Monday, September 29, 2008

Trip number two - baby free!

With the Wilsons - friends from the beginning of
Andy and Geoff's McKinsey days
(it was supposed to be a "White Night" event -
we're not usually quite this dorky!)


After 19 months, we finally found an excuse and a way to get away for a short trip without Hannah. My mom graciously agreed to come stay with her while we went to The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia on a McKinsey retreat. (Things you'll never do through your public school job...) Mom was thoroughly worn out by the end, but considering the hurricane that didn't hit us, the AC that died after we came back, and the cold she got on the way home, things could have been a lot worse!

We did pretty well about not missing Hannah except when we were around the cute toddlers other people brought with them. Of course some of those were Houston folks who had planned baby-free trips only to have to make last-minute changes and bring the family along. If you have to evacuate, a nice resort in the mountains with child care isn't the worst place to have to go!

Having enjoyed the mountains in Maine the week before didn't stop us from getting out as much as we could in the mountains of West Virginia. We were just a few ridges away from Virginia Tech and in very familiar territory, so I greatly enjoyed the visit "home". We were able to again hike and kayak - though this was our first kayak on a river and it was just lovely. The river felt a lot like the North Fork of the Shenandoah that I spent a lot of time on growing up, so I was loving it! I also managed to fit in my first ever facial, and it left me wishing I had oodles of money to blow on things like that on a regular basis!

There aren't any more photos because who remembers to take them when Hannah's not around?

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Vacation number one

Sunset Farm, Mount Desert Island, Maine
(For the record, it's pronounced more like a treat after dinner rather than a hot place with a lot of sand. As in French for bare mountains. Apparently the locals just call it MDI.)
September was a busy travel month, so I'll try to get all of the adventures in before the end of October! The first week of the month, we went to Maine for a week at a house near Acadia National Park with Andy's family. The house was actually a duplex of sorts that was an old farm house on 100 acres with access to Long Pond and a canoe and kayaks. A mile up the road was a lesser-traveled section of the national park with lovely hiking trails. And there were blueberries - lots and lots of late-season blueberries! (And mosquitoes, but that wasn't so bad with a big house with new windows and screens to hide behind when needed.)

Hannah had a great time hanging out with her cousins, Elliot (4 1/2) and Juliet (2), and getting out to enjoy the mountains and coast. Okay, they're pretty small mountains, but there's also an ocean, so it's all good. We hiked, with and without Hannah in the carrier, ate popovers at Jordan Pond, canoed and kayaked, swam in not-too-frigid Long Pond, and spent some time exploring the shore.

I'll leave the rest to the photos from Karen's (Andy's mom) awesome camera!


The family at the shore - Grandma Karen, Cousin Elliot, Aunt Anna, Cousin Juliet, Grandpa Jack, Aunt Claire (Andy's sister), and you know the rest. (Missing was Andy's brother Nick, who just started a new job, which meant a move to Denver where Claire is - yay, but he couldn't get away for vacation yet - bummer!)

Brave kids with cold toes.

At Jordan Pond - very excited about a Dog

Using Daddy's Princeton hat to make Hokie colors. Very clever!

Forever to be known as the ice cream cone photos. Amazingly, Hannah didn't seem to notice that she was the only one without one. One of the many benefits of thumb sucking!