the one with all the manatees

We had a wonderful, relaxing trip to the beach last week! It was Millie's third year going to Cocoa Beach with us, and each year gets more and more fun! 

Ever since we took our mini-vacation to Cape San Blas in April, Millie has been BEGGING to go back to the beach. Parenting pro tip: maybe don't tell your distraught daughter about your next beach trip while you are leaving from your current beach trip if there is more than about 2 days until the next one. "In July" meant NOTHING to Millie, and so it's been a lonnnng three months of telling her "not today!!" every day when she thinks we are going to the beach that day.

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me...and no one knoooooows how far it gooooooes...

But finally the day came and we got back to her beloved "BIG water!" and all was well with her soul. And mine. But then...

But then.

Then it was Thursday. Thursday, July 13, to be exact. A day I shall forever remember with fondness, joy, and delight.

On Thursday we decided to go kayaking. Same place we've gone before- the Banana River, less than a mile from our condo. The river is where my love of manatees was born back in 2010, when I unexpectedly came upon them while kayaking. I've been a woman obsessed ever since. But I've never had as much success finding them again. Occasional sightings, a glimpse from afar...enough to keep fueling my passion, but not enough to quench it, right? But I get it. It's July. It's hotter than Hades. It's not "manatee season," even though it's a manatee zone. So I keep my expectations low reasonable-ish.

But on Thursday...

OH MY GOSH THERE IS A MANATEE RIGHT NEXT TO MY KAYAK!!!

A manatee? There wasn't a manatee.

There were four.

Four giant, lovely, fat, happy, playful manatees. They were hanging out in a little cove, doing what manatees do. Rolling around, being adorable, and BE STILL MY HEART, curiously checking out the kayakers who happened by.

THIS IS MATT TOUCHING A MANATEE!!!!!!!!!

Like, they just came up to us! They KEPT coming up to us! The swam under us and rubbed their backs on the bottom of our boat! The stuck their noses up and sniffed us!!

I GOT TO PET A MANATEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot even describe this.

Over and over and over, they came up, rolled around, said hi (with their bodies. I speak the body language of the manatees, trust.).

Millie's sweet little hand got to PET A MANATEE!! She was so brave!!

Indescribable, people. Absolutely amazing. I have videos (and videos, and videos) of the whole experience and my voice is like 12 octaves higher than strictly necessary and I am gushing and nearly sobbing and like OH MY GOSH I WAS BEING SWARMED BY HAPPY, ROLY POLY MANATEES!!!

They have whiskers!! Or "beards," if you're Millie.

They showed off with cute party tricks like this!

Oh look, it's Erika tanning on the beach a manatee tanning in the water! (P.S. I touched their bellies too, don't worry. They were much smoother than their backs and didn't have all the algae/barnacles. Very interesting!)

We stayed in that cove and just watched and played for over half an hour. They never left us- they kept swimming around us and coming up. I really just cannot believe it happened. I think I'm still in shock.

This is how we felt about the whole experience.

I am just so incredibly thankful for such an amazing, unexpected opportunity. That my parents, Matt, and Millie got to experience it alongside me was even better. You better believe none of us have stopped talking about it ever since. And now that we're home, with no upcoming beach trips on the agenda, Millie asks "when we see manatees again?" and like...what am I supposed to tell her?! At least I've got a co-manatee lover in the house with me.

July 13, man. July 13. You know, on the Tuesday and Wednesday before, I'd been sick with a stomach bug and stuck in bed (so stupid on vacation!!). But on Thursday, I woke up, felt a bit better, and figured we may as well go for a paddle down the river. What a wonderful spur-of-the-moment decision THAT turned out to be!!!

millie takes florida

Last week was our long-awaited First Beach Trip with Millie!! Going to the beach with my baby was always near the top of my list of things I daydreamed about when I was still waiting for my baby to come...so no pressure, Millie, but there were a lot of years of dreaming going into this trip.

Betcha didn't daydream about the eight hours in the car it would take to GET to the beach, didja?

We joined my parents at their timeshare in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and it was truly a fantastic week. My only complaints are a) the long drive there. This baby ain't cut out for long car rides...and b) Matt was sick the whole trip. A few days he was still able to get out and do fun things, but much of the time he spent in bed or at the doctor's office...so that was a huge bummer.

Those two bummers aside, though, it was perfect! I won't torture you with a lengthy play-by-play...you've been to the beach, you can imagine what was happening here. 

Millie was initially a little hesitant to embrace the sand and the surf, but after she realized that we weren't going to just toss her out there and abandon her, she warmed up to the idea of enjoying it.

