office. I've been working there for about 5.5 years now. I like my job, and the people I work with, and I don't see myself going anywhere anytime soon. I turned 28 in July. I enjoy planning parties, especially bachelorette parties, bridal showers, baby showers, and kids' birthdays. I hope to do it a bit more professionally one of these days. Most of all, I enjoy being a mom.

Matt: He's been working for Quality Carpet Cleaning for about 7(?) years. He's an extremely hard worker. The company is responsible for cleaning several apartment complexes in Blacksburg, so they are at their busiest during the Summer. I think Matt is still searching himself for his true calling, and I know he'll figure it out eventually. He turned 30 in May. He enjoys playing the drums (just like his dad!), but he hasn't been in a band in awhile. I know he'd love to get back into it SOON. He's a FANTASTIC husband and father.

Abbey Louise: She was born in March of 2007. Abbey never went through much of the "Terrible Twos" but she is definitely a Defiant Three. She pushes her limits and thinks much more logically than I think a three year old should. She is full of love, laughter and kindness. Oh, and little mischief and attitude too. And I wouldn't have her any other way. Right now, some of her interests are: singing, dancing, reading, playing with her little sister, animals, pretend-play, Wonder Pets, Blues Clues, Imagination Movers, and Dora the Explorer (I don't care for Dora, but as parents we make sacrifices right?). She loves most fruits and vegetables, but getting her to eat any kind of meat that isn't in nugget or hotdog form is a challenge. Since she was born, I've called her my little bunny rabbit, and I think that describes her personality fairly well. She hops from one thing to another quickly and with enthusiasm. She's bubbly and cuddly. I'm still wondering how she got to be such a little girl and not a litle baby. Every day she appears more grown-up and it's going by too quickly!

Natalie Marie: She was born in June of 2009. She is fearless, strong-willed, and short-fused. She also loves to give hugs and kisses. She's my little bear cub. Full of cuddles, but watch out for claws! She is much more determined that Abbey was at her age. She loves playing with her big sister and learning from her. You can just see her saying to herself, "I know I can do that!" as she watches Abbey. She went from crawling to practically running within months. She's a good eater, but does NOT like many vegetables. She enjoys playing with the cats, playing with Abbey and Abbey's toys, looking at pictures, dancing (she can really shake it!), and playing in the water. Words she can say: Mama, Dada, Sissy (she can't do "Abbey" yet though), kitty, hi & bye (and waves too), woof woof, moo, and baby. She can show you where her eyes, teeth, fingers, hands, belly button, hair, ears, nose and toes are. She can follow directions very well. She understands A LOT more than she can say. She likes to look at books, but only on her own time. She doesn't sit and let you read to her unless she wants you to. Her favorite books are the ones with real photos of people or animals, and she also loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear.


And that's our family in a few short paragraphs! I hope to update often with much more interesting posts. I'm really hoping to capture and record some good memories, and funny things that these girls of mine say and do. I hope to entertain you as much as they entertain me every day!