More Trip Pics

Just a few funny pics from the trip here:

Doesn’t this just scream Texas? I mean there is a stereotype for the Texas woman and this just plays right into it. (Sorry it’s blurry, I haven’t mastered photography at 80+ MPH)

The official cheese filled snack of NASCAR. Um, why does NASCAR need an official cheese filled snack? What other brands were in the running? (These are Combos, by the way. A road trip tradition in our family)

Trip mascot Death Match. Bevo vs. Kung Fu Panda (my Happy Meal toy). At this point in our trip we were channeling the Griswolds. Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong. While I was checking out my panda toy I flipped the switch on the back only to have the thing start shrieking at me, waking Daphne. Crap! Crap! Crap!

And she’s a little Texan now! Watch out!! This was taken at the Texas rest stop. Can I just say how much I appreciate Texas’ great rest stops, and they even have free Wi-Fi. I love Texas.

Let her eat cake!!

Ok, I just have to say that I had nothing to do with the following pictures (Daddy doesn’t want her to eat sugar). Her Poppa brought home the cupcakes. But, she really loved them. Chris, look what happens when you leave town.

Fireworks Photography

Just a few links with tips on getting great fireworks shots:

Photojojo: 11 Tips for Sparkling Fireworks Photos

Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider: How to shoot fireworks

NYIP Fireworks Photos

Digital Photography School’s How to Photograph Fireworks

D700

A few weeks ago I heard some rumors about a Nikon D700. It appears the rumors were true. The Nikon D700 ships at the end of the month. Unless Chris gets an insane amount of photography business in the next few months, I doubt we will be getting it. It’s $3,000 and basically a D3 in a D300 body. A new flash is being released too.

I’m not a new gadget girl, but I’d love to play with this.

Ergo Love

This is just another plug for babywearing. We made the decision not to take our stroller to Chicago last weekend. I wasn’t going to gate check our nice Zooper stroller, and didn’t feel like buying a cheapy umbrella stroller, so we carried Daphne in the Ergo. It was great in the airports (getting on escalators instead of trying to find an elevator, hopping up on the rental car transport van). It was also nice to carry her on the actual plane in the Ergo, that way I had my hands free to stow her diaper bag and my purse before getting her car seat installed in her airplane seat. I can also see how a pouch, ring sling or Moby wrap would be awesome for holding a smaller baby in your lap, if you decided not to buy them a seat. Something to think about for the next baby.

In fact, while riding on the escalator at O’Hare I thought to myself that I’m going to buy an Ergo for a shower gift for every family member and close friend who has a baby. Then I found out that Ergo was raising their prices this week and won’t allow discounts anymore. I suppose that’s still ok. They are worth it.

There was a babywearing conference at DePaul last week, which is so funny to me. Because for YEARS while we were visiting downtown Chicago my dad would drag us to DePaul and buy a hat or shirt or something (He did most of his bachelor’s at OU, but finished up a few years later at DePaul). This time I might have actually wanted to go to DePaul. Oh well. I was hoping to see a few babywearers at O’Hare. No such luck. Saw a few people with Bjorns, but nothing else. I did talk to a woman with a baby just 6 days older than Daphne. She had an Ergo too (but not with her). We bonded over babywearing and organic baby food. It was nice.

Anyway, if you are interested in babywearing check out thebabywearer.com and try to find a local babywearing group. I plan on trying to find a group here in Houston so I can make sure I’m using my new Solarveil and Maya Wrap ring slings correctly. I’m looking forward to using the Solarveil in the pool. Maybe this weekend!

BFFs

Meet two of Daphne’s new BFFs:

This is Abby, she’s my parent’s last remaining Westie. If Snuffleupagus and a normal Westie had a love child, the result would be Abby. She has some health problems and is on medication that keeps her heavy with scraggly hair.

Here’s Ginger. She’s a firecracker!! Shih Tzu’s really have fun personalities, and she’s really good around Daphne.

Right now, both dogs are stationed underneath Daphne’s high chair, hoping to get a few dropped Cheerios. They realize they will get more “treats” now with a baby in the house. Smart girls. Earlier, Daphne pulled off the top to her Gerber puffs container and spilled them all over the floor. Abby & Ginger were like sharks with chum in the water. I suppose it will get more interesting when Daphne can fight back.