It's just like a really really REALLY big bathtub, Daddy? You promise?

Oh, this stuff is delicious!! I do love it here!

You parents with your lame smiles...a smoldering stare is what it's all about.

WHOA NOW, BATH. Watch yourself.

I'mma take a nap real quick while the Big Bath gets itself under control.

We also spent a lot of time at the pool, because we're equal opportunity like that.

My cuteness causes a riot every time I go to the pool.

 It's true, though. I have gone to this resort almost every summer since 1999 and can confidently say I have NEVER actually gotten to know other people there. I'm just not the girl that makes friends on vacation. I'm the girl with her nose stuck in a book.

But Millie? Oh, she's there to make friends. We made friends with Gideon and his parents and grandparents...we shared toys, swapped stories, chatted it up. We made friends with Catalina and her parents. They gave us tips about how to teach Millie to swim. We made friends with about 20 other families whose names I don't remember. I mean, it was pretty insane. Millie is apparently a people-person. I guess I'm going to have to learn to be one, too!

When I could tear her away from her admirers, though, Millie settled down to focus on the things I excel at...like having a nice drink by the pool.

 And eating seafood by the river (while watching for manatees, of course).

Hey wait, Mom, your drink looks way better than mine...

Matt's sickness meant that we had to cancel our kayaking with the manatees reservation (BIGGEST SAD FACE EVER), but my parents tried to cheer me up by joining Millie and me for a more low-key manatee hunt at a local manatee preserve.

My dad and Millie scoping out the scene.

I know you're jealous of my (dad's) sweet binocs...

We didn't have any super close encounters, but we did see several from a distance...and with binoculars, that's almost like seeing them up close. We saw a lot of dolphins, too, so that was good. It definitely wasn't my most fruitful manatee hunt ever, but it was better than nothing.

At least there was this statue, so Millie would know what to look for. 

For our last afternoon of vacation, we returned to what we do best: hanging out by the pool.

Millie observed that all the grown-ups wear their sunglasses up on their heads...she was super excited when my dad helped her wear hers like that, too!

Finally, after all of that relaxation, fun, and undivided adult attention, Millie decided she may as well learn to walk. So we went to the beach with a crawler...and came home with a walker. YIKES!!!!

For the record, now she is up to about 12 steps at a time. In other words, the 2016 Summer Olympics better watch out. 

hi and bye, christmas!

Millie's first Christmas(es) have come and gone...a lot more quickly than I would have liked, to be honest! And then some more days came and went and now it's practically next Christmas, so I guess I'll get around to blogging about it. Maybe.

We spent Christmas (and the surrounding days) with my family in Augusta. It was relaxing and fun and exactly the break I needed from regular life. We got to spend time with both of Millie's cousins (on that side) and all of my siblings and it was truly just perfect. There were presents and FOOD and naps and church and FOOD and friends and my dear mother even introduced us to a little something called Fireball Whisky and...yeah. My mom. Bless her. (Not gonna lie though, it was good.)

Lucky for you, I didn't get that many pictures. But we did get a few sad attempts at family pictures on Christmas morning.

Millie didn't really understand Christmas this year-- the true meaning or ANY meaning, ha. She wasn't even overly impressed with playing with wrapping paper or boxes. But it was still awesome times infinity having her there.

Carley agrees- Millie is the best! And the most kissable!

I got matching PJ pants for the ladies since (one more time!) being twinsies is the best way to show you love someone. We all have twinsie pants, so we all love each other!

My SIL Emily, my mom, me, my sister Sarah

 You may notice that my sister cut bangs so that she could look even more like me. And it's not just a coincidence that hers look like mine. For one thing, she's the one that cuts my hair...so she knows exactly how to make bangs like mine. And then she confessed that when she was trying to figure out something new to do with her hair, she just pulled up one of my pictures from Facebook and copied my bangs exactly. Her philosophy was that if that style of bangs looked good on me, they'd look good on her. And I agree! But what's funny is that when I walked in my parents' house for the first time on Christmas eve and she was sitting across the room, I had the WEIRDEST first (tiny, fleeting, ridiculous) thought/out-of-body-experience- I was like but I'm over here! How am I sitting over there, too?? OH IT'S SARAH, DUH. It was weird, like she stole my identity or something. 

Also, we were both wearing black and white striped shirts at the time and BOTH of our husbands (on separate occasions) confused us and went for the wrong sister/wife (SISTER WIVES!!! YESSSS!!!).

Anyway, sorry. I'm done talking about how awesome it is that my sister wants to be THE MOST TWINSIE EVER WITH ME.

