Our Weekend at the Lake and 15 Months!

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail, but just know that it was not my most enjoyable or relaxing time. 


It's not that Bean was bad, she actually did really good, but just trying to keep a 15 month old happy on a boat when she didn't want to be in the water because of a very uncomfortable life jacket and it was a bazillion degrees made for a crabby baby and a crabby momma.


I pretty much crashed at 8pm with her every night because I was tired of keeping up, so I was less than social, but oh well, what do you do?  There's always next year.


Here's some pictures from the weekend!

Bean in her pea pod where she could play safely:

A view from Higgins Bay, where we spent Sunday afternoon:

We took Bean's little pool just in case she didn't like the lake, it kept her cool, not so much me!

Sunscreen makes for a really bad hair day!

Bean and Daddy the first night we arrived:

Parker and Mallory chillin' on the boat, Ben and his dad in the background:

I really don't think this needs any further explanation: 

Bean playing in the pea pod:

Keeping cool and in the shade!

Checking out the camper:

And the bathroom!

And here's a few other from last week and today.  Mallory is 15 months old Today!!

Enjoying leftover Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes for my 15 month birthday!

Just a little cheeser!

Get me out of here!

Our Little Miss celebrating the 4th in a dress Memaw got her!

Looks like Miss Patriotic is Miss Up-to-something.....

Looking forward to leaving out Friday afternoon late for a much needed week on the beach!  Expect many many pictures!

A Weekend at Home!

We've spent the past 3 weekends away and it looks like the next 3 weekends are occupied as well, so I'm trying to catch up on stuff and enjoy this weekend at home!

Ben took a concealed weapons class all day yesterday which will enable him to get his concealed weapon license.  So beware, you will never know when Ben might be packing heat, lol.  

He said it was an eclectic mix of people in the class.  There were 7 of them total.  The guy to one side of him was a Lawyer but must not have known much about guns because he put his magazine in backwards and it got stuck.  Then he said there was one husband and wife in there and the wife had a 9 mm gun and she bought 45 calibre bullets.  

And these are the people who are going to be carrying around concealed weapons.  Makes me feel a ton better.  Hopefully they learned a thing or two during the class.

But, Ben passed and will now go through the paperwork run around to finally get his license.

Mallory and I settled into a lazy morning with some cartoons and then laundry and dishes for me.

We then opted for Red Lobster last night for dinner.  Mallory wasn't awful, but she wasn't as pleasant as she normally is.  There was the typical look at you and smile while she drops food on the floor and then the fake cry because she wasn't necessarily getting her way or happy, but then she'd catch the eye of someone in the restaurant and then just smile her big cheesy smile and wave.

She didn't want to be in the high chair she didn't want to be in my lap.  You know, just all the back and forth craziness.  She did get pretty fussy towards the end and I just picked her up and went out to the car while Ben payed.  It was just easier.

I'm working on getting everything together for the beach here in a couple weeks.  I'm so ready to go!  I guess it's been 2 or 3 years since we've been to the beach.

If anyone has any tips on beach with babies, let me know!

In craftier news, I made this:

I found the idea on Pinterest, which is like a social push pin cork board.  It enables you to "pin" any idea, website, etc that you find that you want to keep for future reference, sans the mess of ripping pages out of a magazine.  But, you can share what you find with your friends and see what others find as well.  Really cool and somewhat addictive. 

Regardless of all that, someone pinned the idea of a picture frame being used as a menu planner/dry erase board.  

Everyone knows Ben and I pretty much only argue about what we are going to eat.  So, not that this may make the arguing any less, but at least it lays out what we are eating and when. 

I had the black 8X10 photo frame laying around the house, so just printed off the type and now I just need to get some magnets so I can stick it on the fridge.  You can use a fancier frame and scrap booking decorate paper for the background, but I just used what I had handy and regardless, it looks much better than a Walmart dry erase board!

I also finally got around to putting up the Uppercase Living wall stickers that I've had since before Bean was born.  One for her Nursery and one for Tucker.

