Summer in WA/ Paige 11 months

The very end of May, Paige and I headed to Washington to stay with my parents for 6 weeks, while Ben finished up his work at Sears and stayed with different friends (thanks again Nelsons, Andrews, and Quinns!). It was hard being away from Ben, but we were glad we could get so much family time in WA before we headed to Duke.

She did awesome on the flight!

The first week we were there Paige had some major events: she learned how to say "hi", turned 11 months, and learned how to WALK!

She took her first steps the night before she turned 11 months. She lunged from the coffee table to my mom on the couch, and then did it again while trying to get pretzels from my dad. Ben was, needless to say, crushed that Paige did this while he was gone, but I called him immediately and he saw her walk on skype that night. Soon she was walking all over the house!

My mom, sister, and I did our first "race". We did the 3k walk for Retts Syndrome, but ended up running almost the whole thing. We were very proud of ourselves (we are not natural runners) and it was surprisingly a lot of fun!

(excuse all the blurry phone pics, most are ones I would text to Ben)

Smiling for a picture for daddy

Nightly snacks with Grandma and Grandpa

Walk around the lake with Grandma Jean

Licking the knobs...kind of weird...

Paige got her first bad goose egg from hitting the coffee table. Here's my parents trying to console her with books and holding an ice pack to her forehead. 

It really was only hot for like 10 days the whole time I was there (to the point where we had to go buy Paige warmer clothes), but on those hot days we took full advantage!

She LOVED Leo and followed him all around

BBQs outside! This girl loves baked beans!

One day after swimming I put her down for a nap in just her diaper. When I came to check on her I found this: one nakey baby with the diaper thrown to the corner of the crib.

She loved crawling through the coffee table "tunnel"

I was able to see a lot of friends while I was home...

-One day we met up with my best friend Jamie and her little girl, Sailor, at the Children's Museum. The girls loved running around/eating lentils off the ground, and Jamie and I had a great time catching up.

-My adorable friend, Kate, from college just happened to be passing through town. It was so fun chatting with her and meeting her husband and cute little boy.

-My old roommate and fellow Hampton nanny survivor, Stefi, had her wedding reception in Seattle. So glad she married someone from WA so I could see her and meet her new hubby (who Paige immediately loved!).

-I was able to get together twice with my friends from high school. I had forgotten how much fun those girls are and how much they make me laugh.

Ben was apart from us for Father's Day, so we sent him a "Super Hero" package full of fun little surprises.

And this picture pretty much sums up the 5 weeks we were apart (before Ben flew to WA). Whenever Paige would start to hear the "skype calling noise", she would immediately say "Daddy, hi daddy". She seriously thought her dad lived in the computer. When Ben came to WA, it was too late for Paige to go with me, so he saw her in the morning. We had them skype from different rooms, and then Ben walked in to see her. Totally freaked her out. After a few minutes she was excited to have her daddy back.