Now I'll talk about how we are equally weird and decided that the best thing to do (besides being twins, obvs) was to take a big ol' family bubble bath with the babies on Christmas night. 

Now I'm going to do my part to keep us looking twinny and make my teeth blindingly white like hers...

Please check out that look Laney is giving Millie. Ummmm...you've got some bubbles on you, cuz.

Our post-Christmas days were spent hanging out, watching as much of the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family as possible, going on lots of walks, and eating. Sadly, we didn't bust out the Fireball Whisky again...much to my mom's dismay, I'm sure.

Mommy can't be bothered to put a bib on her little slobber monster!

 Millie did bust out her unicorn shirt, though, because she is fabulous like that.

I guess her mom is boring or something?

On Saturday Matt and I ran out to a few stores and found ourselves overcome with hunger. We decided to stop and try a Turkish restaurant we've never been to before. You could opt to sit at a regular table or A TINY TABLE CLOSE TO THE FLOOR WHERE YOU SIT ON CUSHIONS!!!!!!!!!!!! Guess which one I picked.

Ding ding ding, tiny floor table! I mean...why sit in a normal chair when you can lounge? Exactly. The food was awesome, but mainly I got to sit on the floor and it was spectacular. There were also travel brochures for Turkey and now I have a serious burning desire to plan a trip to Turkey. It seems like all you do is lounge around in hot springs and eat yummy food at tiny tables...so basically, see ya there next summer. Has anyone actually visited Turkey before? Is it as fabulous as I'm imagining? Do you think Millie would like it? Keep in mind how much she loves baths...I feel like six hours a day of hot springs would be right up her alley.

On Sunday we returned back to Athens and real life. We met some of my favorite people on earth (friends from high school) for dinner in a nearby town and Millie proceeded to have her first night of LOSING HER MIND NONSTOP AND CAUSING A HUGE SCENE FOR HOURS ON END. It was special. I'm blaming constipation, the weird lighting in the restaurant, and probably the time change (from November, remember?), too. Maybe it's catching up with her finally? Anyway, luckily these were the kind of friends who don't judge or desert you when your child acts insane, so I'm thankful for the chance to spend time with them. ALSO, and extremely importantly, Matt and I listened to about 6 episodes of Serial during our drives this weekend. It is amaaaaazing and if you haven't heard of it or started listening...DO IT. 

Monday was back to work. I eased the pain by being lumberjack twins with Millie.

What's that they say about the family that lumberjacks together...oh, okay, nothing. Well, maybe that family also gets to have fires together. And Millie would approve of that because homegirl is all about some fire. Candles, fireplaces, bonfires...we have a true flame aficionado on our hands. (True story: she even put up with TUMMY TIME, a.k.a. the devil's game, this weekend because my mom put her in front of the fireplace to do it. Fire overcomes tummy time hatred- truly, this is powerful stuff.) 

We celebrated Christmas with Matt's family on Monday evening and were showered with even more awesome gifts and food and Ulta gift cards (or maybe that was just me...). They say babies develop and change fast and it must be true- between Christmas day and Monday (what, four days?), Millie became fascinated with the bows on presents! So...yay! She was pretty happy to sit there playing with the ribbon and bows, so that was fun to watch.

Our first Christmas as a family of three was absolutely perfect. It's funny how times and days like these- the ones I've been imagining and anticipating for so many years- can feel simultaneously magical and completely ordinary. And I like that. Most of the time, things just feel right. Normal. Like I'm living the life I'm meant to be living- it's not terribly special or unique or glamorous, it isn't all sparkly and picture-perfect- but it's just truly, deeply satisfying. All aspects of it- from helping my baby open gifts as we sit by a blazing fire on Christmas, to the hour I spent pacing the sidewalk in front of a restaurant where I was supposed to be hanging out with the friends I haven't seen in years- all of it is in some way so incredibly right...it's just weird. And great. And now I'm going to stop rambling. Have a great almost-last-day-of-the-year!

mountain life

After three long months of living in Georgia, we decided it was about time to expand Millie's horizons a little and show her the world. So on Friday afternoon, we did just that- we drove up to the North Carolina mountains to gather in a cabin for the weekend with Matt's siblings, siblings-in-law, and niece and nephew! We had such a fun time- and it's safe to say Millie was pretty impressed to discover that there's more to life than North Georgia.

What is this place?! Colorful trees? Forty degrees? And I'm wearing nothing but my JAMMIES?!?

