A Greener Me

In the attempts to become more "green", today I decided to buy some reusable grocery bags from our favorite store.....Wegman's. With the amount of times I'm at the grocery store in one week (way more than anyone possibly should be), I accumulate a lot of plastic bags. So I decided to do my part and purchase the bags I normally walk right past, while thinking to myself "maybe I should get some of those". To my surprise, they're only a $1.00 (I excepted them to be more expensive) and they actually do hold a lot of groceries. So I bought 4 and am quite happy with myself, hence this post you're reading. Now if I could just remember to bring them with me when I go to the store, then I would really be doing my part : ) Ah, baby steps.

p.s. I got this picture from google. lol.

Trip No. 2 - Chicago

Above: Sarah and I at her shower.

So less than a week after we returned from Naples, Ripley and I were off again on another trip, this time to Chicago to surprise my very good friend, Sarah, for her bachelorette party and bridal shower weekend. As always with visiting Chicago, our trip was jam-packed with places to go and people to see. Friday during the day I took Ripley downtown to the law firm I used to work at so I could say hello to some old friends and have everyone meet Ripley. It was great to see everyone again. I haven't been back since I moved which will be 3 years in Sept....Wow. So it was crazy to walk the halls again, but so nice to see friendly faces.

That night was Sarah's bach. party, which was OH so much fun! We surprised her with me at Lauren's house before the festivities began. I just walked out with Ripley in my arms and she saw me and ran over and we both started to hug and cry. It was great moment. It was so good to see her and all my other girlfriends, all 5 of us back together for the weekend = a lot of laughs & a lot of drinking. All I can say is we are not 21 anymore, but its fun to act like we are sometimes : ) Can't wait for the wedding next month...I'll be flying solo without hubby or baby, watch out!

Above: we took a ton of pictures us trying to get everyone to look at the same camera without having a terrible expression on their face or closing their eyes and this is the best shot that came out. As you can see, we still need to work on it. ha!

On Saturday Matt's Mom came to the city and we spent the day with Ripley walking around, having lunch and going to the park. The weather was awesome and so was the company. Ripley misses you, Mema!

And last, but not least..Sunday, after Sarah's bridal shower, Ripley and I headed to the south burbs to visit family, which was such a nice end to our trip. Ripley had a blast with all the attention she got from everyone. And as always, it was so nice to be around family. It makes me sad we can't see each other more often. And I hated that Matt missed out on it all, unfortunately he was stuck working during this trip. Hopefully our next Chicago trip will be all 3 of us.

Below: Ripley attacking poor little Evan with some hugs & kisses that were definitely not very well received. Sorry Ev, "what my baby wants, my baby gets!" - ha, what movie?

Trip No. 1 - Naples, FL

Ripley and I went to Florida to visit family. This was the first time my Dad's side of the family got to meet Ripley, so that was fun. We went to my Dad's pool a couple times, but to my surprise, Ripley was a little clingy in the pool with me. My Dad got her a blow up floaty device and everything, but she wanted nothing to do with it. She wouldn't sit in it and if we put it by her, she pushed it away. So Joanne (Step-Mom) and I took turns holding her instead.

Funny/gross story from our travels: During the flight on the way home, Ripley went #2 in a very big way. I got a strong whiff of something oh so wrong and see Ripley's face turning red and doing the grunt thing and start to prepare myself for the joys of changing her on the airplane. So after the grunting ends, I lean over to get her out of her car seat and notice "it" is actually seeping out of her diaper up onto her shirt & pants and also on the car seat, NAST. Next I realize I forgot to pack an extra onsie and have nothing to change her into. Ugh. I had one available for the ride there, but didn't ended up needing it and on the way home I forgot to pack it and of course that was the time I needed it. Go figure. So I take her in the bathroom and start to change her on top of the toilet cover and as I'm doing this the cover comes lose and is now moving around while I'm trying to handle her with one hand and wipe her with the other. At this point she starts to cry a little while she is sliding around with legs up in the air and after many, many, many wipes she is finally clean and before I can get the new diaper into place she starts to pee all over the seat, changing cover, herself, etc....what a mess! I was in there FOREVER....the flight attendants asked me if I was OK at one point. So after I clean up mess #2, I had to try and salvage her shirt by cleaning it in the sink, otherwise she was only going to be in her diaper, since her pants were anything but salvageable. Thankfully, I brought a blanket with and after putting her now wet shirt back on her, I wrapped her bottom half in the blanket so it wasn't obvious she just pooped herself, even though I am sure the smell probably made most of the plane well aware it and for the rest of the flight she sat in her car seat wrapped in the blanket with a slight stench still lurking from the part of the car seat that was too hard to clean during the flight. Oh the joys of changing your child on an airplane! Since we travel so much, I have done this many times, but never has it been such an event, so I thought I would share with everyone : )

Some pictures from our trip below....sorry no kodak moments from her pooping extravaganza!