Summer = Living in a Bathing Suit

And apparently, summer also means the occasional nap on the dirty cool kitchen floor.

Summer Travels, Part 1 [Cornell]

Last month, we travelled to upstate New York for Ralph's youngest brother's graduation from Cornell.

As someone who used to fly a lot, and who cursed babies and toddlers on planes before I was a parent, I was totally freaked out a bit nervous about this trip...mostly figuring that there was a large does of karmic payback coming my way for my younger, less tolerant traveling days.

We plotted our cross country trek very carefully: we would fly out of LGB, so as not to have to endure the chaos (and longer security waits) of LAX. We scheduled the long haul flight to begin shortly before naptime, so that we could get on the plane, be excited about flying, and then have our traveling angel drift off for her nap to the sounds of a cruising altitude engine.

And then we woke up the morning of our trip, and had to reschedule nearly every travel detail (flights, hotels, cars, naptimes) due to a cancelled flight. I'll spare you the ugly details (and most of my frustration and rage)...but our carefully planned Long Beach --> JFK --> Syracuse turned into Long Beach --> Seattle --> Boston. Totally the same.

At any rate, we made it - and Grace was fabulous throughout it all. We even got the coveted "I didn't even know you had a baby with you!" compliment from a fellow passenger. Success!

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So...onto the reason for the trip! Cornell! Jon!
(This post will just have pics from our time at Cornell. More from this epic weeklong trip later.)

In pictures...

Jon & Ezra, chillin.

Grace & Mommy...at Anthropology.

Grace & Grammy...

Grace checks out the "Harry Potter Library"

Riding the tram to commencement. (Side note: Seriously?!?! We had to ride a tram?!? Go look up Cornell on a map. It's in the middle of freaking nowhere!!)

The gym, for Jon's school's graduation.

Conversation that took place while I took this photo:
Grace: "Hello? Hello Nola? Hi? How you doing? You have a good nap? Ok. Ok bye."

The Grad & his Mommy

Grad & Grammy

Grad & brothers - and my kid, passed out asleep behind Taggie.

more to come....

Monday is Laundry Day...

A Couple Super Sale Finds (with a special shout out)

I find a good degree of amusement in hunting Anthropologie's site for 'pop-back' sale items of seasons past. (I post 'em here for those of you who want to join in my retail obsession...)

Here are a couple I found last week - for 10 bucks each! Woo hoo!

I got this in navy, but could only find a picture of the white

And this one goes out to Mer and Amy in particular - the giant buttons have SNAILS on them!

So wander on over the Anthropologie Archaeologie, and see what you find...

A Whale of a Party: Grace's 2nd Birthday

Enjoying the playhouse from Grandma & Grandpa, and checking out the decorations:

Last year, the biggest duck decoration I could find was about 2 feet tall. This year, I *totally* topped that. I present...the GIANT whale (and Miss K).

Grace & her cupcake of choice:

Blowing out her candles...and her celebration upon doing so:

Shunning the paparazzi?

After the cupcake? I lollipop!

And ANOTHER cupcake with Grandpa! (Note the post-first-cupcake costume change.)

Posing with Aunt Melissa:

And just posing for her fans:

With Grammy, Daddy, and Aunt Katy:

Hooray for Birthdays!

A Whale of a Party [Details]