The cabin we rented had an awesome porch and some great views- we were lucky and caught probably the last weekend (or so) of pretty leaves- they were almost all gone, but there were still enough that it was pretty breathtaking! Millie was so impressed that she had to pull a Dr. Evil impersonation:

MWAHAHAHA...how about no, Mommy?

 We had a lot of fun just hanging out, relaxing in the hot tub (with adult beverages, of course), playing with the kiddos, going on a nice 'hike' (on a paved, stroller-friendly sidewalk around a small lake), doing some shopping, and eating...and eating...and eating.

I found a farm stand/bakery on Yelp that I really wanted to check out and it did NOT disappoint! They had SO MANY APPLES (and apple-y things)!!! I got a peck (ummm...yeah, if you don't happen to be an apple farmer, a 'peck' is basically a fancy word for a crap-ton really heavy bag) of insanely delicious and crispy Pink Lady apples for $9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And also quite a few other things...

Wanna know what's in the box and bag? Yeah, I know you do. How about a dozen fresh apple cider doughnuts, four apple fritters, and several caramel apple cookies? HOW YA LIKE THEM APPLES??! (No, I mean really. Literally.) It's a really good thing apples are so healthy and the healthiness of them negates all of the calories, right? Right.

All of my excitement about the apples really wore Millie out, so we had to go home and nap by the fire. It was pretty tough.

Once she regained her strength, we headed out for our hike around the lake. She enjoyed it for about half of the walk...too bad it was a walk AROUND A LAKE (about 3 miles total) and so there were no shortcuts back to the car once she started expressing her displeasure! Too bad, so sad!

Pre-walk, when she still liked us.

Eventually she fell asleep and when she woke up, she liked us again, so that was a big relief. She was glad we decided to head back to the cabin, though. She needed to spend some quality time with her cousin Eliana!

Having some girl time in the back of the car. And by "girl time" I mean that Eliana was smiling and 'talking' with me while Camilla did nasty and unspeakable things to her diaper.

Yes, minion? Come visit me as I rest upon my throne.

What's fun is that Eliana is 2.5 months older than Camilla, but Camilla has already passed her up in size. That wouldn't be particularly noteworthy except for the fact that the last time the girls were together, Eliana was SO much bigger!! So this was pretty crazy to see! But they are tied as far as Amazing Special Features go: Eliana has the most fabulous hair I've ever seen (99th percentile for sure), whereas Camilla focuses all of her hair-growing-energy on her eyelashes. It's good that they each have an area to excel in!

The weekend went by way too quickly. Before we knew it, we were headed back home. But not before a final meal. We didn't want Millie getting too used to a life of luxury and fancy beverages in the hot tub (not that she engaged in any of that, but still. She must have sensed how fancy we were.), so we had breakfast at a place a little more down home, if you will.

That's right. Country Vittles. And lemme tell ya, them was some good vittles. We opted for normal things like eggs, biscuits, and bacon, but not for lack of scarier menu options! We were quite tempted to get the liver mush plate. I mean- LIVER MUSH?! What doesn't sound delicious about that? And for dessert, the vinegar pie! YUM! Sadly, I just didn't have room in the ol' belly for vinegar pie (and also I had half a dozen cider doughnuts in the car waiting for me), but next time...for sure.

So that was Millie's first trip out of state and I think it was pretty successful. Especially the part where she didn't cry through either of the long drives (a little over 3 hours each way)! Hope your week is off to a great start, and if it isn't...then you should probably consider swapping your cereal for some liver mush in the morning. I hear it's the breakfast of champions!

tbt: pink shorts ed.

After I got dressed this morning (okay, afternoon), I realized that the outfit I selected was one I'd worn (and taken tons of pictures in) before.

I wore the pink shorts-navy tank outfit while we were vacationing in Mexico with our friends Adam and Jessie last year...almost exactly a year ago. Since it was vacation, we took tons of pictures, which meant that when I put on these clothes today, it immediately reminded me of our vacation and all of those photos where I was wearing it. 

I loved that vacation. I love Mexico, I love the beach, I love being pampered at all-inclusive resorts. I loved the girl time, I loved the couples time, I loved braving the public buses in search of 'real' Mexico (you know, outside of the tourist areas). I loved playing miniature golf by the ocean, eating plantains for breakfast, and having people bring me drinks out on the beach. In retrospect, I even love how extremely angry I was about our luggage being lost for THREE DAYS OF OUR TRIP THANK YOU FOR NOTHING DELTA. Just kidding, I still don't love that, I'm clearly still harboring bitterness.

A year ago, when I wore the pink shorts and the navy tank top, I had a really good day. I look back at those pictures and I smile at the happy memories, thankful for the opportunity for a wonderful vacation with great friends.

