Weekend Getaways

I'm still really behind on updating the blog, so I decided to make this a catch all post for a couple things Ben and I have done without Lucy. Since this blog is mostly about her, I figured it'd be ok if I skimped a little on these trips... but I still want to make sure I remember that we had time to get away during this phase in our life. I hope Ben and I always remember to make time for our marriage and make time for ourselves!

Over a month ago I had another girls weekend away (I know what you're thinking, this girl is super lucky - and you are right, Ben agreed to watch Lucy while I traveled with girl friends for three weekends this summer, he knew it was important for me to have some time to recharge, and I was so thankful he supported me going on these trips!) Labor Day weekend I went to Pigeon Forge with Courtney and Beth - we had a great trip with lots of laying out time by the Lazy River, relaxing time in our super deluxe condo, and did a couple touristy things each night. We all agreed Pigeon Forge was a little to family/touristy for us, but I'm still glad we went and experienced it! We just know not to go back till we all take our kids :)

A couple highlights: seeing a magic show at the Wonderworks building... I think we spent most our time laughing AT the magician, not WITH him, but oh well, we had fun!


We ate at a couple good spots: the Dixie Stampede (dinner and a show!), a Japanese hibachi grill, and a small country restaurant (I can't remember the name of).


A few weeks later, Courtney and Ian took Ben and I to a Colts game, so we (or should I say my mom) returned the favor by taking them out to dinner at Ruth's Chris before. It was an awesome night, with amazing food and amazing seats (we were in the second row). Definitely not something any of us could afford on our own, so we were all appreciative of the free tickets and free dinner!


Lastly, we headed up to Chicago last weekend for a last trip before the baby comes and to watch Katy in the Chicago Marathon. We had planned to take Lucy, but both sets of grandparents offered to watch her so we figured we couldn't pass up an opportunity like that! I was so glad we didn't take her, it was a super relaxing weekend plus it would have been stressful trying to get her around as we tried to find Katy in the marathon. A couple shots from the trip...

Waiting for Katy...


We spotted her 3 times (although she only saw us twice) which was a pretty good accomplishment considering how crazy busy the city was that day. Go Katy!


I'm guessing things are going to slow down over the next month as we get closer to my due date, but I must say we've had an amazing summer full of lots of fun trips and lots of fun activities in Indy. I can't believe how fast time has flown by!

A few weeks ago (I'm still catching up) we spent almost a full week in Northern Indiana at Lake Wawasee and Lake Webster. The first half of the week we stayed with Katy and Brandon at their family's cabin on Wawasee, then headed over to my family's cabin on Webster for the weekend. We had a lot of fun (as you can tell by all the pictures) and continue to be thankful for friends and family that have lake cabins and boats that they share with us! I hope Lucy has the opportunity to grow up going to the lake every summer like I did. (Hopefully she'll like the boat a little more than I did though!)

I must mention that throughout the week, Lucy was extremely happy! She slept at least 13 hours every night and would take 3 hour naps every day... she was perfect. We were so thankful to have a happy, go with the flow baby, while we vacationed.

The first day Ben worked out of the Ft. Wayne office, so it was just Lucy and I who ventured out on the water. All ready to swim! With her new gender-neutral life jacket (although I think it looks rather boyish), that I was reluctant to buy, but the practical side of me knew Hank wouldn't want to wear a purple and pink life jacket when he is ready to fit into this life jacket (or should I say Hank's father wouldn't want him to!)


Helping Bbop drive the boat!


Katy and Brandon were tons of help while Ben was away (and even when he was back) - for not having kids, they sure know how to love on Lucy and lend a helping hand!


Somebody found a new favorite food while on the trip...


Hanging out at the sandbar...


Testing out the tube as we headed back to the house... (I'm not sure Lucy liked this so much!)


Once Ben got back, we took everybody tubing. But first a business call... (this picture is kind of silly, but it's one of my favorites from the trip!)


Family tube ride...


Twinsies...


And of course the big kids went tubing too!


The next day was filled with some of the same activities, including a little wakeboarding...


And I can't forget my other baby who loves the lake too... Ruthie had a blast swimming. Although she can't tell me in words, I'm guessing it is her favorite thing to do. Whenever she was outside, she was jumping in and out of the water, fetching whatever we would throw her.




We had beautiful weather both days, and enjoyed dinner on the patio each night.


Some people enjoyed doing other things on the patio too..

(I know Lucy will probably kill me for including this shot when she is older, but I had to capture her famous poop face!)

On our third day, we packed up and headed over to Lake Webster. Most of that day was spent packing and unpacking, so it was pretty uneventful. We woke up the following day though and headed to the beach. The weather was not quite as nice, but we still got in some good beach time.




Playing in the sand with Jordyn...


