Photo a Day | September 2013 | Week 1

September is here and another Photo a Day list to tackle.

9.1.13

Together

Ahhh... a lovely night with the hubby. Jesse informed me a few nights prior that Riley was going to her grandparents on this night. Sweet - some alone time and hopefully a chance to sleep in. As we left Jesse's moms' house I announced the prompt of the day and took this picture only to discover he gave this pretty face. I took other pictures, but he insisted on this one. Fine by me, weirdo.

9.2.13

My name begins with...

This magnet board (or whatever it's called) sure brings me back to when I was a kid. This one was given to Riley by her grandma Linda, but I had one of my own. I remember it being Christmas of about 1977 when I went to visit my brother in juvie and he gave me this. He even pulled me to the side to present it to me - like we were having our own special moment. I absolutely loved it and loved the attention that I was getting from my big bro.

9.3.13

Lines

A sticker mural in Riley's room. This company had a lot of really fun wall stickers.

9.4.13

Alone

Stupid sleep issues had me up at about 3:30 am. I tried to get back to sleep, but by 4:20 I gave up and went downstairs to eat. Later, I was able to fall back asleep for about 15 minutes before my alarm went off at 6:20. Sigh.

9.5.13

Here forever

Jesse decided to reward Riley with a new game for doing so well at her new preschool. He bought this silly princess cupcake game which I thought we would have lost half the pieces by now (see cat in picture). A week later and all pieces are still together and it totally keeps the kid occupied. Sometimes she wants Jesse or I to play with her, but luckily she just wants to build to cupcakes and not follow the game rules. I love how long she can actually spend playing with this game. 

9.6.13

Getting ready

Packing up the kid's backpack for another day of preschool. I love how she wants to wear this out to the car each morning. Such a big girl.

9.7.13

White

My dad worked in heating and air conditioning for 40 plus years and was part of the Sheet Metal Credit Union (Local 10). When I was younger we'd often go to credit union events and I always won something (popcorn popper, 13 inch TV...), so when my dad said the union was having a picnic and there would be food, games, and prizes I thought what the heck. Jesse, Riley, my dad, and I headed out to Highland Park (why have I never been here) and had fun (despite the sweltering heat). Entering the prizes worked a little differently so I wasn't able to enter, but my dad did. He intended to enter the kid's prizes so he could try to win something for Riley, but instead accidentally entered the adult prizes... and was a winner. He's the proud new owner of golf balls. 

9.8.13

Made by me

Riley and I were playing with some new beads we bought and made a necklace for Olivia whose birthday party was later this day. These beads have been a huge hit.

First day of preschool

Last winter I started thinking about when we might send Riley to preschool. At the time Riley was going to an in home daycare that we absolutely loved. She went Monday - Thursday and stayed home with her dad on Friday's who has the type of job that allows him to work from home while caring for a kid. I can't even imagine. At any rate, I didn't mention preschool as an option to Jesse right away as I thought he would be hesitant to make that change - again, because we loved her daycare so much.

We went to Riley's 3 year old wellness exam and the doctor suggested that we put her in preschool when the time was right. To my surprise, Jesse was all over this. A couple months later we started our search for the perfect preschool, but apparently April is too late in the season to be looking for September. About half the places were already full. After an extensive search we got on the wait list for one place and were able to secure a spot in another. Eventually, the wait list opened at the first place, but we declined. They had an awesome curriculum, but it also came with a cost. In the end, the place we selected just felt right.

Having to end Riley's daycare was way more difficult for me than having her start preschool. Her daycare providers, Char (and Chris), have been awesome and such a big part of Riley's life since she was 3 months old. I remember being so scared to drop off my colicky baby thinking this Char woman was going to regret ever committing to watching our baby. Luckily, Riley was phasing out of the colicky stage and (I'd like to believe) became a favorite of Char's.

Huh, Riley even kinda looks more like Char than me...

When the last day of daycare arrived, I took off work early as I wanted to be able to say my goodbyes face to face. Char sent a text asking for us to make it quick since she was holding back the tears - it was just too hard. The goodbyes went fine (I cried later - I'm sure Char did too). I'm not sure Riley understood that she wouldn't be going to Char's again (we'll visit, and Char will watch Riley from time to time, but it's not a weekly thing anymore).