But a year later, here's what I'm doing in the same outfit:

Today I'm wearing my pink shorts and navy tank top and I'm cuddling and swaying and rocking a baby who can't figure out why she's so mad. Our friends Adam and Jessie came over last night to bring us dinner and to hold and admire our sweet daughter. There were no breezes off the ocean, no fruity drinks, and not a word of Spanish (or Spanglish) was spoken. When we finished eating, we had to clean up our own dishes. But man oh MAN...what a beautiful difference a year can make. 

Same outfit, same friends...but I'll take this sweet baby over a thousand weeks in a Mexican resort, hands down.

no mas vacation + menu mockery

Our vacation was delightful, if too short. Then again, even if I'm gone for two weeks, it still feels too short, so...I guess it's a hazard of having an unquenchable appetite for sun and laziness. Or something.

I will greatly miss eating beach food. You were delicious, shrimp slaw thingy. And boozy lemonade in a mason jar. My granola bar and peach for lunch today really are not going to measure up.

But I don't want you to get the impression that everything about vacation was perfect. It was almost perfect. But then my eyes were assaulted with this cocktail menu at a popular local breakfast spot.

My apologies to those of you who find their retinas burning.

PROBLEM #1: Unnecessary apostrophe usage. Apparently their menu designer doesn't realize that you never need an apostrophe to make a word plural. NEVER!! NEVER!!!!!!!! So like..."mimosa's"??!?!! You are killing me, menu.

PROBLEM #2: Curlz font. On the WHOLE MENU. For real? FOR REAL?? Has seeing something written in CURLZ ever in the history of the universe actually ENTICED someone to buy something? No. I checked, and the answer is NO. Therefore, no one should ever use it on a menu. You can't argue with science.

What's even funnier is that on the flip side of that menu was the beer menu. ALSO IN CURLZ. Haaaaaaaa. I mean...if you're using the logic of trying to have your font/design kind of match/complement what you're advertising...I can almost understand why they may have been tempted to use Curlz for the mimosas. Mimosas are what cute young girls drink! We'll pick a really cute font that will appeal to underage coeds...like...oh, Curlz! How precious!! (It's NOT precious, but obviously this menu writer doesn't know that.) But like...Curlz to advertise your beer?? Because big burly men (the target audience for the beer menu, I'll assume...although I myself am much more likely to order beer than a mimosa) love adorable fonts like Curlz? That's hilarious.

If you think I'm overthinking this, you could be right. But this is what I spend my 9-5 doing, so forgive me if it trickles over onto my vacation.

In conclusion, if you are about to go print menus for your new restaurant, please do us all a solid and DON'T USE CURLZ. Or unnecessary apostrophes.

Also, in case there was any doubt...I did not order anything from the cocktail (or beer) menu. I can't support nonsense like that.

We came back home Saturday after a layover in Augusta to pick up Lola, who spent our vacation bonding with her grandparents. She did just fine, minus the nightly storms and fireworks that prompted my mom to send me frantic texts saying Lola is really scared of storms!!!! Is there anything I can do to help her??!!?! Poor scared baby. No. The only solution is more cuddles (which my mom graciously gave her).

Matt's family all came to town (while we were out of town) for the Fourth, so we spent Sunday hanging out with them. That meant I got to meet and spend some cuddle time with my newest niece!

I swam and sunned, she contemplated life and/or her finger.

Today isn't off to the greatest start. We woke up this morning to discover that we'd accidentally left the fridge cracked open last night...so it's nice and room temperature in there now. And so is all the food. The food we just bought at the grocery store last night. Uggggghhhhhh. So I'm choking down my coffee black and tearing up at the thought of my boring and half-completed lunch, since I can only eat the non-refrigerated portions of it now. Oh well. At least the fridge isn't broken. That's something, I guess. And the freezer stuff is fine. So...looks like a big grocery run is in our near future.

This afternoon we're going to a prenatal appointment with J! I'm excited and nervous. She's 36 weeks now! We don't think she'll be getting an ultrasound today, but it will still be nice to meet her doctor and see the hospital she'll be delivering at. And hopefully hear the baby's heartbeat! (Also, I feel like I should point out that I just spelled that heartbeet. Which is awesome and hilarious. So those of you that comment that you feel really paranoid leaving comments/emails because you think I will judge your grammar...please know that I just wrote heartbeet.) (But I corrected it, and that's what counts.) (I feel like heartbeet is probably some kind of heirloom vegetable someone would sell at the farmers' market for like $9/lb. Organic, of course!)

Have a great week!