Taking a goldfish break


Ben trying to get Lucy to swim... but she was not very happy about it!


Our final day, Sunday, we headed home and surprisingly got some much needed relaxing time! Funny how you usually end up needing to rest after vacation :)

Girls Trips

We have been so busy traveling the past couple weeks, I haven't had any time to write about all of the fun we've been having! Hopefully I'll get caught up in the next couple days because we're back to traveling next week.

The past two weekends I felt so incredibly blessed! Blessed to have two weekends away with great girl friends, blessed to have a loving husband who supported my decision to get away before baby 2 comes, and blessed to have parents who live close by and could help Ben while he was a single parent. The last weekend in July I went up to Chicago for a "Kappa Reunion". Every year in the past we have had a wedding or baby to celebrate in our group of friends, but this year their was a bit of a lull in the action, so we decided to get together just to catch up! It was a perfect weekend of talking, laughing, and relaxing. We hung out at the beach for a little bit, ate at two cute breakfast places, and went to Second City to see a hilarious comedy show. And fortunately for me, Erin was not feeling up to sleeping on someone's couch since she was 30+ weeks pregnant, so she let me share a hotel room with her and David. We pregnant ladies have to stick together.

A few highlights from the weekend (no great photos of the group, and these are all just from iPhones... but oh well!)


At Adobo Grill before the show...


Second City...


The following weekend I flew out to Washington D.C. to meet Katy. She was there presenting for a conference and was then going to be driving all the way back to West Lafayette (their new home) by herself so I went to explore the city and keep her company on the drive back. I left Indy on Friday morning and it ended up taking me 9+ hours to get to out hotel in D.C. - I flew to Atlanta, then to Baltimore, took a train into downtown D.C., walked to find a bus stop, caught the bus out to Georgetown and finally laid down to relax! Fortunately I caught up on some reading, so the day didn't seem too long.

The long travel day was definitely all worth it though, Katy and I had a great time catching up and exploring the city. I don't think we've had a girls weekend away since before I was pregnant with Lucy and I forgot how nice it is to have an entire weekend just to hang out and have no agenda in mind.

Of course we did do a lot of exploring as well, we were in Washington D.C. after all! Here are a few highlights from our trip - all with my iPhone again.

The first night we ate at a Thai restaurant and then tried to get cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes (from the TLC reality show, DC Cupcakes) on the way home. Unfortunately, they close at 9 and we had showed up at 9:05pm... snagged a quick picture though... and then went to get some delicious frozen yogurt from Ice Berry.


No to fear though, we woke up the next morning, determined to get cupcakes! So we went around 11am and waited in line for about 30 minutes to snag these beautiful masterpieces...

And let me tell you, it was worth the wait! From top to bottom, left to right: Banana Split, Red Velvet (for Ben), Blueberry Cheesecake, Salted Carmel, Peanut Butter Fudge and Vanilla.

After exploring Georgetown, we decided to spend the rest of the day in the city so we took a bus (Katy was my inspiration for all of the public transportation on this trip!) to Dupont Circle to get some burgers and fries from the Shack Shake and then walked over to the White House...


And stopped by the American History Museum because we had heard there was an exhibit featuring the First Ladies' Dresses. Katy with Michelle Obama's Dress


We also checked out Julia Child's Kitchen while we were there...


After the museum I needed to rest (I did pretty well for being 24 weeks pregnant, but I do have my limits!) so we sat at a cafe and got some water... only to get caught in a rain storm! We waited the rain out and then walked by the Washington Memorial and got pretty close to the Lincoln Memorial, but got too tired and too hungry to walk all the way there. We took the subway to Adams Morgan to get dinner at a place called The Diner. Then took a bus, walked and another bus to finally get home! I was exhausted! But so glad we saw everything we did in the short amount of time we had.

The next morning we got in the car and headed home. We had planned to stop at an outlet mall, but after 3 stops to pee and eat, we ran out of time to get to the outlet mall before it closed... oh well! We spent about 6 hours of the drive talking so it seemed to fly by!

After two weekends away I was so excited to see Ben and Lucy and am looking forward to spending most of this upcoming weekend with just them, I missed our family a lot! Not that I don't love spending every day with Lucy, but distance really does make the heart grow fonder, and two weekends away was just what I needed to get re energized to care for Lucy, Ben and our home. My spirit is so lifted!

Oh and for those of you worried about Ben, he's had his time "off" too! Earlier this summer he went to visit his friend Sean in California. I asked for some pictures from him, but when I flipped through the camera I realized there was not one picture that included Sean or Ben - they were all just of the scenery and stuff Ben saw while he was there! So here's a picture from Ben's trip...

