stop number 2: savannah!

the second stop on my road trip was beautiful savannah, georgia. if you're a platinum member of tenlittletoes (ha), you'll remember my college friends' reunion last summer. we really do nothing more than talk and laugh and eat, with maybe a little sightseeing thrown in there (but oh how i look forward to "doing nothing" with these dear friends!). we were disappointed that christie could not come at the last minute due to a family emergency... we talked to her on speakerphone as much as possible, but we still missed her... as well as the other girls who did not come.

christy's in-laws were so hospitable and gracious to us during our stay. debbie made such delicious desserts the whole weekend, so you know i was happy! the girls were so great to help out with the kids, even though ethan was pretty much a mama's boy the whole weekend. we surprised christy with a little baby shower, since she's expecting a baby girl (sadie faith) in october. kim and i gave her our 2 cents (well, probably more like 10 cents) on childbirth and parenting, which was probably much more than she wanted to hear! here's sweet christy opening her gifts from us...



on saturday, we ventured out to downtown savannah. though we had great directions that were supposed to be a straight shot into downtown, we somehow made a wrong turn. since none of us are actually FROM savannah, it only took 1 stop and hundred phone calls to get us to the right place. :) we were in sort of a hurry because we had reservations at paula deen's restaurant. this was a big deal because apparently everyone who comes to savannah wants to eat at lady & son's, so a line starts down the street in the morning to get lunch reservations... debbie (christy's mother-in-law) has connections with paula, so we had a reservation for 11:00 without having to wait. when we arrived, we saw the line alllllllllll the way down the street on a hot hot saturday afternoon, and were so thankful to go right in and sit down at our table! (and when we finished eating a little after 1:00, the line was still just as long. and when we passed by again later around 3:00, the line was even longer for dinner reservations!) we all ordered the buffet, which was full of delicious home cookin'. mmmm, mmmm, mmmm! was it good! i don't know if i'd want to stand in line all day for fried chicken and green bean casserole, but then again, the gooey butter cake for dessert was pretty darn good! here's some pictures of the restaurant and the line of people waiting to eat there...



we asked a lady who was eating beside us to take a group picture.... and apparently, she didn't think that lynsay really needed to BE in the picture... lynsay is the only one of us who actually had to take off work to be with us, and with her medical residency, her days off are few and far between! so of all people, lynsay got cut off! we tried it again, this time to be sure lynsay made it in the picture. :)



ethan wasn't in a buffet-veggies-mood that day, which was such a shame because the food was so good! so his lunch consisted solely of paula's sweet potatoes, which i think abide by the saying on one of the t-shirts for sale in her gift shop: "i'm your cook, not your doctor." i don't want to know how much brown sugar and butter were in these sweet potatoes, but they kept him happy so i could go back for onnnne morrrre plate!



after lunch, we walked down to the shops by the river and then decided to take a trolley tour of savannah. it advertised to have unlimited on/off options, but to our surprise, that was only after the 90 minute non-stop tour... which was after the transport on the shuttle where my double stroller was quite in the way! we finally got on the trolley and discovered that we weren't getting off for another 90 minutes, and i was thinking that this was a big mistake. ethan was tired, caroline was going to need to eat soon (and i don't mean baby food), and i needed to go to the bathroom! ahhh!! but we enjoyed the tour, and i managed to get a few pictures of beautiful historic savannah... until ethan fell asleep in my lap and it was time for caroline to eat. i nursed her on the trolley in st. augustine, so why not try it again? so i slid ethan down to sleep beside me on the bench, grabbed caroline from the girls, covered up with the paula deen apron i had just bought for brian's mom (sorry nana, it was the only thing i had and i was desperate!)... i sort of got caroline situated as privately as possible on a trolley driving through downtown savannah (though the 8 yr old girl in front of me was way too curious about what i was doing), only to have ethan bang his head on the side of the trolley while he was sleeping. so needless to say, caroline did not get to eat, and now i had two fussy, tired, hot kids on a trolley that had 45 more minutes to go!!! right at that moment, the driver announced that we were making a 10 minute stop at a catholic church, and i thanked her several times. caroline also refused to eat during this break, but i was able to collect myself enough to enjoy the rest of the tour.... until it started pouring down rain. i mean pouring. the tour was ending anyway, but all i could think about was getting back on the shuttle and then having to find our car in this rain. the driver dropped off the other group right at their hotel, and then we were the last group left. i told her where my van was parked, and she brought as close as she could to the van. that was so nice of her!! we were sopping wet, and i don't think i will ever forget the image of kim trucking it across the street in the pouring rain carrying my double stroller!!! :) (sorry kim!!) so i wish i had more pictures of the beautiful scenery, but we were just glad to get home and get dry! here's the shots i was able to capture... i don't know what they are, other than some old buildings and one of a thousand squares around the town!




