Life with three

Trevor is loved (mauled).

As usual, it's been awhile since my last post, and Trevor has grown quite a bit.  The above picture was taken today, and the one below was about six weeks ago - it's amazing to me how small he looks in this pic. 

Kate has designated every Monday as "chore day" - her idea - and for her first project she scrubbed our shower.  She's a cool kid to have around.

Scott giving Trevor some "screen time" at the computer.  Serious dangling cheek action here.

He is already filling up most of the space in his carrier and it's so heavy for me to carry!

I love putting him in the Bumbo chair.  It's good for him to practice holding up his giant head.

Please indulge me for a second here while I pretend that Trevor and I share some genetic connection.  When I saw this picture of him, it reminded me of a similar pose of me as a baby...

...what do you think?  Maybe a remote resemblance?  This is my best chance to draw a parallel, since in every other picture he is miniScott.

Took the girls to a fall carnival one Saturday morning.  They got to ride ponies, get their faces painted, go on a giant slide, and get their hair streaked.  Lucky day for them.

Kate asked for her butterfly to cover her entire face.  I thought she looked like one of those crazy football fans that make it onto TV.

Here Trevor gazes longingly at what the big kids are doing.  He actually loves being jumped on the trampoline.  Anytime he is bounced or tossed vertically he laughs silently.  It's weird but cute to us.

He clasps his hands in front of him all the time which has the effect of making him appear pious.

This little guy is still lots of fun, but he is starting to demand more attention now - he loves being toted around and gets bored quickly if I leave him alone.

Sadly, the era of Halloween family themes may be over for us.  Now that there are more of us and the kids have their own ideas about what they want to be, it's a lot harder to do one-theme-fits-all.  The girls both wanted to be princesses so we kind of went with a royalty theme this year but Trevor ended up with a teddy bear costume so that pretty much ruined it.  Oh well.  Jane is obviously Snow White, and Kate's costume is "medieval queen."

Scott and I made a halfhearted effort to dress up as a king and queen for one party.  This is the best picture we got of Trevor in his bear costume.

At Scott's residency party, they had a pumpkin carving contest, and Scott won with this Scott & White themed pumpkin.  The prize was an extra two days off!  Now if he can only find time when he is allowed to take those days...

Rear view.  IM = Internal Medicine.

On Halloween itself Jane got to dye her hair black to really get into character.  Strangely, I don't remember Snow White having this much attitude.

These girls look forward to being allowed to wear real lipstick on Halloween.

Scott is a good sport about costumes and dressed up as a cowboy for the trunk-or-treat.

Kate enjoying her Halloween spoils.

With some trick-or-treating friends.

Twin surprise faces.  Our kids look alike huh?

 Kate's first school picture.  I remember mine looking much more awkward than this.

The girls wore new church dresses today and wanted a picture taken.  Luckily they still think it's cool to match.

And finally, here's a happy face to end with.  Babies are the best.

Babymoon 2012: New England Edition

As you all hopefully know by now, Baby Blinton/Clecky #1 is due at the end of January. So in preparation, Clint and I decided we'd better get in our last grown-up adventure before this duo becomes a trio. Since it's now officially Fall--the stepping stone to Winter when the chill is setting in--we naturally chose to head to the chilliest region of the U.S. that we could find (excluding Alaska).  This is kind of our thing. We're just two kiddos who aren't super fond of the cold but who tend to choose very cold vacation destinations (i.e. a December honeymoon in Chicago). We have both lived in New England as kids and visited at various times throughout our lives, but we wanted to have a real thorough go at it. So we packed our boots, gloves, scarves, and other various cold-weather-things that we haven't touched in 2 years, and we headed North!

Here is a very quick overview of our agenda. Most of it was predetermined, but Vermont was a last-minute decision. One that we fortunately did not regret!
Day 1-3: NYC
Day 4: Nantucket
Day 5: Boston & Salem
Day 6: Vermont
Day 7: Driving & Flying

And now, without further ado, we present to you the Chronicles of Babymoon 2012...

Birthday celebrations in Cypress the night before flying to NY. There was a little BBQ at County Line, lots of fun gifts, and Marleen had a most excellent football cake all ready! Thank you Mark, Marleen, Christine, & Austin for the fun night! And happy 26th, Clinty-poo! It looks good on you, old man!

Taxi #1... so excited to get the party started!

Coming into Manhattan!!!

Upon arriving in Manhattan, our first evening was spent walking up and down Fifth Avenue. The main event: FAO Schwartz to buy the little guy his first crib friend. We left with the fuzziest teddy bear we could find that didn't cost a fortune (sorry, picture to come), and after all of that walking decided to head to the hotel early (we're talking 7 pm early) for our first NYC pizza. Mmmm.

Day #1 was spent subway hopping. First stop was Chinatown to (a) find a knock-off designer bag that would be big enough to cart around our new camera and (b) find the most delicious dumplings in the world.

