Father's Day and other stuff

I miss updating my life on a weekly basis, but ever since this kid starting moving around, I have not sat down. I'm slowly losing my sanity, but it's totally adorable at the same time. This weekend we had our first FATHER'S DAY along with a few other firsts that I'll catch ya'll up on. Father's Day was awesome!! Well, at least I had a good time with it. Ryan got his daddy remote start for the truck (we drop it off this week) along with some other car accessories (wipes, wash mitt, air fresheners) and this pretty sweet picture frame that is in the shape of the letters D-A-D. He also got a slice of cookie cake and some orange cream sodas. Not going to lie, I had a BLAST shopping and putting random stuff together for him. I can't wait for his birthday in August!!!! I already know what he's getting. Anyway..

That morning, we woke up way too early. I think Ry is beginning to get a few more teeth starting to poke through 'cause he was miserable last week/weekend. He woke us up before 5 (which isn't abnormal) but then he was too fussy to play yet too fussy to sleep. After a while, we put him down for a nap and even tried to lay back in bed ourselves and get extra shut eye. I don't know if during that hour of in and out snoozing that Ry slept at all. We finally got our butts out of bed and got ready to go to the lake!!!

There's this big lake not too far from our house (which is awesome!) We had been to one part of it for a family day for G's work, but this time we were going onto a part of it from the South Carolina side. We got dressed and I took my man to get McDonald's breakfast as part of the celebration. (Side note: it took me almost 20 mins to get out of there with my order-worst McDonalds employees ever. I don't usually eat fast food so I don't know if this is the norm or not, but I was not happy to have to wait that long for my morning caffeine. What a cruel, cruel joke.) After a couple hash browns and some overly sugary coffees, we were off!

I didn't realize how incredibly big this thing was! I mean, it's no Lake Michigan or anything, but it was a heck of a lot bigger than my first impression. We met a couple friends at a less popular side of the beach so we could take the dogs without getting into trouble. Oh how I've missed the beach and sand between my toes!!! (My feet are super exfoliated btw). We brought Belle and she LOVED the water. It's amazing how our laziest dog can act like a little crazy, energetic puppy when she gets to go anywhere and meet new people and other dogs. She was so tired, but she just kept swimming to her little hearts desire and snorting like a piggie to fight the exhaustion. The water was so warm, so we took Ry in and let him swim around. It was great! Although, a fish bit me on the ankle. I was not too thrilled about that part. I think a part of me hates nature a little more each time I get out there cause something ALWAYS happens! Don't get me started...

After the lake, we were wiped. Ry and Belle passed out completely (he had drool as I took him out of the car and I'm pretty sure Belle has been in a coma for the past 48 hours). G had to work on a paper for class the rest of the day, which kind of sucked, but I let him break our 1-pizza-a-week rule for lunch, and then I made him lasagna for dinner (one of his favs). Other than the homework, I think it was a pretty successful Father's Day!

The beach

As for our baby-he's getting so grown up! I know, I know, I say this every time. He's starting to pull himself up a little bit. The only problem is that we don't really have any furniture that's his height to pull up on, so he doesn't get to practice as much as he'd like. The first time he did it was in the bathtub in the laundry basket (he takes baths in a laundry basket so his toys will stay close to him, allowing him to play more). Then yesterday, he found our baby gate and pulled himself up by the bars. Today while doing laundry, I decided to put him in the basket, and he kept pulling himself up and down over and over. Oh my! I can't believe we're already to the next phase. I'm still trying to catch up with his crawling.

He's an explorative crawler, too. He's now trying to discover every nook and cranny of the apartment. If I leave the room, he can come after me. This weekend, G discovered him nestling himself behind the couch (which is against a wall, but it leaves a little crack because of the couch's angel). I'm so glad he caught the stinker because I never would have found him back there! He's so mischievous and adorable. I can't handle his cuteness. Oh, and today he tried to pull himself up to standing by using my hair. He was so proud of himself as I was trying not to go bald.

Standing in my basket of laundry

Today, we did another first. We played catch together! It wasn't fancy-we were maybe 18 inches away from each other- but I'd bounce him a ball, and he'd pick it up and do his version of throwing it to me. We went back and forth for a good 5 minutes. It was awesome. So fantastically, unpredictably awesome.

My mom came and visited us a couple weekends ago. We had a great time! We went into downtown Augusta and took a boat down the canals. It felt so historically southern. I loved it. Other than that, we relaxed and she got to take Ryan swimming and just to have her be with us was a treat. She's officially retired!!! Which means I'm counting on her for more Grandma duty! It was funny because at first, Ryan didn't really know how to take her in. When she Skypes with us, he's all smiles with her on the computer. I think he was confused as to why she was 3D. But he warmed up to her and got to have some good one and one time with his grandma.

xoxoxo

I feel like these past few days have either been extremely good or extremely terrible. I lost it the other day. Ry woke me up super early the whole week straight. I was exhausted. It was 5:30 and Cato threw up. We ran out of paper towels the day before, so I was lucky enough to have small napkins from Sonic that didn't quite absorb anything rather spread it around, followed up by a round of Lysol wipes. Ry was just super fussy, wasn't pleased at anything (like I said, could have been teething), it had been the third day in a row that he'd made my workout either cut short or nonexistent, it was already too hot to go for a run by 6:30, tried to get him down for a nap and then Belle threw up, and it was just a hectic morning on top of an already stressful week. It sucked. I think I vented to G more times last week than I have in our whole relationship. Luckily, he's very understanding and has really stepped up to try to help me out these past couple days.

I signed up for this boxing fitness center called 9Round. It's a 30 minute workout with 9 stations (or rounds) and they give you workouts to do for 3 minute rounds, then you rotate. It's a lot of fun and I got pink boxing gloves. What I've been doing is waiting for G to come home from work (since I can't go with the baby) and he takes him, gets him ready for bed and stuff while I go work out. It's honestly so helpful knowing that I can leave and just get an hour to myself and beat the crap out of my stress. Today, I shin-kicked the shit out of the swinging bag and it felt good ;) Since it was probably 90 degrees by 7am today, I also stopped by the gym in our complex and did a quick 2 1/2 mile run on the treadmill. I came home in the most wonderfully exhausted state. Something I hope I can make happen every day somehow.

I think I'm going to just come to terms with the fact that I won't teach Zumba out here. We're only here for 6 months. The summer schedules were already done by the time we got out here, and if I even attempt looking to get on the fall schedule, then I get 2 months of teaching and have to break it to everyone that I'm leaving. Maybe these 6 months are my way of just finding something new (boxing had been one of my new years resolutions for a while now) and focusing on other aspects of my life until our next station. As much as I absolutely love to teach, I think I'm okay with having a 6 month break. Plus, I still do Zumba in my living room every week.

Those are all the updates for now. It has been insanely hot out every day. Like... 100+ degrees every day. My goal is to be as naked as possible this summer without showing my personal parts to anyone. My body made an adjustment to Alaskan winters, so humidity and heat are killing me right now. But I love it! xoxoxoxo!