so we made it home, dried off, ate dinner, inhaled mud pie, and then got wet again! after i put the kids to bed, we had a fun evening in the pool... though i must say i was the only one brave enough to jump right in... cannonball style! no, you will not be seeing any pictures of that!!! after swimming, we ended our weekend together by staying up way too late considering that we had to drive the next day.... but we do it every year, so why did i think this year would be any different??? i would not have traded anything (even a good night's sleep!) for the example of love and true friendship that was demonstrated through our conversations that saturday night. we had a good, deep, sometimes heart-wrenching, but most importantly God-glorifying talk. i am so thankful for friends who are not afraid to talk about real issues, to ask the hard questions, and to strive to keep me accountable to my Savior.




thank you, girls, for your friendship. you were so sweet to love my children and to help me with them over the weekend. it was so wonderful to see you, and i can't wait for the next time we are able to fellowship together around a bunch of chocolate. :)

stop number one!

all aboaaaaard the mommy express!

first stop, aiden's house! we made a short stop at ross & amy's house to visit them and their 1 1/2 yr old son, aiden (and baby on the way!). this was a really nice way to break up the longest leg of our trip... ross & amy are such humble servants as they do great work for the Lord in campus ministry, and it's always a blessing to visit with them. we trekked over to their neighborhood pool, which has the greatest water playground thing (see picture below). let me rephrase that...great if you're over the age of 2! ethan was pretty scared of the big ole' bucket at the top that would turn over when it filled with water. it created quite the deluge!!! as you can see, caroline loved relaxing in the pool (away from the big bucket). God bless the inventor of the baby spring float!! after the kids had played and played and amy got her fill of baby-lovin', we packed up the car and headed to our next stop... thanks for a great visit!

fireworks!

i love the 4th of july. brian is off work (yay!), so we usually have a relaxing morning, and then we head to the church for fun on a huge water slide, a delicious meal, and songs of praise about our country's freedom. afterwards, we enjoy the fireworks with our friends down at the marina. didn't brian capture a great shot of the fireworks? (he would've taken more if i had not been bugging him to use the camera...sorry honey!) gram stayed at home with sleeping caroline, and ethan had a blast watching the bright show in the sky. he kept exclaiming, "see more bubbles! see more bubbles!" his friend joseph, however, was quite afraid of the booming fireworks... you can see him burying his face in his aunt dabney's shoulder below.


2 little firecrackers!
ethan was so excited to play "pan-o" with nana
during our patriotic worship time at church.


jonathan & tammy & kids... do you see joseph below?
dabney, jessica, and matt did their best to persuade
joseph to watch the fireworks-- he ended up hiding in the car!

natalie and ethan with their light sticks

and now for their tenlittletoes debut, 2 wonderful families.......
aaron & heather and their sweet kids avery & savannahi love to tell the story of God's providence in meeting our new friends, but that will have to be another post for another time. we are loving having them just down the street, and "etho" and "ave-y" love to play together! (aren't savannah's bloomers just the cutest??)

and ryan and catherine!ryan and i grew up living down the street from each other, and one sunday last year, ryan & catherine visited our church and sat right behind us! it's been so much fun to get to know ryan again and to grow closer to catherine.

thank you, Lord, for friends new and old! thank you, Lord, for our freedom in this country and most of all, for our freedom in You.