Waiting for the "supplier" to show up with my fake Coach bag. The things we do for fashion, am I right?

Our search for the greatest dumplings ever made was fruitful. So good!

I have a lot of respect for a restaurant that's totally up front with what it has to offer. Those were some EXCELLENT DUMPLINGS!!!

Next stop was Brooklyn to walk the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. The Heights is gorgeous!

The view from the Promenade. We were going to walk the Big One (the Brooklyn Bridge), but when it got right down to it... we opted not to.

Lady Liberty via Brooklyn. Ooo lala, isn't she a gorgeous dame?

"September 11- Broken Sky"

One of our few together-shots. Couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day in Brooklyn. And will ya look at that belly! Prodigious, ay?

Stop 3 was Greenwich Village for some of John's famous pizza on Bleecker Street. Yeah, we really love us some pizza. For reals.

Bleecker Street is as beautiful as Simon and Garfunkel made it sound. Seriously. A glorious ending to Day #1.

Day #2 was packed with action. First, a hearty breakfast bright and early right next to the Chrysler Building...

More subwaying...

Then on to The Museum of Modern Art--pricey entry fee but totally worth it. Look! A woman more pregnant than me! Gee, thanks Picasso for making my day!

This one (Persistence of Memory) by Dali always did scare the bageezus out of me. But I love it. Just can't help myself. It's so creepy and wonderful.

Clint with Picasso's Three Musicians. There is something so attractive about a man who appreciates good art, am I right? Yes, ma'am!

Deep thoughts.

Monet. This sucker is HUGE!

After a couple of hours of artistic enlightenment, we took a turn around Central Park in our very own horse-drawn pavilion driven by a very interesting Polish gentleman with a curly gray rat-tail on the back of his head. (Sorry for the poor picture quality. This is around the time where my camera died, and we had to resort to iPhone pics once again.)

After the carriage ride and a quick stop at a hot dog stand (or was it 2 quick stops at 2 hot dog stands?...), we headed over to the Ed Sullivan Theater for a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman. And because we're just so gosh darn good-looking (or maybe it was because the Letterman crew took pity on the aching pregnant-person feet), we got a special red dot on our tickets allowing us to sit in the front row AND be seated 30 minutes before the rest of the audience (this was after waiting around for 2 hours already, so I guess another 30 minutes wouldn't have killed us). Anyways, it was kind of a strange and wonderful experience being that close to people we've only ever seen on TV. And it was kind of awkward trying to half-laugh at Letterman's Romney jokes (I'm pretty sure if we hadn't laughed the over-zealous interns would have man-handled us out of the theater, so it was imperative that we made at least a minute effort since our lives depended on it).

 

And Tom Hanks was the guest of the evening (along with Tony Bennett who still has some crazy pipes even at the ripe old age of 86!). Tom was very entertaining and was sporting a nasty mustache which he claims is due to the fact that he's filming a movie about the life of Walt Disney, but I think he's just hiding a fungal infection of the upper lip. But I guess we'll know who's right if/when a Walt Disney movie starring Tom Hanks comes out in the near future. 

After the filming, a mad dash back to the hotel to grab the vouchers that I of course forgot to bring with us, and some more subway-riding, we arrived at The Majestic for Phantom of the Opera. You guys, I have seriously had this music memorized since I was a tiny youth, so this was a big deal for me. Clint was a good sport for coming and being so optimistic about the whole thing even though it was probably hard to tell what the heck was going on the entire time.

Thumbs up for sitting in a very comfy chair waiting to see Phantom! It really was a great experience. And Clint said the music was very good (Yay! We can stay married!!!), even though the plot line and character weirdness was hard to follow for a non-enthusiast. It was so cool every time they moved the giant prop-chandelier over the audience! I wasn't a huge fan of the male love-interest character (Raul). I thought he was kind of a sissy boy. But everyone else was fantastic!

After the show we were famished (plus the cast of Phantom was asking for donations for something or other), so we high-tailed it out of the theater and across the street to grab a bite at the Shake Shack. You guys, this place was packed! Before our showing of Phantom we had seen a line out the door and around the building. Luckily for us the line was only a little out the door when we jumped in, but it got crazy again pretty darn fast.

Their burgers, fries and milkshake were all delicious. Well played, Shake Shack! (Except next time I expect the milkshake to be less melty, okay Shack? Ya hear me?!)

We ended the night in Times Square. But we were so deliriously tired by that point that we forgot to look for the famous Times Square "Naked Cowboy" who hangs around in his tighty whities. Ah, man! Maybe next time (or maybe not).

Day #3 started off in NYC, but it didn't stay there for long. We took Taxi #2 back to LaGuardia to pick up our rental car, then headed to Cape Cod (to catch a ferry to Nantucket). This is what our drive looked like pretty much the whole way. I thought I might die of the awesomeness!

We also found Thurbers Avenue on the drive. Can I get a woot woot!

