Plane Ride

Eliza took her very first plane ride over Easter weekend. We were super nervous since we decided to fly "Infant in Arms" instead of buying her own seat. (Cheapskates.) We had valid reasons for concern. Eliza likes to constantly move, my friends. Sitting contently on a lap? No. She is a wiggle worm; she pulls, yanks, tears, puts-in-mouth everything she can reach. We were also overwhelmed thinking about lugging a bunch of baby stuff, and a baby, around the airport. Plus, we didn't want to pay (cheapskates) to check any bags. Therefore due to some very creative (skimpy) packing and my mom having a well-stocked house, we ended up only taking 2 small rolling suitcases, a backpack, a diaper bag, and one large toddler car seat. This feat of minimalism would've been hard to accomplish if we were going anywhere other than Nana's house, but for this trip it worked!

After doing some research on traveling with a car seat I came across this little gadget: traveling toddler car seat strap. It was inexpensive (remember, cheapskates?) and a good solution! It basically turns one roller case and car seat into a stroller. It was pretty easy too. It took a little practice to get the tightness of the straps right but once at the airport things went fairly smoothly:

1. Take car seat out of car and decrease recline of seat. 

2. Use strap to attach seat to case with LATCH system. (A matter of click, click and tighten)

3. Unclick at security and put everything on conveyor for x-rays.

4. Reattach easily on the other side (while juggling baby and waiting for spouse to get the full-body pat-down by a TSA officer).

5. Nod and agree with strangers about what a good invention it is. (the strap, not the pat-down)

6. Planeside, detach and check car seat into baggage, and carry baby onto plane. 

Pretty painless! 

Riding the concourse train in ATL

As for baby wrangling while on the plane: It went pretty well too. I think it would have been impossible for one person to keep her contained for the whole flight, but with two of us, it went just fine! Eliza spent a lot of time climbing between Glenn and me, leaning backwards to check out the aisle and people, looking at books, listening to us sing at her, shaking rattles, slobbering on Delta cookies, and making friends with some of the flight attendants. She even got her picture with the pilot in the cockpit! (After we landed, of course!)

She looks a little freaked here but she gave him a shy smile right before this. :)

Eliza and Claire

Remember Claire? Eliza's BFF from the NICU? We finally got a chance to meet up with her and her family today. It was the first time the girls have seen each other since being in the NICU together! We had a great time getting to see them and visit. Wish we didn't live so far apart!

We almost didn't make it out since on the way one of our tires decided to instantly go flat while driving down the interstate. Fortunately Glenn was able to change the flat and we located a Discount Tire place with our handy dandy GPS. Thank goodness for technology! All in all we were only about 1.5 hrs late! :)

Being awfully patient waiting for her ride to be fixed!

____________________________________________________



All smiles! These girls have come so far! Look at the difference from this picture:

______________________________________________________

Eliza wanted Claire to have a pair of her favorite things, Baby Legs!

Claire was more impressed with the cardboard wrapping though!

Oh look both babies wanted the cardboard!

Whoops mama changed out the cardboard for some ribbon...

...........

Total meltdown!

They really did great after a long day of traveling, missed naps, sitting through lunch with us adults, and then posing for a photo shoot. Those preemies, tiny but strong! 

First Trip

Eliza took her first trip out of NC this past week! Eliza and I decided at the last minute to hitch a ride with my mom and grandmother back to GA. I had been debating whether or not to take the trip since we were in flux about surgery and had several doctors appointments scheduled as well. About an hour before my family left we decided to be a little crazy and go anyways. Both of us needed a break from our house and from the doctors. We managed to pack everything and head out the door within an hour!

Unfortunately Eliza didn't get too much of a break from doctors. After a few bouts of vomiting and a couple phone calls with our doctors in NC we decided to take her in to see the pediatrician that I went to as a kid. That was pretty cool -- well as cool as taking your daughter to the doctor can be! Fortuneatly, the vomiting didn't end up being anything serious but it did interfere in our plans to see people we wanted to see though! Overall Eliza did pretty great with being in a new environment and ok with the drives. We really enjoyed getting to see some family and friends and are looking forward to our next trip to GA in a month or two!

Eliza weighed in at 10 pounds and 21 inches this week! She is almost twice her birth length and 8 times her birth weight now!

We were trying to pose a group shot - I thought this one was pretty funny! Sorry guys!

Checking out Grandpa

Kisses from Nana!

CSA

We joined a winter Community Supported Agriculture a couple weeks ago. I had heard about it back in the spring from some friends and it sounded like a really neat idea. You pay a lump sum up front to a participating local farm and then every week you get a certain amount of fresh produce/eggs/meat for a period of weeks. I believe ours is ten weeks and we are two weeks into it. So far it's been great! We are getting to try a lot of veggies that neither of us have eaten before or pretty much strayed away from. So far we've gotten a hubbard and acorn squash, kale, collards, spinach, kohlrabi, variety of lettuces, Italian sausage, breakfast sausage, and whole wheat flour. The kohlrabi was the weirdest veggie we've gotten so far, followed closely by this baked hubbard.. green alien egg anyone?


I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it yet, you are supposed to be able to use it like pumpkin.. we'll see. The acorn squash was really yummy though. I found a recipe in Joy of Cooking and it turned out really well. This was definitely the first time either of us had acorn squash and Glenn who is leary of winter squash, loved this combination of baked squash stuffed with apples, dried cherries, orange zest, apple cider, a little brandy and some cinnamon and nutmeg. I think my favorite thing so far has been the kohlrabi, probably cause it was delicious simply sauteed in a little butter. I think it would be good just plain raw too.

Another reason to love fall.. strange veggies!

Beach Trip

After more than two years living in North Carolina, we finally made it out to the coast for the first time on Saturday. While our good friends were headed to the coast for the whole weekend (helping work on a relative's beach house) we only had time for a day trip, as we needed to be home today to keep on packing for our imminent move (closing in barely two weeks!), but we were determined to make it out there!

Although we'd heard parking at the beach could be a challenge, I think people had meant that as "the parking lots are very full", rather than, as we discovered, "The difference between parking lot and sand trap is hard to spot until you've driven into the middle of it". Out of our three vehicles headed to the beach, two ended up overshooting the rightmost edge of the parking lot and got stuck in the sand. I'm amazed that the parking lot didn't have a fence, or at least a warning sign of some sort at the edge, as ours were not the only vehicles who discovered the sand traps that day!

After some unsuccessful attempts to free ourselves, we were fortunately aided by a couple of Marines (or so I assume, but crewcut muscular guys with tattoos plus Camp Lejeune nearby would seem to make it a safe assumption...) who happened by with their pickup truck and pulled us out of the sand. Huzzah!

Our sand trap adventures seem to have set the trend for the day. Two of our friends missed out on the beach altogether that day (the house work taking much longer than expected), one of the kids came down with a sore throat and an upset stomach, I lost my new sunglasses (note to self: either leave them on the beach when playing in the waves, or invest in a retaining strap of some sort!), and Heather got badly sunburned. But we didn't let that stop us all from playing in the waves, enjoying the fresh air, having entertaining conversations, and in general having a great time.