They are finally up and I thought they turned out pretty good:

In less exciting news, Mallory and I ran our June "Moms Run this Town" virtual 5K on Friday afternoon.  I've had all month to do it, but of course, I'm waiting till the end of the month!  Virtual 5K's are fun because you can do them whenever you want, wherever you want and most of the time they are free and you can win prizes!

Here's a couple pictures of us before the run in BOB and then with my race bib once I got home because I forgot it.

The goal for me for the rest of the day is to finish up laundry and dishes and somehow find time to squeeze in my 6 mile run!

Here's a few more pictures from this week!

Happy Father's Day!!

Let's just say this Father's Day was much more pleasant than last year, which was unfortunately spent in the Kosair's PICU unit when Bean was admitted for a week for a nasty respiratory virus.

No hospital visits this Father's Day weekend!

We headed down to Elkton to celebrate My birthday, Aunt Sharon's birthday and Father's Day.

It was overall a pretty rainy weekend. Dad and Ben were hoping to finish up wheat harvest but with the rain Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon and then a couple more showers on Sunday morning and early afternoon, it was way to wet for much farming.

Which meant we actually got our men for the whole weekend!

Sunday Morning Bean gave Ben his Father's Day Card and present:

Ben said he wanted a gun......so that's what he got.....a shotgun grill lighter!!

I couldn't resist. His real gun, some kind of pistol he wants, will come later, but in the meantime I couldn't resist a Bean Sized gun for daddy!

Dad and Ben finally got Bean's swing hung from a tree behind the garage that mom found a good straight limb on, so we got to get some good swing pictures!

The rest of the afternoon was spent out on the deck, until it got way too steamy. All they typical Caughlin/Shanklin family crew was in attendance celebrating birthday's and Father's Day.

Dad decided Bean needed to check out the hot tub and Mom found another bubble blower to keep at their house....gives good party ambiance!

Memaw had gotten one of those musical birthday cards for her birthday a couple weeks ago and brought it because she thought Mallory would like it. It was hilarious.....needless to say she loved it and I had to get it on video!



And just because, I caught these of Bean while we were waiting for her bath water to warm up....I know, she will hate me later : )









And one from the photo archives....in honor of Father's Day. Not 100% on the date....I remember buying that sweater at JCrew when I moved back to NC, so I'm guessing late summer of 2001 or 2002. Funny how you remember where you were when you bought certain clothes!

It's my birthday, It's my birthday

Birthday's aren't terribly exciting anymore but I still like them, enjoy the attention and feel as though age is just a number and means nothing.

On Thursday I turned 34.

Apparenlty it was the year of wine!

I got this nifty running cap....it says "Will Run For Wine"

I got tasty wine from Michigan:

I was unaware of the new rules that allow you to ship alcohol into Kentucky, as long as it ships into a wet county. Thankfully Daviess county is wet!

But, you do get this lovely label in the box making sure the FedEx person knows to not leave it with intoxicated people!!



Feel free to ship me wine anytime!!

I got some Wine stuff from my sister Susan:

And I drank a goood bit of wine period over the week!

Thursday Mary Ruth and I went out for Sushi.....oh, it had been way too long since I'd had sushi and it was sooooo good! I got some kind of pineapple shrimp roll....must get it again!

Thursday night we went out to O'Charley's. We found out Bean really likes salmon and then, on the night of my birthday, she said "da da" for the first time. Oh well, it was close to Father's day too!

So, for me it's just another year and it means I've got to remember to get my drivers license updated sometime between now and Ben's birthday here in a month, because it expires on his birthday!

Mostly I just want to eventually get the bike I want for my birthday/mother's day. Hopefully later this summer because I think riding a bike would be a lot easier than running in this heat!

And just so you know, I've changed up my running blog.

I had named it "new momma jogger" because I was a new mother....not really new to jogging, but then I realized, she's a year old, I'm not sure how much longer "new" mom really applies.

I figured I would change it to something that will ring true for a longer period of time "slow mother runner."

I don't imagine speedy mother runner is going to apply to me, ever!

If you were following my other running blog, or want to help me look like a lot of people care what I have to say, please check it out HERE and click follow, please!!

