Savannah, GA

Like all our travels, we have early mornings!  But this day, an F train had derailed so the E line out to JFK was just not running.  We made some quick decisions and paid $7 more pp to take a direct train out from Penn station.  We got there fast and easy, just more money.  Always more money.

 The flight went great, we love that she loves Frozen.  T gets such a thrill from riding on a "big plane" and is fairly well behaved.  It's gotten a LOT easier to fly.

Once we arrived, we took a $1.50 local shuttle to downtown Savannah.  It was just a 20 minute ride and so cheap!  First we went to see General Sherman's house.  Scott said "I don't like what he stood for, but I do like his house!"

 Savannah is the epitome of quaint, cute, southern charm.  Being around all the friendly southerners really made us wonder why we live in a place with so many rude people.

 I mean, really.

 I was glad I brought my camera, though taking it along did DOUBLE our baggage. We just carried our trusty drawstring nike bag with diapers and sunscreen, ipad and goldfish.  Oh, and fruitsnacks.  Pretty simple!

 This Spanish moss was everywhere in town!

 We did the touristy thing and got the buffet at Paula Deen's flagship restaurant, Lady and Sons.  We really loved it.  The BEST fried chicken, amazing cheddar rolls and corn cakes, green beans, lima beans, mashed potatoes, ... it was all dripping in butter and so delicious. That meal was our breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day.

 And after that, we picked one of 22 squares in town to lay out while we watched T run and play.  She was really in heaven, she's an explorer that girl!

 The moss really looked fake, but it's not!

 The final square, so beautiful!  We saw probably 5 weddings going on throughout town-- everywhere you turn is the perfect venue!

 The photos from Lady and Sons (since I couldn't (Read: didn't try long enough to) get them to move up in the blog post..)

 The cheddar biscuit and corn pancake were AMAZING. Maybe the best part.

 Those mashed potatoes.  The fried chicken!  Sweet potatoes, are you kidding me?  Best green beans.  All of it, delish!

And the photo that made me glad I lugged my SLR around:

 A day relaxing and exploring with these two is always a good day.

I wish I were certain that we'd return to Savannah, because I loved it so much... but there are just so many amazing places on our list that I wonder if we'll make it back this summer.  I hope so!

A Little Update

This past week has been Cra-zay.  Really.  We went to Orlando for 3 days, and to Savannah, Georgia as a day trip.  On top of that was cleaning the house, laundry (which is a thing here), 2 yr photo shoot for T girl, visiting teaching, planning and executing a birthday party, and for Scott, a few papers, group projects and presentations and of course, his 8-5 work schedule. Needless to say I am taking it easy today, uploading photos, cleaning up and definitely catching up on my sewing!  I'll likely do a post on each of these events, but in the meantime...

We LOVED Savannah!  And there is a $1.50 shuttle from the airport into town, so it makes for a really nice day trip!!

Tatum knew it was her birthday and ate it up!  Whip cream and sprinkles for breakfast? Yes please!  She would hardly let us take off her party hat for church.  What a little gem.

 And her "Birthday Cake."  Personal fruit pizzas worked great for a kid/adult party because the kids could do Funfetti sprinkles on sugar cookies and the adults loved the fruit with glaze!  Actually, Tatum did too!

I just finished a bedding set for a client in Hawaii-- I adore her prints!  New York Threads is busier than ever!!

Seattle for Easter

After snapping this picture, the 6 hour flight where T didn't sleep a wink was suddenly all worthwhile.  And the 5 hour flight back (don't ya love flying to the east??) where she slept 1/5 hours was worth it too.  On our flight to Seattle, the woman next to me was complimenting Tatum on how well she did on the flight and even said she hopes to sit next to us again on the return trip to JFK.  She lies. Nobody wishes to sit by a 2 year old.

