Columbus Zoo & Camping

Last weekend we decided to stop at the Columbus Zoo since we were already passing through the area on our way to go camping. I have been wanting to go all summer long, but since I was gone about 3 months, it never happened. If we end up moving in April, which looks likely, I would have been so sad if we didn't hit up the zoo. We were there on a Friday morning and had the zoo practically to ourselves. The weather was crisp, but enjoyable and most dads were working, therefore families weren't at the zoo. Adeline LOVED it!








After the zoo, we headed up to where we met a big group of people to go camping. It was chilly, but a lot of fun! Adeline has been asking for weeks to go camping, so she finally got her wish. I was a little worried because I didn't bring a potty to go camping. Luckily once I showed Adeline how to go to the potty when we are camping, she loved it. Abe even found her with her pants down, squatting and going to the bathroom by herself right next to the tent. She had no problems going #1 or #2. In fact, another family had a camper and Adeline refused to go in that potty because she wanted to go outside. When we got home from our trip, she kept telling me "I want to go potty on the grass".... uh, No.

Scare

So last night before I put Adeline to bed I started having back and stomach pain. A couple hours later, still hurting. However, at this point, I was actually having painful contractions at different intervals and they were getting stronger. So I laid on the couch for awhile to see if me resting (I seem to have a problem with that concept lately) would help, but it didn't. After laying in the bath for awhile and still having contractions, my doctor told me to come into labor and delivery.

What was determined? Not much. The test to make sure I wasn't going into pre-term labor could not be determined, but everything else looks good... except that I kept having contractions. They monitored those and the baby's heartbeat while I was there. They finally put me on an IV and then had to give me a shot to get rid of my contractions, which worked thank goodness! We got back home just before 4am and crashed. Today I am feeling much better and am hoping that I don't start having contractions again. Their advise...? Keep it easy.

Raspberry Picking

Last week some friends and I ventured out to go raspberry picking. It was pretty cheap and so much fun to pick our own raspberries! It seemed kind of counter productive for awhile because every time I felt like the container was getting full, I would look in it and it would be almost empty. Adeline did a good job of helping to pick them, but she did an even better job at eating them! Finally after awhile, she handed me the container and said "no more. My tummy is full". She had a blast and loved hanging out with friends. This is just another reason why I LOVE ohio!




{Best Friends}

Bless her heart

The other night when I put Adeline to bed, I put her in zip up, one piece flannel pajamas. Of course I put a diaper on her because even though she insists on wearing panties, she is just too young to make it through the night without wetting the bed. At least for now. So pretty much every night we get into a little argument about it until she finally gives in and lets me put it on.

Now, if you don't know Adeline's personality very well, she is just about the MOST INDEPENDENT barely 2 year old that I am aware of. She HAS to pick exactly what she is going to wear every day and sometimes it takes up to an hour. She also HAS to put on every item of clothing ALL BY HERSELF. She has to pick out exactly what she is going to eat, in what color bowl, with what color spoon, etc... You get the point. She won't even let me help her click her into her car seat. At least she is capable of doing these things by herself.

Back to my story... so I put her to bed the other night. When I went to check on her a couple hours later, she was sound asleep in her bed, however, she had changed her entire outfit. This is how I found her:

She took off her one piece flannel pj's, took off her diaper, put on a t-shirt, a coat, underwear, pj bottoms, 2 different colored socks, and SHOES! I could not stop laughing. She is so funny.

While we are talking about Adeline, here are a couple of videos I'm sure the grandparents will like:

{gymnastics class}


{a little interview w/ Adeline}


Right now Adeline:

-LOVES to do the dishes. And she is actually pretty good at it.
-Is very social and talks to random people while we are out... even telling them about her panties and such
-Whenever we offer her something and she doesn't want it, she says "um, i'd ok", (I'm ok)
-always says "a kiss and a hug?", and wants to give you one
-loves cats, the color pink, books, kids, babies, talking on the phone, being outside, shopping, candy, princess dresses (or anything princess), gymnastics
-thinks her baby sister is in her tummy. She always asks me to place her hand on her belly and makes it move and tells me the baby is awake and kicking
-Talks, talks and talks... she never stops talking
-very sensitive to others and caring
-loves singing

EUROPE

Europe was so much fun! I am kind of overwhelmed doing a post about it because we went to so many places and saw so many things that I don't know how to narrow it down. Sorry for the picture overload...

First of all, after 3 days of trying to get on an airplane to Germany, we finally made it there! That was quite the adventure in itself. When we got there, we rented a car and started our journey. Our first stop was COLMAR, FRANCE. Abe went on his LDS mission to Belgium, France & Luxembourg, and Colmar was "in" his mission. He had never been there, so thought it would be fun to go. The town was so charming and it was fun to walk around and sight see.






Next stop: INTERLOCKEN, SWITZERLAND
I loved this place! The first night we went to the train station and picked up our travel buddies, Amanda (my sister) and her husband Mason. We got on a Gondola that took us up to the little towns in the Alpes, which have no vehicles. We started in Murren and then walked to another town called Grimiwald. The Alpes were huge and so pretty. Abe and Mason already want to plan another trip there in the wintertime to go boarding and such. While we were there Amanda talked them three into going bungee jumping 450ft over a glacial lake out of a gondola. I was happy to be pregnant that day... an easy out. It was fun watching them though!















