Happy Birthday Zach

Saturday, August 29th:

Izzy and I headed to the pool for the Quantum Pool Party around 1:30pm to grab a good seat (party started 2pm). Unfortunately it was sprinkling hard out when we got there. It

was clear out our windows to the East, but raining on the back side of the building! Sigh. So we hung out under shelter for maybe 10 minutes. About 1 hour later we headed inside after it started sprinkling again. Of course, then it cleared up and was just gray the rest of the afternoon. Zach got home from work early and after Izzy napped and he worked out we went to dinner at Oceanaire to celebrate his birthday!

Rain Rain Go Away.

Nothing is better at the pool than a mouthful of Cinderella Gummies.

Isabella was AMAZINGLY good at dinner. They even customized our menus with "happy birthday zach" at the top! How cute~!

Fashionista in the making?

Only 2 more sleeps then we get to visit Mickey and Cinderella's House! Yay! We get to eat breakfast with Pooh at the Magic Kingdom (which when Isabella says it, "eat pooh" i guess doesn't sound that great....) but I think she will like it :)

Pool Days, "Tea Paa-tees", and Visiting "Frennz"

Now that we've gotten back into the swing of things after the big 2nd birthday trip, figured I better get some new pictures and updates!

I guess the most exciting "news" I have is that Zach was able to get some time off next week! His birthday is the 29th and we will leave on the 1st for Walt Disney World. Of all the places we discussed going, Key West or Naples to Golf/Scuba Dive, he wanted to do Orlando. We priced out lots of hotels on Disney Property and off site and decided on Buena Vista Palace right across the street from Downtown Disney. We booked a high floor room with views of either Epcot or Downtown Disney and the fireworks at night!

Things that are on our priority list include breakfast with Minnie Mouse at Cape May, breakfast with Winnie the Pooh at Magic Kingdom, dinner at Todd English's Blue Zoo, dinner at Roys (Hawaiian Restaurant in Orlando), 2 rounds of golf for Zach, Seaworld and maybe Epcot. Of course, he just told me yesterday that there is also a Miami gun show going on both Saturday and Sunday, so we need to be back in time for that. We'll see what we actually get done :)

Let's see, well, we rearranged some furniture this past weekend. We had our L shaped couch split up to utilize this huge shotgun of a room we have, and Isabella had her little kitchen and toys kind of over by where our kitchen is (beside the tv). We put the couch together and scooted it away from the glass doors and moved her kitchen/play area in the corner by the doors to the balcony, behind the couch, which helps hide some cups, plates, toys, etc. We also moved the desk out of Isabella's room and put it next to the tv so now we can buy a dresser for her room. Since we never really bought nursery furniture (zach had a queen bed in that room) we are now in the process of decorating! Found a great white bedroom set, the Brighton, at Crate and Barrel. Unfortunately the dresser is on back order til late January!

Isabella and I have had fun going to the pool, usually every other day for about 1 hour. There are two pools, a "hot" pool and a "cold" pool. Isabella tends to like the "hot pooh-a" better, but it is the morning pool and no sunshine there by the time we get out, and it's a LOT deeper than the unheated pool. We have taken our "tea paa-tees" outside so our rubber ducks and dolphin friends at the pool can partake! It's been pretty darn hot with scattered storms, so we haven't done the park a lot, but today we did have a picnic there followed by bubble chasing/blowing, and lots of trips down the slide.

I don't know what event was going on, or where, but we see the Good Year Blimp a lot.

This is the reason we are looking at getting a play table. :) Tea Parties have become a favorite pastime activity. All our "frenz" have to come!

Brie and Isabella at the Village of Merrick Park Mall when they came down to visit last week. It was lots of fun spending the day shopping! Lori taught Izzy how to throw pennies in the fountains (yes, they became fast friends, as Lori got her a changepurse for her birthday!) We always have Izzy put spare change in her "piggy" so she's a bit confused with penny/piggy. Currently we throw piggys in the fountains.



After we got done shopping we headed back to the Fountainebleau Hotel and changed for an afternoon dip in one of their 8 pools! No sooner than we found some chairs and got in the water did the sky turn black. We had maybe 10 mins in the water, then sought shelter under a tent for maybe 10 minutes while it rained. Ran inside, got cleaned up, and had an AMAZING dinner at Hakkasan at the Fountainebleau.

I'm hoping for more pictures from Lori and Brittany :)

Next update will be VACATION!

West Side visit part 2

Monday the 27th (Happy official bday Isabella!) took us to Indy. Zach went golfing with his brothers at Purgatory and we went to the Zoo! Izzy LOVED it. Grandpa loved it too, as the two of them quickly became buddies as he showed her all the animals, and took her to touch an elephant at the end of the show!

The elephants were definitely her favorite. She still calls them "ets", and grandma got her a stuffed "et" with a little blanket attached to take home. Great for car rides!

The Indy Zoo was really a great experience. They had a special presentation of Komodo Dragons. Who knew they were carnivorous and could be up to 300 lbs and take down a water buffalo? AND, that they would eat the entire buffalo (hoofs and all) except the intestines? Very interesting!
The dolphin show was great, except Isabella was getting a little antsy by that point and didn't really want to sit through the entire thing. It was a perfect day out, again!