We'd been talking about school for some time - hoping to prepare her for the change. The week before school started we took her to visit and after a few shy moments she seemed fine. In the days before school started she was sharing with everyone that she was going to go to school. So excited!

On the first day of school grandma came by to be part of the drop off. Of course, we took pictures and then headed off to school.

Riley did great. She ran right over to all the toys and had a 'no big deal' attitude when we left. She gave us kisses and hugs and then went back to playing. Jesse later went back to drop off a blanket for nap time. She didn't see him, but he peaked in the room and saw her happily eating her lunch with the other kids.

It's now day three and she's continued to do well. Way better than I expected (and better than I think I would have done at her age). I'm so proud of her an her ability to adapt to new situations. Before we started preschool I worried about making the change at this time, but in the end I know that this is the right thing to do. This girl craves learning - something I hope is lifelong - and will flourish in this environment. I can't wait to see what this next year brings.

Photo a Day | August Week 5

One more month and then I'll likely take a break from the Photo a Day project - only because the days get shorter and shorter making taking pictures more and more complicated.

8.26.13

Entrance

We didn't get outside to play much this past week because it was so hot and humid, but now that its cooled off I anticipate some more pretend dinners served out of here.

8.27.13

10 Minutes from home

Ok, so I fudged a little on this one. This is probably about 2 minutes from home, but the only place that I would be 10 minutes from home would be in the car. And I am guessing it is frowned upon to attempt to take a picture with an iPad while driving. Plus the above felt like it was worth documenting. Here we bring Riley to visit her preschool for the first time. As usual, she was shy for the first few minutes, but then dug right into playing with the toys and hanging out with the kids that were there. I hope she still likes it when she's there for an entire day.

8.28.13

Corridor

Go almost to the end, swing a left, and find the glorious world of my cubicle.

8.29.13

Lucky

First of all, I'm just lucky to have this girl as my daughter. But I was extra lucky this day because I got to work a half day and then go pick Riley up from her last day at her daycare. We've never had any concerns about her care with Char and Chris - they've been so great with her. We love them so, but it seemed right to put her in preschool now. It was emotional for this part of her life to come to an end, but Char and I both held it together when saying goodbye (I later cried - and jeez, I'm getting tearing eyed right now).

8.30.13

Cluttered

Cleaning out a drawer at work which was actually less cluttered than my desktop. Soy sauce anyone?

8.31.13

Dangerous

I think Diablo's favorite thing in the entire world is to be brushed on this table on this deck. But, to have an uncoordinated 3 year old brush him is another story. She actually did quite well this time (no unintentional head bonking, no cat nipping) so we were safe this time.

8 years ago...

8 years ago today I went on my first date with Jesse. We met on match.com and I have to admit that I sighed a huge sigh of relief when I met him. I was only on there for 2 weeks, but I did some power dating (I think Jesse was my 5th date) and was exhausted. I hadn't dated like that... ever. We both removed our profiles shortly after meeting and never looked back. I'm not sure I knew he was the 'One' at that time, but I knew he was worth getting to know.

We don't celebrate our 'first date' anniversary, but I was recently perusing our wedding and honeymoon pictures and I started to reminisce. We were married in St. John, USVI about four and a half years ago. The ceremony was just Jesse, myself, the officiant, and the photographer... and a well placed video camera to film it for Jesse's mom.

The reason I was recently looking at our wedding pictures was because we plan to update the photo above our bed. I think we'll use the same picture since we love it so, but make it bigger, put it on canvas, and maybe change it to sepia from the current black and white. The way we have it now just doesn't quite fit our room.

At any rate, this post is really an excuse to show off my wedding/honeymoon photos.

Our first night we stayed on the island of St. Thomas. Once we moved to St. John the next day we still had to come back here to get our wedding license. One of the reasons we picked St John was because it is part of the United States so there wouldn't be additional obstacles to having our wedding be official. Puerto Rico was another choice, but we thought the beaches in St John were a little more pristine and since we were getting married on the beach it became the deciding factor.

We stayed in that pink building with the white curtains at the base of the hill.

Once on St John we settled on the quieter side of the island, Coral Bay. Up on a very steep hill. It was gorgeous, but I couldn't imagine having to drive up and down this steep road all the time - especially when the weather was foul. It was a bit scary for me so I always made Jesse drive.

Driving to the quieter side of the island

Where I recovered from heat exhaustion - more to come on that.