Weird... I know... that's why I hadn't originally posted any pictures in the first place :) By the way, this is from Ripley's Believe or Not Museum... so I guess it's not that weird! He also spent a Saturday at Kings Island with his brothers and another Saturday golfing in Northern Indiana with some friends. We both have had some great weekends away from Lucy together and by ourselves, and I think our marriage is so much stronger and we are such better parents because of it!

St. Louis Weekend

Goodness, we've been traveling a lot! We went from not traveling for several months, to having three action packed weekends in a row! It was actually a blast and they were much needed vacations, and much needed time with family and friends. Our final trip was a short trip to St. Louis for a Cardinals game. Just Ben and I went, so there was much less to think about and it was a bit more relaxing.

My mom had to go out to audit two of their restaurants in St. Louis so she invited us to join her for the weekend for dinner at Ruth's and a Cardinals game. It was a blast!

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza downtown, and Mom got us upgraded to a suite on the 20th floor, so the room and the view were awesome! We almost didn't want to leave the room!


We spent the first part of the day at the roof top pool (that had another great view!) Here I am posing with baby boy...


And then washed up and headed to dinner - even though we were all pretty stuffed from the wings we ate at Hooters for lunch (I think this was my first experience at Hooters, but what can I say, when the baby wants wings, the baby gets wings). Let's just say dinner was a little more classy...


Next up was our golf car ride over to the game... probably my favorite part of the weekend! Nothing beats riding around downtown St. Louis on the back of a golf car that goes 20+ miles an hour!




The game was a blast - we had great seats, and by great I mean they were in the shade, which was pretty much the only thing I was hoping for!


But after six innings, we decided to head back to Ruth's for a little dessert and drinks. Then I insisted Ben and I walk around for a little bit to try to work off some of the thousands of calories we had consumed that day!

The next morning we slept in late (a treat, since usually our little bean is usually calling out our name bright and early in the morning at home!) and went to a local breakfast place called Rooster. It was delicious so I was glad we walked a little further than we needed and stayed a little later than we should have to make it there.

Lucy had a blast staying with Grandma and Grandpa Wehner, and didn't even want to go home with us when we picked her up! They must spoil her rotten over there... like any good grandparent should :)

Fourth of July - Holland (part 2)

On the actual Fourth of July we spent most of the morning packing up at the hotel. Lucy slept in till 9 so we had a late breakfast and then headed over to Ben's grandparents for their 60th anniversary party- a cook-out with Ben's aunts, uncles and cousins.

Our little firecracker, one year ago...


And now, all grown up! (but still just as bald... ok, ok, her hairs growing, you just can't see it in this picture!)

Thanks for my Fourth of July outfit Mimi! You got me one last year and this year... so I'm expecting something cute next year!)

Playing on the swing set at Great Grandma and Grandpa DeGraaf's.


Hanging out with two of my favorite guys at the cookout. Dad...


And Grandpa...


And let's not forget baby boy... he's hidden somewhere in there!


We headed home from the cookout, Lucy napped about 45 minutes in the car (even though she was exhausted and usually naps for 2 hours, I've found car naps never make it past the 45 minute mark). But instead of going straight home, we went over to Beth's for a Fourth of July cookout and to catch some fireworks. I forgot to snag any pictures there, but we had a blast and it was a great way to end our busy, fun filled, Fourth of July weekend!

Fourth of July - Holland (part 1)

After picking cherries we continued on our way to Holland, where Ben's grandparent's cabin is. We had a great weekend hanging out with Ben's family, relaxing on the beach and touring Holland! Here are a few highlights from our trip...

After getting to Holland, we chatted with Ben's grandparents, met up with the family, and got to spend a little time on the beach. I was anxious to get back to the hotel to wash off all the camp gunk and I figured Lucy could use a nap, so we all took a shower/nap break back at the hotel. After the break we went to Russ's for dinner (a locally owned favorite of the Wehners) and then walked along the pier at the Holland State Park...

Lucy and Grandma watching the boats come in. This girl LOVES her grandma!


Uncle Nick showing Lucy around...


Walking on the pier with Dad...


Playing in the sand after we had just cleaned up at the hotel! Oh well, she had fun...






We spent most of the day on Sunday at the beach with a stop in the middle for a cook out with Ben's grandparents, aunt and cousins...




That night we walked around and ate dinner in downtown Holland. I have been to Holland several times but this was our first extended weekend and it was so neat to see other parts of the city besides the beach (don't get me wrong, I do love the beach!) It's an adorable town with lots of neat shops and lots of history too (Ben's parents met at college there so we got the scoop on all the places that were still around).

After dinner we toured Hope college, with Ben's dad, mom and brother Nick being our tour guides (all Hope Alumni). It was fun to learn about the campus and was especially nice for Luke as he will be going to Hope in the fall.


Of course, we made sure that Lucy didn't get a good look around - she will obviously be going to IU when she is ready for college.