We Aren't THAT Different!

So we arrived to Atlanta today, and upon check-in to our lovely lakeside campsite, I decided that my day really isn't that much different than yours!  Really!

We go for walks.

Hanging out in Charlotte

Sometimes on our walks, we do silly things.

Cooper likes to join in on the fun, too.  Can't you tell?

We also take time to work out.  We just have to be a little creative with our "gym."

I know you can't hear it, but Beckett is in the background saying "3, 2, 1, work!"

Can't forget to stay clean!  We must take our baths!

Poor little guy is wondering, "What happened to my whale bathtub??!?  It's WAY cooler than this little basin.  That's it, I want new parents!!!!"

And...just to keep it in perspective...just how small it is.  Poor little guy....we surely win parents of the year for this one!

See, it's not that bad!

All clean and snuggly!

And amidst all the work we do; yes, we do work :) ; we take time to explore and have fun!

Even Cooper takes time for himself with his busy schedule.  We found the perfect secluded spot on Lake Lanier outside of Atlanta, and Cooper even found himself a toy!

Mommy kisses are THE BEST!

Cooper, pretending he is swimming.  (Don't be fooled, he just splashes around hoping the frisbee will float his way--remember, he is a chicken!)

And last, but not least, I spend countless hours playing with and gazing at the little man.  His eyes can't decide whether they want to be blue or hazel, so they are both for now.  Blue around the outside, hazel on the inside.  This proud mama thinks they are gorgeous!

His newest obsession is playing with water bottles.  Good luck drinking out of one when he is within arm's reach

And, this is what happens when a nervous mama takes away his water bottle to remove the lid because she is scared of him choking on it.

Child knows what he wants!

So, you see, we aren't that much different than you...just living out of a much smaller space and sharing showers with strangers.  That's all! :) 

Wait, so this is REAL?

**I wrote this post last week on Thursday, but had trouble getting it posted until today!**

So it is finally hitting me that this dream of Sean's is really happening, and in turn so is mine.  Before school let out, it didn't hit me that I'd be staying at home with my little love for good because it just felt like I had an extra long maternity leave.  But now that all my teacher friends are headed back to school, it is finally sinking in that I get to stay home on a four month tour of the country in an RV with my little man.  Hey, so we had to mesh Sean's and my dreams to make it work.  No big deal.  We are so thankful and blessed with the success of Metro Dash.  The past month has been an amazing blur of bouncing from house to house and spending lots of time with our family.  It's been awesome.  Sean told me today that the girl who cuts his hair said, "man you must really love each other," in response to his description of the next three months.  I am pretty sure that the craziness of it all is going to really help us appreciate the little things in life (like the ability to have two people moving in a room at once--our home is tiny, people!; or not having ankles and feet that look I have chicken pox from neverending bug bites; oh! or not having to pull some random boxer briefs out of the campground washing machine in order to wash my baby's diapers without contaminating them with stranger cooties)  But I promise, we are having fun, and don't regret it for a minute!  (even if I seem to complain sometimes! ;) )

So we made it safely to Charlotte after a long day on the road yesterday.  We are slowly teaching our big chicken dog, Cooper, how to smoothly transition from the scary campground to the scary city all in one day, but there are so many things to be afraid of.  I mean, take today's experience....while walking by a crowded bus stop, a man jumps out of his seat and immediately starts petting Cooper.  Then, his questionably pregnant lady friend comes to pet him too.  She sees Beckett's little toes poking out from under his sun shield on the stroller, points to him, and says, "I got me two of them coming."  Before we could wrap our minds around her statement, someone sitting about ten feet away decided to bark at Cooper.  SomeONE, not some DOG, someONE.  Keep it classy, Charlotte.  Keep it classy.  We are ready for Metro Dash this weekend, and hopefully will get some free time tomorrow to explore the nature trails.

Sean and Cooper shortly before we were accosted at the bus stop

So let's rewind a bit....we had a fabulous week last week staying with Sean's mom and stepdad in New Jersey.  We spent lots of time with his siblings and their families and enjoyed getting the babies together.

Beckett got LOTS of snuggle time in with MeMa and Pop Pop Jerry.