We took a little detour (okay maybe a biggish detour) on the way to our ferry to enjoy some highly touted seafood. I had been dying to find a little apple stand when lo and behold--- there she be!

This place had the best cider either of us had ever tasted in our lives. And you can trust us--- we take our cider very seriously.

The detour took us to Champlin's. Home of the $15 lobster lunch.

The view from the restaurant porch.

That was one tasty lobster! Worth every minute of the 2-hour detour. And I'm not being facetious, folks.

So after our detour for awesome food and a 2 hour ferry ride, we pulled up in Nantucket around 10:30 pm and were greeted by a very amiable Jamaican man employed by the White Elephant (our hotel for the night). Seriously folks, this place was amazing! Super friendly staff, little notes on our nightstand from the management, chocolates and postcards on our beds, the coolest shower cap I have ever seen... you name it! We were bummed to only have one night there, but they made the stay fantastic!

Day #4: Nantucket. Clint's birthday breakfast in bed!

The view from the backside of the White Elephant.

Our suite was the second from the end on the bottom floor. Could've stayed there the whole week and been A-Okay!

Well, since it's the island's off-season we pretty much had the island all to ourselves. So we rented a couple of bikes and took the trail around the island to see what we could see. Here lies the Windswept Cranberry Bog that was not so long ago full of beautiful red cranberries. Just missed it, dangit!

Figuring out exactly where we are. He had no idea I was taking this picture, I promise. After about 18 miles, the trail came full-circle. So we treated ourselves to some delicious hot clam chowder, returned our bikes, hopped on another ferry, and we were off to Boston!

The first order of business after arriving in Boston was to have some dinner. I'd made reservations at the ultra-fancy Top of the Hub at the tippy top of the Prudential Center about a month before the trip. So that was the plan. However, we just weren't feeling it. Soooo, we opted for pizza instead. (Are we pizza junkies?! Yes, yes we are.)

Boston is beautiful in the Fall, and the weather was wonderful. So on Day #5 we decided to hop on the Freedom Trail. The walk was gorgeous!!!

They really should have private pews like this in LDS churches, don't ya think?

Yeah, someone's a nerd.

We only got about halfway through the Freedom Trail before our feet were aching and we were out of time. But luckily for us (maybe it didn't have so much to do with luck?), the halfway point just happened to be at Mike's Pastry--makers of the most delicious cannolis in the land!

I am drooling right now just thinking about it.

Our next stop was Cambridge--just a few minutes outside of Boston--for the Unofficial Hahvard Tour. This is a tour led by students where they tell  you all the nitty-gritty details about Harvard. It is therefore not endorsed by the college but is supposedly much more fun b/c you get to hear the dirt! Woohoo! Our tour guide was a freshman from Georgia. She was adorable and probably a little nervous, because we were her only customers that morning! But the one-on-one tour was a new and very cool experience. And she appreciated that we were American and understood all of her jokes without needing any further explanations ;). (Apparently the "Hahvard" accent jokes don't quite translate well, especially with Asian tourists.)

This library was built as a memorial for a boy/man who died aboard the Titanic. His mother, the benefactress, gave very specific instructions for its use. To this day there is still a room reserved solely for the ghost of the young man where people bring fresh flowers and treats to keep him happy (especially during exam weeks).

From Cambridge, it was just a 40 minute drive up to Salem (famous for the Salem Witch Trials, dun dun dun!). So we headed up thataway to peruse the Marketplace, have dinner and attend a Witch Trial Trail by moonlight. Here we are (pictured above) taking the Vampire Test. As appealing as Twilight makes it look, I can honestly say that we are both relieved to still not be vampires.

Our tour guide on the Witch Trial Trail was a local historian who really knew his stuff! But he also made us work for the information--- we walked and walked and walked. And I can't vouch for Clint, but I was one tired lady by the time we got to our hotel that night (which was a DoubleTree, yay for warm hotel cookies!).

In the original plan for this trip, Salem and Boston were supposed to be done on 2 separate days. But because everything was so close together, it just worked out so that we had one spare day to spend any way we wanted to. After a little morning planning sesh, we decided to spend Day #6 in Vermont. As random as this sounds, it actually turned out to be a great choice. We spent the day driving through beautiful Vermont mountains, roaming the marketplace, hitting up the food vendors for treats, treating ourselves to Ben & Jerry's, playing in the leaves, perusing vintage thrift stores for ugly sweaters, enjoying the random street performances (like the local Glee club and a juggling magician), enjoying the most delicious meal of the trip (cheddar & ale soup, homemade root beer and apple cider, organic burgers, and fresh veggies), and topping it off with Clint's very first haunted forest in the heart of the Vermont woods. It was magical.

In summation, we had a great time! We are grateful to have had the opportunity to do this and thankful to have gotten out of New England before Sandy hit. The trip was a much-needed break for both of us and hopefully a fun reward for all of Clint's hard work during his rotations these past couple of months. We came back refreshed and ready to take on the world again! And we're glad to be back with our Snook!