I am working on training for my second half marathon and I will have to say, training in the summer heat is much harder than when it's cold!!

Another birthday has come and gone.....perhaps next year for 35 I can do something really fun....like a destination race.....Christi....hint hint, lol!  When was those Hawaii races we were looking at??

The week of Murphy

Murphy's Law, if it can go wrong it will.

Sorry, but this post is as much of a vent as a post.

That's pretty much what this week has felt like and I'm quite glad it's over. Really, after Friday night, it's been ok, but next week is my birthday week (everyone should celebrate all week, right), so, I'm sure it will be better.

Since Mrs Carole was in Florida this past week, I worked on juggling work and Mallory at home. Thankfully Megan from next door came over until noon on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and if not, I'm quite certain little in the way of work would have gotten done.

She was also teething like crazy for the first 3 or 4 days of the week, which also made for total
Unpleasantness.

I was also trying to get all the crap ready for Relay for Life in Friday, which we've been planning for months, Team Red, in honor of Grandaddy.

I had also been looking forward to Wednesday morning because while Jennie to cleaning lady was here, Bean and I were going to go to the Y so they could watch her and I could have an enjoyable workout, both swimming and running. Not so much.

I looked at the pool schedule at open swim was open until 8:25, then swimming lessons started. I thought ok, I can get there at 8, have time to swim and then run for 3 miles.

We get to the Y right at 8 and I take Bean up to daycare and....she stinks. Major poo. Free daycare doesn't change diapers so we go in the bathroom, it's on her back, it gets on me, it's awful. I get it all cleaned up the best I can, drop her off and make my way to the locker room. Thankfully I just wore my clothes over my swimsuit and when I finally got into the pool, 8:15, I only had 10 minutes. That was enough to do a few laps past my 250 yards, so I went with what I had time for.

Then squirmed out of my wet suit, pulled and tugged on my running clothes and was off for 3 miles, maybe 4 on the treadmill.

At mile 2.47 the gal from day care showed up. Uh oh. Mallory has been crying nonstop for the past 15 minutes. I told her it was probably teething and I'd be up in a minute. So my leisurely workout didn't go as planned, not a bad workout, just not as long as I had hoped.

Ben was also gone Wednesday and Thursday night because of tractor and combine issues in his territory, so our plan of him taking the travel trailer to mom and dads Thursday night so we could start setting up at 8 am Friday morning wasn't going to happen.

Apparently Ben had mentioned my distress to AgriPower over the whole travel trailer/relay issue and they offered to have one of their guys come up Friday morning and take it down, ok, as long as it gets down there in a timely fashion.

Not really. He, Pete, who I referred to as my pseudo husband for the day, wasn't able to arrive here until 11am. In the meantime I thought I'd try to save time and fill the truck up with gas because I knew I didn't have enough to get me to Elkton. Got in the truck with Mallory, turned the key and nothing, the battery died. You can only imagine the choice words I had. So I did what I don't do well, sat and waited with my hands tied. I was totally packed, nothing I could do now but wait patiently for pseudo husband to show up and jump off the truck and hook up to the camper.

When he arrived the truck started fine with a jump, thankfully! Now on to the camper.

We have this fancy anti-sway hitch for the camper that I haven't helped hook up in probably 2 years. Couldn't for the life of me remember how it all went together and of course since the batteries in the camper were dead, the hitch jack wouldn't work either.

So, I plugged the camper in to get the jack to go up and down and after like 30 minutes of struggle and about 3 calls to Ben, we finally got it hooked up. Of course it was already 95 degrees and we were both sweating profusely.

The last thing was to plug the electric/brake plug into his truck, it just would reach his plug with no slack, it popped out as soon as he turned just a bit in the driveway. He said he would just pull it and put his flashers on, at this point I didnt care, if Pete was ok with it I was game.

Mallory was great through all of this. She sat in her pack and play in the house as I was in and out checking on her and by the end she had curled up and gone to sleep, so thankfully, something was easy.

I put her and Tucker in the truck and down the road we went, leading the way for Pete. I called Ben to let him know we were finally on the road and told him about the plug issues, which he freaked out. So, I said, call Pete, don't vent to me! So, at the gas station I was going to pull into to fill up anyway, we had to pull off and see if we can figure out how to get more slack in the power cord.