Beckett also got to visit with his Great Grandmother 3 times and make her day as she recovers from her broken hip.  It was the first time she got to see both boys together!  What a special time it was!

We also got some rays in at his Aunt Kelly and Uncle Bob's pool.  Ryder even shared his police float with Beckett.  Beckett LOVED kicking and splashing in the water.  It was the first time he actually showed that he liked it instead of just being neutral.  We were lucky enough to spend the day with Bob's sister and her absolutely precious daughter, Lily (who is FULL of personality) and her 7 week old cutie, Molly.

We ended the week on a celebratory note, celebrating Aunt Erica's birthday at a great seafood restaurant.   We even had the baby.....in a bar!

Unfortunately, just about everyone who ordered the wahoo got food poisoning.  Thankfully I was a lucky one, but the wahoo took Sean as a casualty.  However, our sweet Beckett likes to keep things fair, so while Sean was up late night doing very un-fun things, I was up late night with a HYSTERICALLY screaming baby who only wanted daddy (who was REALLY not available to soothe a screaming baby.)  That was a fun night.

The night before the Philly race we stayed at a campground that provided us our first experience with a trailer park.  We were used to nature, trees, privacy.  Nope, not here.  Hello to your neighbor who is about ten feet away from you.  We got some funny looks when we unloaded 15 5-gallon jugs of water, and 3 40-pound boxes of bananas from our RV.  No big deal.

The set-up at the race in Philly was awesome.  We parked the RV and trailer on the sidewalk directly next to where we set up the Gauntlet.  This sidewalk was on the grassy area in front of the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, and the Federal Reserve.  Should we be worried that nobody said two words to us about our parking job OR what was in our big scary van and trailer between the hours of 4:00 a.m. and noon?  Hey, I won't complain, just saying.

Cooper, overseeing the setup

The Gauntlet, with our home in the background :)

It was another great event, and we even got to cheer for Uncle Bob and cousin Ryder!

 

After the race in Philly, we got to stop back home to see Mormor and Gramps again!  Yay!!!  We got to spend a wonderful evening and half the day on Sunday with them before we sadly had to hit the road again.  We spent a whirlwind two days in VB.  It was awesome, though!  Somehow a group of us girls were able to get together on a Tuesday morning for breakfast to celebrate our dear friend, Michelle's belated birthday.  It was awesome to see Andrea, quite possibly one of the cutest pregnant ladies ever.  I lucked out because she was visiting from Hawaii.  It was also wonderful to see Jules and Amanda!  Yay for girl time!

My beautiful besties!  I LOVE them!

I also attended a bachelorette party, dinner with our FUN neighbors, Caleb, Jenna, and sweet baby Brylee (Beckett and Brylee are in love--Beckett has multiple girlfriends these days!)  We also had to do laundry and take lots of showers to enjoy it while we could!  And my favorite was repacking everything in the RV now that we know what we really need since we will be gone from home until the end of November.  Oh, and Beckett's doctor's appointment.  All jammed into two days!  I wish we could have stayed longer, but the races are calling us.

Our adventure has begun, and now I must head off for my first shower experience in Charlotte.  *sigh*

Family Time!

Thankfully, we have 2 weeks between our Boston and Philly races, which means two weeks in Jersey with some of our favorite people!  We have spent a week with Sean's Dad.  I'm talking pure bliss here, people.  No shower shoes, no spiders, no dirt, and a queen size bed!  (Our sleeping situation deserves it's own blog post to come soon).  Not to mention the fact that Beckett loves his Poppy time!  Well, now he enjoys his Poppy time.  It wasn't always like that.  Some first experiences with Poppy included his cute little lip, which popped out, his forehead crinkling up, and lots of WAILS.  We think Poppy looks like a strange version of Beckett's daddy, and that was just a bit too much.  But now he LOVES him!  All Poppy needs to do is look at the little guy, and he busts out in a smile!