I told my parents we were coming, but for the rest it was a surprise.  Dad walked into the room with Tatum asleep on his shoulder.  I guess Autumn had a rough time getting to sleep, because Noelle saw Tatum and assumed Autumn had escaped again, thinking "Why is Autumn out of bed again, and where did she get those pants???"  Too funny!  The surprise for Rick and Heather the following day wasn't as grand, I'm pretty positive they assumed I would come...

Friday we loaded up the kids and headed out to Ikea!  Ice cream cones and meatballs for all!  I got a new dish scrubber and a few other trinkets that would fit in my backpack home.  I am excited to have measuring cups with intact handles!  The kids LOVE listening and singing along to Frozen in the car.  We must have heard it over 50 times in 4 days, which is fine by me, I love those songs!

Our backyard fire pit building from this summer is really paying off!  The kids loved practicing "Stop, Drop and Roll" and everyone loves s'mores!

The kids were all such buddies!  It is like Tatum can sense who her cousins are, because she immediately took to all of them and ran around playing and acting crazy for hours on end.  Normally she checks in with me at least every 10 minutes and doesn't like me going too far... but at Bestaland, she was a crazy woman!  I seriously sent her downstairs to play and didn't hear from her for 2.5 hours!

The Whitehead crew arrived late Friday night, unfortunately I was too tired to stay up very late.  11pm felt like 2am for me...  But we sure got the party started Saturday morning!  French toast and the kid Easter egg hunt in the morning!  It was awesome.  Each kid had a certain color to search for, and since nobody was planning on Tatum being there, she found all the colors, but only on the bottom deck.  The cousins knew that all those eggs were for T.  It worked great!  Tatum LOVED racing back and forth accross the deck finding, and then re-finding all her eggs!  She does care what's inside, but more than that she loves finding, opening and closing them.

The adult egg hunt was a real adventure.  We waited until dark and used our headlamps to search the hilly/foresty/overgrown backyard.  It was really hard to see in the dark,  but we did end up finding 55/60 eggs that were hidden.  Each adult contributed ~12 eggs, filled with a prize, challenge, joke or treat.  There were also real eggs filled with confetti hidden- if you find a "Castarones" then you crack it on somebody's head and steal an egg of your choice!  Some eggs that I contributed were 4 stool softeners with a note warning not to take them all at once, my favorite sugar cookie recipe, a voucher for a sketch of the recipient's eyebrows... Others offered a joke, a race to post an elvis impersonation on Instagram (winner gets a juice squeeze), a challenge to place 7 reeses puffs between your lips all at once, you know, things like that!  I was thrilled to be there for the midnight hunt this year since hearing last years stories.

 I recruited Annie as my personal back rubber.  She is pretty good!

 The Whiteheads left for Spokane about the time we left for church.  Our efforts for a cousin picture in their Sunday best failed.  Here's an okay one of Tatum in the Easter dress I sewed for her!

Monday we took the kids to a playground, then McDonalds playspace, and a few more errands.

Tuesday we drove up north about an hour to see the tulip fields!  There is really nothing like it!

Thanks to Scott for working at JetBlue so I had the chance to go, and for holding down the fort while we were away!

Brooklyn Day With Friends

She is kind of at the perfect age.  Still a few bad attitudes and tantrums, but overall happy and reasonable.  I know she loves ice cream, but she never hesitates to share half her cone with me!

 I took the water taxi back to Manhattan and it was a nice view and a fun ride.  Tatum really loves "WATER!!!"

 City girl in her element:

 She is getting more and more comfortable with her little friends.  What cuties!

The Big Egg Hunt is sponsored by Faberge... it happens every other year in various locations all around the world.  Actually, I think this year may just be the second time, it was hosted in London in 2012.  There are 260 giant eggs "hidden" throughout the city for people to find and report.  All 260 are designed by different artists and they are each very unique! Throughout the month-ish long hunt, I probably found 35-45 of the eggs, I need to go through my pictures and count! Brooklyn had some real winners!

I have this feeling that in 20 years, I'll look back at this summer we're now entering and really think "Those were the days!!"