Vacation.....Kinda

Happy Sunday! Once again it has been a week since my last post, however, I do have a good excuse this time...we were on vacation! Colin and I had our two year wedding anniversary on the 13th and so we went out of town this weekend to celebrate. Our plan was to leave on Wed morning and come back Sunday night (tonight). We did run into quite a snag....more on that later.

Here are some pictures from Wednesday. As I have stated before ZS has become exceptionally good at moving around and is now a wiz on the stairs. She loves to go up and down over and over but has yet to figure out that the best way to come back down is backwards. Instead she just plummets head first. Here are some shots of her going up the stairs in our house. I don't have any of her coming back down for the simple reason that someone has to control the plummet.



Now that she has discovered the freedom of stairs she spends lots of time playing in her room. One of her favorite activities is finding things to open with her teeth. She still just has the bottom two and can pry open lids with ease.


My aunt Cheryl, uncle Tommy, and cousin Mason gave ZS a manger scene which was supposed to be for Christmas this year but I just couldn't resist giving it to her to play with now. She loves to walk around with the little wise men and donkeys. She has become especially fond of the Asian wiseman.


In case you were wondering she is wearing one of my necklaces. Whenever I wear a necklace she is constantly wanting to chew on it and my neck and shirt always end up slobbery. One day I showed her how to wear one and she decided she liked it. She can pick it up and look at it whenever she wants and I don't have big drool spots on my shirt. I also thinks she walks with a little more confidence when she has on jewelry, as most girls do!


Please take a litte bit of extra time to enjoy this picture because it was so hard to get. It was about 5 min of having her show me her ball over and over again even though she wanted to move on to the next toy. I think though, that it was worth it. Her little face is so cute!


Ok, so here is the story of our weekend. We had plans to leave Wednesday morning and drive to Lake Travis in Austin and spend time at my grandparent's lakehouse. We were then going to drop ZS at Mimi and Pop's (Colin's parents) house and spend the night in Fort Worth on Sundance Square, which was our anniversary gift from Sue and Geoff. Sounds like fun right? Here is what really happened. Colin has started working at a new studio in Grapevine called Lifesong and the owner called him at the last minute and said that she had booked 8 lessons for him on Wednesday so we didn't get to leave until very late Wed night. Poor Zoe Scout did not like being removed from her crib after she had fallen asleep for the night and put into a car for a 4 hour road trip at 9 pm. She screamed for the first 3 hours of the trip and then slept intermittently for the last hour. We got to Austin around midnight and promptly went to sleep. Thursday and Friday were great days! We went out on the boat, swam in the pool, and my grandparents had a great time seeing and playing with the baby. Granma and Papa have a very sweet Chihuahua named Rosie. ZS loved Rosie and even though the feeling was not mutual Rosie did her best to not shake too much when the baby teetered over to her. I showed Scout how to pet Rosie with just one finger and that was a much less intimidating prospect to the dog then a whole baby hand. Rosie did however, enjoy standing under ZS's sassy seat as she ate. ZS would drop little treats on the floor for Rosie and then let her lick any remaining goodies off her fingers. On Friday night Colin and I drove into downtown Austin and had dinner at a restaurant called Carmello's. We had been there about 3 years ago to celebrate a "monthiversary" when we were dating. On the way back to the lake we drove past the house in Round Rock that I lived in for the first 3 years of my life. It was pretty dark but I could still see some of the things I remembered about the house and it was really neat to see it again.

Saturday morning we woke up and started to get our stuff together so we could head back to town. We made it to Waco and stopped to eat lunch and feed to baby around 11:30. When we went back out to the car it was totally dead. We called the insurance company who called someone to jump the car. We were able to get back on I-35 but not 2 miles down the highway the car died. Colin was able to get the car off the highway and then he had to push it into a gas station while I steered. Who knew the wheel was so hard to turn when the power steering is off! The insurance company towed our car to a Pep Boys and we waited and waited and waited. We waited for about 4 hours at the Pep Boys and of course ZS had to stay in her stroller that whole time because the floor was filthy and she would pull everything off the shelves. Colin and I had to take turns pushing her up and down the isles to keep her from crying. Pep Boys ended up finding nothing wrong with our car and so we got back on the highway only to have the car die again only after a few more exits. Once again we were able to safely get off the highway and into a Pizza Hut parking lot right by Baylor campus. By this time it was too late for anybody to work on the car and so the insurance company had the car towed to an impound and it is going to deliver it to a Nissan dealership in Waco tomorrow morning. We are hoping that they will be able to figure out what is wrong with it. Thankfully my dad was able to drive down to Waco to bring us home. We finally arrived home about 10:45 which means our trip from Austin to Denton, which should only take 4 hours, took us 12 hours. Needless to say we had to cancel our reservations in Fort Worth. The worst thing about yesterday though was how bad we felt for Scout. She was in a car seat or a stroller for 12 hours. When I carried her up to her crib last night and set her down she rolled over, grabbed her bunny, snuggled it under her head, and went back to sleep. I have never seen her so happy to be in her own house as she was today.

This is the only good pic I took over the whole weekend. This is my grandfather (my dad's dad) holding Zoe Scout. Papa and Granma were so loving and patient especially when they babysat on Friday night!


Even with all the craziness the first part of our weekend was a blast. We love spending time with my grandparents and now that the lake bug has bitten Colin I am sure we will be frequenting Austin.