Visiting Stevi in SC

Sabrina and I stayed overnight in Spartanburg, SC at a hotel so we could hang out more with Stevi and Ty and Paisley the next day. Our night went something like this: Put Emery to sleep in the pack n play in the small-ish bathroom. Wake up to Emery crying at 2 am covered in an entire roll of toilet paper that was apparently within reach of the pack n play. Spend an hour with Emery in my bed, smacking me in the face as she rolls and moves and gets too close to falling off the bed too many times. Put Emery back to sleep in the pack n play. Wake up at 8 am, eat breakfast, and come back to our room to find it crawling with ants. Sure, we had seen a few the night before, and I had picked one off me in the night, but in the morning, they were quite abundant. 


So the hotel gave us our money back (woot!) and we made on our merry way to Stevi's apartment to hang out. However, we quickly learned that the ants had made it to my car. Oh, the horror. I vacuumed the car out in million degree weather and we even went through a car wash, but they wouldn't go away! Luckily, they were the tiny, tiny kind of ants and not the big and scary black or red ones. But still. I had a 2.5 hour drive back to Atlanta to make and had more than a few scary scenarios running through my mind...like crashing while trying to pick ants off me, or ants eating my baby while I drove on unaware. Ughhhh. I just hate ants. Overall, we had a great time with Stevi (see incredibly adorable pics below), and made it home. Our thumbs and fingers were our best friend as we drove, killing ants all along the way.

Emery loved looking at Paisley and saying "baby, baby" while cradling her arms (the sign for baby), but was initially very timid about touching her. However, the first time I held Paisley, Emery crawled right up in my lap and gave her the sweetest hug. Melts my heart!

 I love the small-town feel of where Stevi lives. Big trees, small neighborhoods, and cute farm stores like this one that we went to. Greenville, SC and the surrounding areas are so pretty!

We all agreed that boiled peanuts taste like peas. Weird, right?

Mmmm, this baby's cheeks are to die for...

Emery was a champ on this trip. I didn't even need close to all the things I brought to keep her entertained during all the driving. I also learned that Emery is as passionate about ice cream as I am. I guess I know in the future that if all else fails, feed her ice cream. Seeing how well that mantra applies to myself, it shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and to follow-up on the ants, we have since removed everything from the car, gotten it detailed and the exterior washed and sprayed with ant killer. Then we bought ant traps which we rotated to being inside and then outside the car for a few days. And finally, almost a week later, I think the ants are gone. Whew.

Sabrina, Stevi, and Stephy Jay

As we dropped Hannah off at the airport, we picked up my friend, Sabrina! 

 Here's our history in a (very small) nutshell: we met freshman year at college. In the lovely and no longer existing Deseret Towers, our dorm rooms were next door to each other. We painted our toenails together, were late to class together, laughed and cried over boys that came and went, and ate ridiculous amounts of BYU vending machine and cafeteria food together. Sophomore year brought more of the same, and this time, the boyfriends became husbands (actually, the thing I remember most about sophomore year is her incessantly trying to force me to marry Peter, based solely on the fact that he once bought her Starbucks hot chocolate. But that's another story). We both got married that summer, exactly a week apart. 

Basically, the point is, inseparable bonds were formed. So the 2.5 years that I hadn't seen Sabrina seemed like a week for all the good chatting and fun times that ensued in this visit. 

The first thing Sabrina and I did once she got here, was drive to South Carolina to see Stephanie (Stevi) and her new baby girl, Paisley. My history with Stevi is nearly identical to me and Sabrina's. Stevi and I met freshman year, were roommates sophomore year, and got married the same summer (we like to refer to summer 2008 as summer of the S's). She's actually the reason for my nickname and hence my blog's address: stephyjay. It got confusing having two Stephanie's in the same apartment. So I went from Stephanie J. to Stephy J., to the less elementary-name-tag-sounding Stephy Jay. And we started calling Stephanie, "Stevi," and now I can't even remember exactly why.

It was so fun for the three of us to be together! The above picture is at a restaurant in Spartanburg where we ate yummy Thai food (and Emery may or may not have stolen that fork without me knowing...) I loved meeting adorable Paisley and think it's great that Stevi lives only 2.5 hours away from us here in Atlanta. 

And since I just realized that this post has not so much been documenting our visit as much as it has been explaining our history, I guess I'll change the title and do another post. Afterall, I didn't even get to the part of our trip involving ants. And cake. And more ants. And more cake...

Hannah in Atlanta (Part 2)

The rest of Hannah's visit was filled with:

 A trip to the famous "Fox Bros. Barbecue" here in Atlanta. We enjoyed trying some tasty southern BBQ.

 Swimming fun and pool hugs :)

 Playtime. Emery loved how Hannah showed her how to put the doll to sleep in the crib. After the doll was tucked in, Emery would come to each of us, put her finger to her lip, and very seriously say "Shhh."

Sunday pizza making. We made them small, large, heart-shaped, stuffed crust, thin crust, you name it!

Fun at Stone Mountain! I loved doing the "Sky Hike" ropes course with Hannah. She was so brave!

We also got to experience the Sky ride (cable car ride to the top of Stone Mountain), Geyser Towers, The Great Barn, and the 5 mile train ride around the mountain. 

One of the last fun things we did was go to the Botanical Garden. We love the prettiness of this place!

These two cousins are sure cute:

Some of my favorite times with Hannah were going out just the two of us to see "Brave," watching her and Emery play, doing the ropes course together, laughing about the cashier that thought Hannah was my daughter (which would mean I birthed her when I was 12!), cooking together, and swimming. I'm not usually fond of swimming, but Hannah made it super fun! Also, having Hannah around made me excited for when Emery grows up and can do the fun cooking and craft activities that I was able to do with Zed. I'm convinced that life just keeps getting better and better as Emery grows up, and I'm glad that my baby will always have her awesome cousin Hannah to look to as an example.