Thankfully the truck restarted when I cut it off to fill up, amazing. And there were tools in Ben's truck so Pete could loosen up some stuff that finally gave us enough slack to keep the camper plugged in turning and going down the road....finally, that took about another 30 minutes.

The remainder of the trip down the Nachur and across 68/80 was pretty easy, I really thought things were going to come out pretty well. We get to the High School and got our spot, got in the right spot pretty easily and then went to unhook the camper.....

The ball would not come out of the hitch. We raised the hitch jack, we lowered it, then it totally stopped working. We sprayed WD40, we tried to pull the pin, too much weight. We looked, we thought, we couldn't for the life of us figure out why it wouldn't release. We jiggled, wiggled, jumped, etc, all in the 95 degree heat.

Thankfully I had called Susan ahead of time and had her meet me at the High School so she could watch Tucker and Bean while we got the camper situated so she just went on and took them to Mom and Dad's since this didn't seem to be going anywhere fast.

Finally we decided we were going to need a floor jack and see if we could lift it up more to release the ball. Called Dad, Susan brought us the floor jack. We never could get it in the right spot that wasn't putting too much pressure on something that would break, so that didn't do anything.

We decided to put it under the ball, jack it up enough to release some of the pressure to hammer out the pin in hopes we could just pull his truck forward and pull out of the hitch. Nope, was moving the entire trailer. Wouldn't pull loose.

After all this time the jack finally started working again, we raised and lowered it some more and the release on the ball finally let go and Pete was finally unhooked from the camper.....at 4pm. I was hoping to have everything set up, a freezer of homemade ice cream made, showered and ready to be back here at 5:30. Obviously that wasn't happening.

Pete went on his way, I set up a few things and headed to Mom and Dad's, got the pop corn popper and brought it back to the High School and then went home and showered.

Mom, Memaw and Aunt Sharon had made extra ice cream, so my freezer wasn't a big deal, so we got there around 5:40, not too bad.

Of course stuff still wasn't as organized as I liked, but we got it set up, and got things rolling.

Our theme was to sell things grandaddy liked so we had home made ice cream, chocolate pies, popcorn, cokes and then we had frozen candy bars.

The ice cream sold out fast and we didn't sell as many drinks as I thought we would, but overall we did good. Mom, Memaw and Aunt Sharon were great ice cream sellers!!

I painted a few faces and the bubble blowing machine I got at Walmart earlier this week was a huge hit.

Mallory had a ball being the center of attention. She finally crashed in the camper in the pea pod and was out for the night.

Memaw left around 8:30 or so when the ice cream sold out and Mom wasn't too far behind her. Matt and Aunt Sharon stuck around to about 12 midnight or so and then it was just Ben and I. I think we went to bed around 1 or 1:30....there was no way I could stay up any longer after this cluster of a day I had....I was just exhausted.

Part of me felt bad for going to bed, and that because we were so busy with all the ice cream we didn't get to participate too much in the other events of the night, but overall it was good but I am soooooo glad it's over! I know Stef is, she was heading it all up this year.

Mallory got up around 6 am, and there were already a ton of people gone by then. I took her to Mom and Dad's and then came back to help Ben hook up the camper. Thankfully this didn't require much drama and a few minutes later we were packed up and headed to mom and dad's with the camper.

Phew.

The rest of the weekend was just pretty relaxing. Mallory and I both napped about 2 hours Saturday morning, Ben helped Dad cut wheat, Mallory and I lounged in the yard for a couple hours in the shade and then we had dinner.

I was ready for uneventful after all of the previous happenings.

And through all of this I succeeded in taking no pictures. Well, I guess I did take a few on Saturday when we were out in the yard that I'll post below.

Sorry.

On a better note, I'm declaring Mallory's first word is HI.

She says what sounds to us to be HI when she first sees you and she waves her hand at the same time. Seems like HI it is.

I'm ready for a much more normal week ahead of us and to have a nice low-key birthday.

























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