This evening Zach and I had a dinner out alone (thanks mom and dad!) and tried the old "Maize" now called "Adelitos" (i think). Eww. And i really never say that about a restaurant. But definitely "Eww". We started off with meatballs. Zach said it's good to try something basic at a new place to see how they execute it. Well, they were okay. I would not order them again, nor would I really recommend them. The soup sounded great: a White Gazpacho (we both LOVE gazpacho, a cold tomato soup. White Gazpacho is cucumber based) however, a bland cold cucumber soup came out in a lukewarm breadbowl, which gave me the impression I was dipping warm bread in some dip I just pulled out of the fridge. Icky.
We tried 2 different tapas including shrimp skewers (funky smelling), chili scallops (4, which were about nickle sized coated with chili powder, just not well executed). They didn't seem to have a consistent theme going either. They kind of wanted to be Rustic Italian, but were serving foods traditionally from Spain, Ireland and Britain also. Tapas dishes ran $9+ and large plates, supposedly to serve 4? ran $35-$55. Now, if we drop $30+ per person for food, I expect my silverware to be of decent weight and not a paper napkin wrapped around them. And I kind of don't like sitting on outdoor wire cafe chairs, unless of course, I am outside. Just me.

Tuesday morning we headed down to Fishers to see the BRANDS!!! YAY! They graciously took Isabella's Two Year Old pictures for us! I absolutely LOVE their work, and if you ever ever need to create beautiful memories, they are the ones to call (when we went back to view the pics at their amazing viewing room, I was tearing up). Not only was it wonderful to have her pics done, but seeing my lovely Brookey and Dan was great! Fortunately, we had another glorious weather-day as the pictures were outside at a park not far from their new swanky studio! Thank you sooo much!!!!

Zach's grandma was in the hospital at St Francis with two broken wrists, so we stopped by to say hello to her (she's doing much better now) and then Zach was off to the airport.

Which left Grandma and Grandpa with time to pull down my old tricycle for Isabella:

Time flew by too quickly, and we were constanly rushing from place to place, but it was so wonderful seeing everyone again. xoxo!
Oh, and yes, Isabella talks about "jill" "ju-ey" "brook" "Dan" "man" (samantha, which comes from her obsession with your guys' picture on your biz card. i give it to her to hold in grocery check out lines- keeps her occupied haha) "kay-ee" (yes, she loves looking at kaylie's pictures) very randomly. Like, she will just walk up to me and rattle off in quick succession the six names above. You guys (well, plus gigi, papa, mama and pa) are on the special list!

Isabella's Second Birthday, West Side visit part 1

We were fortunate enough to make it to West Lafayette for Izzy's second birthday! Isabella and I came up on Tuesday, July 21st and Zach came up on the 23rd. Thursday night we hit up the Tippecanoe Fair. Isabella petted a couple calves and saw all the goats, pigs, chickens, horses and a few ducks. She really enjoyed the elephant ear too!

Friday we went down to the Indianapolis Children's Museum in the afternoon and I think a good time was had by all! We had visited the Miami Children's Museum a few months prior and that entire museum probably would have fitted on the top floor of the Indy Museum. Needless to say, Indy's rocks!

We were too far in line to make it on the first choice, a tiger, but the black horses are supposed to bring good luck to the rider. Too bad she only was on it for 30 seconds...

She really liked this mailbox.

By the time we reached the final floor, she had had enough :) I think she was asleep in her stroller maybe 2 minutes later.

We hit up Bistro 501 for dinner back in Lafayette that evening - yummy!

Saturday was pretty much a preparation day filled with baking, decorating, and cleaning. We all headed to bed around 12:45am, 2 hours earlier than last year yay! (silly cake...)

Here is the 12:38 am picture!

Sunday the 26th Zach and I played a round of golf at Coyote Crossing starting at 7am. Besides giving my mother hypertension in fear that we wouldn't be back in time and "nothing would be ready", we cut out on hole 17 and yes, got everything done before guests arrived around 1. It was simply beautiful out, a nice cool 73 ish, coupled with family and close friends made it such a wonderful day! Winnie the Pooh and Friends showed up too ;)

Mom said it was "like Christmas" when Izzy came downstairs after her bath and found Pooh and then her cake!

Breakfast is always more delicious on a small, decorated table :)

Thanks to Jill, John, Jonathon and Roxeanne for coming early and helping out with balloons!

And congratulations Julie for joining her church this Sunday!

Gift boxes for the friends!

What I spent Saturday doing....

The menu featured "Kanga's Jumpin Baked Beans", "Tigger Tail Mac N'Cheese", "Rabitz Gardin", "Eyeore's Lost Tails" (skewers of blueberries, strawberry for the bow, and blackberry for the end of the tail), "Roo's Pockets: Chicken Salad and Ham Sandwiches", "Piglet's Pink Lemonade" and "Pooh's Sunny Day Fruit Salad with a Honey Basil drizzle" and a "Bee-licious Lemon Chiffon Cake with Raspberry Mousse filling"
"What a beautiful dress you have..."

Absolutely the cutest part of the day:

Kaylie was such a great friend!!

Isabella was not too sure about the candle or the singing.