Oh let's not forget the food of this week either.  Poppy's new roommate is an AMAZING cook!  I'm pretty sure Fernando's only goal in life is to make our little family a BIG family whose cumulative weight is 1,200 pounds before we leave Jersey.  I'm pretty sure he is succeeding in that goal.  I mean, look at dessert.  He pretty much whipped four of those bad boys up in about 2 minutes.  I'm fairly certain that Fernando is a Portuguese angel sent down from heaven.  We're talking 4 course meals here--with napkins folded into little shapes on your salad plate.  How do I get some more Fernando in my life???  Sean and I ponder this question daily.
So to people who aren't going to be living at a campground for four months, campgrounds seem adventurous, rustic, outdoorsy, fun.  I guess this is how on my fourth night of freedom from one of them, I ended up back there again.  Sigh.  At least this time we had some great company.  And with the promise of s'mores at the end of the night, I was *kinda* ok with it. Beckett finally decided that he likes avocados.  I'm fairly certain he only decided that because he had his beautiful Aunt Erica feeding him.  Look at that face--he's totally thinking, "I would even eat lima beans if she feeds me!  She's way cooler than Mom!" 

Happy Birthday, Sean!

We spent awesome quality time with Poppy, Fernando, Sean's brother, sister, their spouses, and of course sweet little baby Ryder.  We ate, laughed, walked around the campground, cooked s'mores, and even celebrated Sean's birthday a little early with some chocolate cake.  One of the huge blessings of Metro Dash is that we make our own schedule, and we have been able to spend time with our families since July 13.  We are having a blast and savoring every minute with our families! 

Guy bonding time.

I am not the only s'more lover! :)

S'more time!

Mini Me!

Enjoying the beautiful night by the campfire! :)

Sacrifice

So, as it turns out, there are certain sacrifices one must make when living in a 24 foot long RV bouncing from campground to campground.  In order to remain positive here, let's reflect on the good too.  How about we alternate?  Oh where to begin....

Let's start with laundry.  As all you mamas out there know, babies are synonymous with laundry.   Then, when you use cloth diapers and cloth wipes, that doubles your load.  So since it had been almost a week since our last laundromat experience, I of course had 6 loads of laundry.  But how to transport laundry AND baby to the campground laundry room?  Lucky for me, I can think on my feet, and thanks to Baby B's stroller and the Baby Bjorn (thanks Allison! :) )  I was able to make it successfully to my destination.  And here begins the adventure.  Let's just say I will choose public laundromats over campground ones any day.  In my public laundromat experience I did not experience spiders in the washer, dirt in the washer AND dryer, and 90 plus degree temperatures in the facility.  Never thought I'd say it, but sketchy laundromat in nowheresville town Massachusetts--oh how I miss you!

Now for the good--how can it get any better than that?  Here is the view from our bed--looking out to the great outdoors.  Little man on the bed, hubby putting away groceries, mama enjoying the view.  Too bad back doors being open is a rare occurrence--umm...hello bugs!



Showering.  I miss my shower at home so very much.  There is nothing fancy about it.  Perhaps my favorite part is that I don't have to wear shoes, or I don't have a small heart attack every time I bump into the wall with my naked showering self, or I don't have an experience like I had about an hour ago.  Let's just say it involved a cold shower, a curtain that no matter which way you moved it, you were visible to anyone in the bathroom, and water that wouldn't turn off so I was forced into squeezing myself into a tiny space between the scary wall and cold shower spray to kind of dry off.  Oh, and let's not forget the part where I flashed the poor tween who was sitting on the bench keeping her aunt company while she showered.  Really, lady?  You need a 12 year old to keep you company while you shower???  Now she's been scarred for life.  Hope you're happy.

Ok, back to the positive!  Must stay positive!  Happy, happy, happy!  Sean and I were blessed to have his mom and soon-to-be step-dad fly to Boston to help us with the baby during Metro Dash.  We culminated an awesome race day by walking along the Boston Harbor Walk, and eating at a great outdoor, dog-friendly restaurant (for our big doofy friend) on the water.  So, I got a cute baby and a list of fun cities...who out there has a plane ticket and an itch to babysit???   Any takers???

Well, I think we will end on a positive note.  After all, this trip is already unforgettable!  We are having fun in our teeny, tiny home.  Hopefully the big dog, little baby, and 2 crazy parents will make it home happy and in one piece come November.  Until next time, I will be showering in a New Jersey campground bathroom with strangers and spiders!