Our villa was actually a private two building space (and totally worth the treacherous ride). One building had the bedroom and a bathroom with an outdoor shower. From there you would head outside and go down some stairs to the patio (with jacuzzi tub) into another building which had a screened in room (above) that included a dining area, and a kitchen, living room, and second bathroom. It also had a porch on which we sat every morning and watched the birds and the lizards. There were these tiny little lizards that were everywhere. They were totally harmless, but I'm surprised we didn't step on any because they really were everywhere.

View from our porch

We had our wedding a couple days into our trip and then enjoyed the rest of the week as husband and wife. I loved our officiant because she was more on the earthy side than the religious side. She catered the ceremony to what we were comfortable with and helped us select a beach to be married on (Trunk Bay). Our photographer was awesome and put my husband at ease. As I've noted before, he's not a fan of having his picture taken.

I love that we got married this way - just the two of us. I love our family, but this was such a special moment between Jesse and myself. Plus, I'm not the center of attention type of person. We had a small party a few weeks after we returned home to celebrate and it all felt so right. I can't imagine having a large wedding for us.

Not sure if you can see it here, but there is a bruise right above my elbow. Two days before we left on our trip I was standing on the kitchen counter with my flip flops on (I know, I know) and fell. It was like slow motion on the way down - all I could think of was how I needed to avoid my face, and luckily did, but I got my arm and leg pretty good. Needless to say, I learned my lesson.

 

We were married in the evening so we spent the day at the beach, and then took a nap, and then leisurely prepared for the wedding. I have to say it left me a little groggy in the end. Perhaps we should have gotten married bright and early in the morning. I have no regrets though... except I wish I would have just let go and let my dress fall in the water. I can be laid back and easy going, but in some ways these two pictures capture us well - Jesse with his pants wet in the water just caught up in the moment, and me never fully able to let go - always worried about something.

With our time left on the island, we hung out at a number of beaches, went snorkeling, saw the Annaberg ruins, went hiking, and ate lots and lots of food (pictures likely not in the correct order).

Annaberg Ruins

The British Virgin Islands can be seen behind us.

Cinnamon Bay

Salt Pond Beach - husband's tattoo says "every day is a good day". That it is.

Trunk Bay - we were married down there!

Trunk Bay has a guided snorkeling area. There are signs under the water all around that island. It's pretty cool, but the water was a little rough when we were here so I only did part of the tour. 

Hiking at Ram's Head where I built these rock statues and then made Jesse take pictures of them.

Above is the picture we have above our bed, but want to redo a little. Taking this picture was a coordinated event. I suggested we do it, Jesse collected the coral, I created it, he took the pictures while I told him when a cloud would be over head so he could snap away. Sounds more complicated than it was and well worth it.

Ram's Head trail

You may not be able to tell above, but my head was about to explode. I'm really sensitive to heat (but so prefer warm to cold) so we took this trek early and brought lots of water. Didn't matter because in the end I still ended up with heat exhaustion (heat stroke?). It was bad - I didn't think I was going to make it back to the car. Usually, when I get a headache that bad it lasts for days so I was surprised that by the afternoon (after cold, wet cloths, ice packs, fans, a nap and a little throwing up - tmi?) I felt way better. Jesse now knows it's no joke when I start to overheat.

Snorkeling at Leinster was fun, but also a little scary for a poor swimmer like me. I wasn't really seeing anything but maybe a starfish or a fish here and there so I wasn't that bummed about heading back to the beach. Guess I missed out though as Jesse got to see and touch, yes touch, a turtle. I think it might have been one of the most important moments of his life (the way he tells it).

  

Oh also? It was about this time that I started having issues with dry eyes and couldn't wear my contacts very much. I was worried I wouldn't be able to go snorkeling because how do you fit goggles over glasses, but I was able to rent prescription goggles for the week and it was awesome. Everyone probably knows this is possible, but it was an amazing discovery for me.

Those sunglasses are prescription so I'm actually blindly looking at the camera.

I have to admit that while the food on the island was good it was a little spendy. There were a couple places we favored including the place we ate on our wedding night which still stands out as the best restaurant I've ever eaten at. It may have been the euphoria of just getting married, but I still loved it.

Thanks for humoring me and taking this trip back to 2009 with me. We had a such a fantastic time visiting this tropical getaway and would recommend it for someone looking for a relaxing vacation or a place to get married.