CINQUE TERRE, ITALY
After spending two days in Switzerland, we drove to Italy. We took a train into the 5 cities and did the Via dell'Amore (Lover's Lane) hike. All the little cities were so charming and OLD. I loved every part of the cities, minus all the tourists. We also got some beach time in and rented some incredibly expensive lounge chairs on the beach. One of my favorite things here... Gelato!










ALICE BEL COLLE, ITALY
We stayed here kind of by accident. We randomly picked a place on the map to split up our long drive from Cinque Terre, Italy to Paris France. We arrived at our hotel pretty late and were wondering if we were in a bad part of town, or where in the heck we even were because it seemed like we had driven on so many switchbacks. In the morning we were pleasantly surprised to look out our window and see that we were surrounded by vineyards on the top of a hill.





ANNECY, FRANCE
This was another town we decided to stop at on our way to Paris. I loved this place as well. It was so charming and was right next to a beautiful lake.






LOOK at this gross bathroom that I had to go in. Not easy being 6.5 months pregnant and going in/on this thing.


PARIS, FRANCE
We spent the most time here (haha, 3 days). I loved our hotel and it was fun to go sightseeing. It seems like people always talk about how dirty paris is and how rude the people are. I beg to differ. It was surprisingly clean and the people were so nice. One of the days we walked about 7 miles and stood for several hours more on top of that. We thought it would be a good idea to see the entire Paris on foot. Great because we got to see so much, bad because I felt like I was going to die by the end. In Paris we said our goodbyes to Amanda and Mason who took a train into Germany to fly back home.















BRUGGE, BELGIUM
This was probably one of my favorite towns (out of Annecy, Colmar & Brugge). I loved the look of the buildings, the little town square, shops and I LOVED how everyone rode bikes there.





LUXEMBOURG CITY, LUXEMBOURG
We didn't actually stay the night at this place, but stopped by on our way back to the base in Germany. Abe served a lot of his LDS mission here, so it was fun for him to reminise a little bit. Unfortunately we hardly had any time to spend here because we were rushed to make it back to base to wait on a waiting list to see if we could get a room that night. I'm happy to say that we did get a room and didn't have to pull an "all nighter" on the streets or something.





Our travels home went a lot smoother than getting there. We decided to hop on a military commercial flight that was carrying a bunch of troops home from Iraq. It was only like $27/per person and was a REAL flight w/ flight attendents, hot meals, movies, etc. Well worth it. It flew to Baltimore, so we just stayed a night in Baltimore and bought flights home the next day. If anyone is Military and wants to travel to Europe via space A... talk to me first. We learned a lot!!

I.Love.her

(click on picture to enlarge)

So we are finally back from our trip. This week has been a crazy one and I am just trying to get caught up on life. Abe and I had the time of our lives in Europe. I promise to post pictures in the next couple of days when I have an hour or so to spare.

I missed Adeline SO much. I cried every time I got to talk on the phone to her. Not because I was sad, but she was just so darn cute and it would make me emotional. In fact, I feel like in this past week I have cried at just about everything that she has done. Not sure if it is the pregnancy hormones, or figuring out that she is growing up so fast... but I love her!

My mom was a saint when we were gone and made sure that Adeline had the time of her life. I'm sure she is probably bored now that I am home. She is now COMPLETELY POTTY TRAINED! (thanks mom :) Adeline knew how to go in the potty and everything before we left, but was never consistent... and either was I. My mom was not afraid to take her out in public in her underwear. This entire week we have been home, she has not had one accident and we have been out and about all week. She even insists to take her naps in underwear. So far, so good.

She talks SO WELL. She is like a little person and it is so much fun to be around her. She talks in full sentences and it's crazy how fast she is growing up.

She started gymnastics. She loves it and wants to go everyday. She is the youngest one in her class, but seems to have more interest and attention span than most of the kids. I ask Adeline, "What do you want to do today?" She always answers with " ummm... gymnastics". "Adeline, when is gymnastics?", ..."umm... today". "No, what day is gymnastics?"... then she replies "Monday!" So Mondays will be her favorite day for now on.

Trying to get to Europe....

Just thought I would update on our Europe trip so far... mostly b/c I need to document this crazy experience. So we are supposed to be flying to Germany and were planning on meeting my sister Amanda & husband Mason there. From there we are going to travel to several different countries. They bought actual plane tickets and flew out yesterday. We on the other hand were planning on flying Space A travel, which pretty much is hopping on a military cargo plane free of charge. The plane we wanted to get on usually leaves Monday, so that is when we were going to leave. Pretty last minute we found out it was leaving Friday instead b/c of the Labor Day weekend. Luckily my mom had already flown out to watch Adeline, so we heading onto the base terminal at 1pm on Friday (yesterday). We were supposed to leave at about 2pm.... well, the plane kept breaking over and over and they kept pushing the flight time. Finally after 11 hours of sitting there they cancelled the flight. Great. There was one other guy trying to get to Germany with us, so I guess we made a new friend. We had him sleep over at our house last night, and then we all drove 9 hours together to get to Dover, Delaware to try to catch flights out of here. It is now 11:15pm ( Saturday) and we still are not sure if we are going to make it on a flight. The terminal is PACKED with people. I am just hoping we can get 2 out of the 30 seats available.... even though there are WAY more people here than that.

So wish us luck. Hopfully we won't have to sleep in a chair or something tonight w/ no flights. Luckily I am not a miserable 6 month pregnant person or this would be REALLY rough.