SHH!! don't tell brother!

it looks like ethan won't be the only one giving daddy a hand in the garage one day!

birthday construction is finally complete!

ethan's construction birthday party a few weeks ago was so much fun. we had originally planned for it to be in our backyard, but when a storm was a brewin' about 2 pm, we knew we didn't want to cram 40 wet bodies in our little house! it turned out really well in our church's fellowship hall... there was plenty of room for the kids to play, and it was much cooler than our backyard would have been! here's a few pictures to get you in the bulldozin' mood...

we had construction gear set up for ethan's buddies when they arrived. this included hard hats (ironically made of soft foam), tool belt, safety goggles, sand paper, paint brush, tape measurer, and most importantly....proof of citizenship IDs! with all the illegal immigrants working construction in our area, it seemed only fitting to have bilingual signs and immigration papers. :) you can enlarge avery's picture below to see the ID a little better.






the boys really got a kick out of crawling through the "work tunnel", though ethan never did venture through it. he had fun watching everybody else crawl through it, and you could just tell he wanted to.... but i guess he took the "caution" sign seriously!! at the end of the party, the kids had demolition duty, knocking down the boxes over and over again.





for the workers' dinner break, they "built" their own sandwiches. we also had baked beans in a paint bucket with a paint stick attached to a spoon.


now, don't you just feel like you were there? ok then...on with the party! next is my favorite part... the cake! my mom and i put our heads together (with ideas we found online) and created one yummy pile of dirt! we displayed the cake on sawhorses and a piece of plywood. it looked really neat with different construction men and trucks all around it, but i didn't get a picture of it until most of the cake was gone.

ethan was more concerned with the vehicles ON the cake than with the cake itself. it was so cute to watch him lick the icing off the wheels... he needs a little training in the icing removal department, but i'm sure we'll perfect that in the years to come. the picture where we are blowing out the candles is especially precious to me... ethan is saying "fffffff", which is how he has always blown on things... it cracks me up!












one thing i learned from this party is that opening presents is an overwhelming experience for a 2 year old (anybody agree??). ethan opened his first present (a cool remote controlled car), and that was it. he wanted to play with the car. he didn't care about the other 20 presents waiting for him! so i convinced him to open another present, and that was it again. he wanted to play with that one. and i don't blame him! he got some neat toys! by the time it came around to our present, he was too far gone... so he opened it later at home. i think next year, we'll have him open our gift when he wakes up. i don't want his birthday to just be about the presents, so i'll have to think on that some more.... i'd love to know your thoughts on handling opening presents for young children. i know that i enjoy watching someone open a present i've given them, so i don't want to load up the presents and open them later.... well, i have a year to think about it!




and how did sweet caroline like the party? well, she was worn out but did pretty well getting passed from person to person. she finally found refuge on my grandma's shoulder, and this is truly blog worthy.... if you know caroline, you know that she doesn't cuddle much or fall asleep on people... so grandma, this was your special day!


here's one more picture of how ethan's birthday began. when he woke up, i surprised him with a "birthday muffin" with a candle in it. i came into his room with the muffin, singing "happy birthday". we lit the candle again at the table and sang again, just for the fun of it. :) actually, i think we did it a few times! ethan got the biggest thrill out of starting off his special day that way. i hope to make that a tradition with each child and each birthday. here is my big boy with the candle lit the third or fourth time! :)


wow! this ended up being an incredibly long post!!! but not nearly as long as my labor with our birthday boy! happy birthday to our sweet ethan. our family is so blessed to call you our son, our first child. we praise God for you and for the way God is growing you to be such a big boy!