Home

After a hellacious trip through Louisiana yesterday we finally got to my mom’s house in Katy around 3:30pm. Between accidents, traffic and sick, teething baby it took a few more hours than we expected. At one point I was in the back seat trying to feed and entertain Daphne. Of course, she had been screaming for an hour or so. Nothing was making her happy, she just wanted out of the car seat. So I had to play the clown and try and get her to laugh. We did peek-a-boo for what seemed like an eternity. Then we tried to sing. She really liked the The Name Game song, you know, “Jenny Jenny Bo-Benny, Banana-fana…” It didn’t take long to run out of the obvious names, then I started singing the verses with whatever I could see. Car Seat. Chicco (her car seat brand). Then Chris started to call out requests from the front seat. Things like Atchafalaya. You know, it takes some concentration to sing The Name Game with Atchafalaya. Go ahead, try it.

After a nice meal, we crashed. Chris had to be at the airport early this morning for his flight back to Birmingham. Today he is finishing up packing, meeting with a few more realtors and prepping for the carpet cleaners. Tomorrow my dad is flying up and they will load the moving van and we will officially be living in Texas. Maybe when I see my stuff here it will seem more like we live here, and less like a vacation.

Today

Just a few from today:

Carseat Head. The trip to Baton Rouge took its toll on Daphne’s pigtails. I promise at one point they were going out from her head, and not the one up/one down thing going on in this photo.

Getting ready to go to the hotel pool.

And our trip mascot on the hood of the Scion.

Trips

Greetings from Baton Rouge, LA! Daph & I are relaxing in the hotel, while Chris is out getting food. As usual when traveling with a baby, it took a little longer than we expected. Daphne is sick (I’m going to blame her little Typhoid Mary cousins, Sydney & Avery. I’m kidding, I don’t have any proof they were sick, it’s just a common occurrence for people to get sick after visiting with them) and she was so needy last night and today it was nearly impossible for us to get anything done around the house. Unfortunately that means Chris will have to pick up the slack later this week when he goes back to B’ham. I’ll be glad when this week is over.

Lucky for us, Daphne was in good spirits the whole time we were in Chicago. She did very well on her first flight and for the most part was great, even though all her feeding and nap times were completely screwed up. We spent the weekend at my Aunt Jackie’s house and went to the big family reunion picnic and a 1st birthday party for my cousin’s son. The picnic was held just a few blocks from where we lived in Oak Forest, not that I remember the park. Family picnics were a big thing for my grandfather’s generation and about 5 years ago his remaining 4 siblings (he was one of 7) and my Aunt Jackie got together and started them up again after many years. I swear for the first hour we were there I didn’t recognize a single person. Luckily they had name tags indicating who each person was related to. And honestly, the focus was on the Cubs-White Sox game and there wasn’t much interaction between the various families.

Eventually my cousins started to show up. It was cool to see how everyone had changed over the last ten years and meet their kids. My cousins Heather and Trish both have 3 kids each and they look exactly like them. We then went to my cousin BJ’s house. (Actually he goes by Bruce Jr. now, which is a good thing. BJ is kind of an unfortunate nickname these days.) They had 30+ kids and 90+ adults for a 1 year old’s birthday. Holy crap. And the best part? It was mainly family. Yep, all those Irish Catholic relatives and their big families. I hadn’t seen BJ, or my cousins Mike & Jeff in probably 12 years. We didn’t stay long, just enough to make an appearance and head back to Jackie’s for some leftover Aurelio’s pizza and margaritas. And yes, my dad & I (the Southerners) brought the margarita mix and tequila. Jackie and her husband are more the NPR/fine wine set and probably don’t drink margaritas that often.

I think the best part of the weekend was looking at old photographs. My cousin Helen gave me a copy of a photo of my dad’s mom. She passed away when he was 13 and honestly, I didn’t really know what she looked like. I also saw a few more photos of my Aunt Pat, who passed away before I was born. And learned that my grandfather (who used to play professional baseball) liked to dress up as a woman for Halloween. Weird, huh? And more information than I really needed, actually. Looking at pictures of my dad as a kid always cracks me up. You know that commercial for the Orlando tourism board with the father that becomes a kid again? It reminds me of my dad. His little boy pics look like someone Shrinky Dinked a 45 year old businessman.

I have more I could say, but I really need to wind down. Chris just flipped on the TV and the 2004 OU/LSU Championship game was on. Coincidence? Nah, I think Baton Rouge is taunting us.

Back!!

We are back from Chicago! Thank goodness. Not that it was a bad trip, but I’m exhausted. Tomorrow we are leaving for Houston, so that means that I still have to finish packing up the house tonight. Luckily I can sleep in the car. Hope everyone had a great weekend and look for our Chicago pictures on my Flickr account later this week.