Hannah in Atlanta

I picked up cute Hannah Z. From the airport a couple days ago, and we are having so much fun with her here! I welcomed Hannah to the South with Stone Mountain's Laser Light Show, Blue Bell ice cream, and a decent little Georgia thunderstorm (though, I guess I can't really take credit for that last one).

(Laser Light show photo via visitsouth.com)

Emery is kind of a mama's girl these days, but is loving playing with cousin Hannah and pronounces her name so cute and clear! It is so fun for me to watch them play and read books together. These are my favorite photos thus far:

Some of our adventures thus far have included swimming, and shopping at Lenox Square Mall. Hannah really wanted to check out PB Teen and we both loved browsing there. We also picked out some cute new clothes for Emery. Today we went to the Atlanta Zoo, which was actually a little bit lame because all of the coolest animals weren't in their exhibits (the elephants, giraffes, rhino, etc.) We still had fun though, and snapped some good photos. This one, with a 7.5 foot long, 110 lb Komodo Dragon, is for Eli:

And here's Emery vetoing the stroller ride and demanding that she be able to walk and run wherever, whenever and into whatever she pleases (including poles. And people.):

She's really good at exerting her independence these days. At least that's how I try to think of her crazy, toddler antics.

We fill the downtime with reading and movie watching. Pete has been super busy with school and church responsibilites, so we're excited to have him join us for pizza and swimming this afternoon! Everything is a bit more fun with Uncle Pete around :) 

I love chatting and being with Hannah Z. This girl sure makes me smile!

While I Procrastinate

I've just put emery down to sleep for the night, which means im right on time for my daily procrastination of doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. I seriously don't know why dinner, the biggest mess to my grace my kitchen each day, was designed to happen in the evening, when i'm at my peak tiredness. Anybody else feel similar?

On another note, today was such a fun day with Emery! We went for a nice (read: killer, sweaty, breathless) run at Stone Mountain this morning. It's so nice to go some place different for a run and enjoy less city and more nature. Later, we went to the farmers market to get groceries. Emery will tolerate sitting in the cart as long as I push it close enough for her to grab the fruits/veggies and place (or throw, more like) them in the plastic bags. It's fun to teach her the names of different produce and very entertaining to hear her trying to pronounce things like "kale," "onion", and "apple."

Everyday seems to bring new changes in this little woman and it's so fun to see. Emery and I are so excited to have back to back visits from my niece, Hannah, and good friend from college, Sabrina! The fun starts tomorrow when we pick up Hannah from the airport. Here's Hannah and Emery shortly after Em's was born:

They've both grown up a lot since then. I'm glad Hannah is brave enough to fly by herself all the way from Utah to Atlanta to see us!

Well, it seems my dishes STILL have not cleaned themselves. Bummer. Guess I'll go do them!

 

Destin

We had such a nice, relaxing trip to Destin, Florida last weekend. We ended up staying an extra night, because when Saturday rolled around, we just didn't want to leave yet. Emery was a wee bit excited about the ocean...as in took off running for the waves the minute her little feet hit the sand:

When she saw a wave coming in, she became giggly and excited, then a bit scared as it got closer, then laughed as it washed over her legs.

The white sand was beautiful and no less loved by Emery than the water

This little girl had sand everywhere! Her hair, eyebrows, etc. Surprisingly, she only attempted to eat it once. After that, she was content to just drop handfuls of it onto everything we had brought with us to the beach (including me, as I sat reading a book in the camping chair). 

We tried to build a sandcastle, but Emery's destructing of it was quicker than Pete and I's building. 

A tip for painting a toddler's toes: do it while she's strapped in her high chair! Emery couldn't see what I was doing to her toes over the big tray and she held perfectly still, concentrating on the cool sensation tickling her toenails. Afterward, she loved looking at and touching the bright pink color.

Our two days in Destin went, more or less, like this: wake up, eat breakfast, go for a run, change and lather on sunscreen, pack up the beach stuff and walk a few blocks to the beach, play in the sand and water, come home and eat lunch, all take naps, go out and about, eat dinner, come home and read books/watch movies, and go to sleep! After our first day, all three of us came home from the beach sunburned (me the most, Emery the least). The next day, we vowed to not let that happen again and spent FOREVER lathering on the sunscreen. We're talking triple and quadruple thick layers, plus re-applying after a couple hours. And it worked! We could have just put more clothes on, I suppose. But ohmygoodness it was HOT and HUMID. We missed the record breaking 106 degrees in Atlanta, but by the time we got back home, the heat and humidity combination felt just like Florida. I guess summer has finally hit the south.

Other activities in Destin included shopping at the (supposedly nation's largest) outlet mall, which was fun and a good way to enjoy some time indoors with AC. Also, we drove down to Destin Harbor and ate dinner right next to the water. It was fun to watch the boats come in, and watch the fishermen unloading their fish. We were typical tourists and kept asking questions about the different kinds of fish we were seeing :) It was pretty amazing how quick these people could filet a fish!

One huge money saver was that we only had to buy a couple meals while we were there (I had packed a TON of food in a huge cooler). Next time, we'll do a little more research to make sure we find good restaurants, because we weren't too impressed with any of the food we bought. Sadly, Emery caught a cold while we were there, so she's got a runny nose and yucky cough (Pete and I joke that she's got sand in her lungs). Overall, it was so fun to enjoy a little family vacation, just the three of us and we're grateful that the beautiful Florida beach is within driving distance from where we live. It makes for the perfect weekend getaway!