Autumn time...brings toddlers

Here's what we were up to in September:

Paige at 14 months

 She loves Ben and says "daddy" all the time

We made our first visit to Duke Gardens to have a picnic with some friends. The gardens are absolutely beautiful; I'm sure we will be back often!

The boys playing Boce. (thanks Kelly for the pictures!)

We went to Paige's friend, Ben's, birthday party.

Paige had her first taste of corn on the cob.

We also experienced a lot of teething....poor baby girl

We made some cards for family:

Get well soon Grandpa May!

Bryce & Lindsay did awesome on their marathon!

I went to a girls night out with the fellow Fuqua wives to celebrate some friends upcoming babies

And Paige became a toddler! I don't know if it's just that her hair is now long enough for pigtails and ponys, or if it's her new love of the word "no", but she all of the sudden seems so much older.

Loves to show you where her tongue is

Meltdown

Very curious

Paige at about 15 months:
Height: 30.5 in....50th percentile
Weight: 26 lbs, 6 oz...85th percentile
Head: 49.2 cm......off the charts

Words: daddy, mamma (but I'm pretty sure most of the time she is calling me "Katie"), doggy, NO, oopsy, oh geez (don't know where she got that), yes, hi, go (after ready, set...), mickey, ow, binky, please, shoe

New tricks:
-can show you where her hair, tongue, nose, and belly-button are
-can climb onto the couch (very proud of herself)
-blows her nose (so funny)
-high fives, which she yells as she does, it's very exciting!
-loves to stand by the window when Ben leaves and wave to him and give kisses
-when I print coupons she recognizes the noise and goes and stands by the printer to wait for the paper
-claps when anyone goes to the bathroom and flushes the toilet (gotta love an audience)
-likes to throw things away in the garbage and claps for herself
-since we are trying to get her to not have a binky during the day, she searches for it under her crib, even lifting up the crib skirt, searching frantically for it

She is one funny, little toddler, but still our sweet baby girl!

End of Summer

Here's a mix of some fun things we did to finish off summer.

National Bowling Day! I found coupons for free bowling to celebrate the 'holiday', so we got together with some friends and headed to a ghetto part of town for a free game.

Love these little kiddos

Little miss thing has become very "motherly" and loves to snuggle and pat her dolls.

Paige at just over 13 months

A visit to the Life & Science Museum. This place is awesome! There is so much to do and a great toddler area (and it's free on Wednesdays!).

With her little buddies

One day the guys were off early after midterms, so we got to show the dads the museum. And luckily it's really close to Costco, so of course Costco pizza was in order for dinner :) (don't mind the giant gouge on Ben's forehead from a basketball game)

Butterfly house

The men were fascinated 

Thanks to a free $5 at Toys R Us (which was a fun group outing on its own), we scored a baby pool for the back porch. For over a week it was just in our living room as a toy collector and Paige loved it.

We finally used it for some swimming!

And a funny thing to note, this month Paige learned how to communicate that she wanted cookies. She would take us to the pantry, bang on the door until we opened it, put her hands up to be lifted, then grab the bag off the shelf. It was hilarious. So glad we got a video to document this milestone :)

It was one fun (and very hot!) summer!

Becoming Blue Devils

The first week of school at Duke was orientation. I'm pretty sure there is no learning involved, just crazy activities and a lot of free beer (which equals a lot of free soda for Ben).

They had section olympics, and Ben had to represent his section in the tug-a-war, so of course we went to watch!

The baby section. Notice how hot they look; the humidity was intense! Thankfully there were free food trucks with snow cones for us after...totally worth it! 

At night Ben headed to the clubs for themed Duke parties. Here's his nerd look.

 And his 80's look. (Not even sure this is 80's, there was limited options at Goodwill). Apparently Duke's 80's party is ranked in like the top 10 of all MBA themed parties. Who knew there even was such a ranking?! Glad our tuition money is being well spent ;)

By the end of the week I was worried Ben was joining a fraternity and not an MBA program, but he was even more excited to be at Duke and so were we.

Paige is concerned about her cousins' allegiance...;)

 

We're proud to be Blue Devils!

Kill Devil Hills

We were lucky enough to make a weekend trip with my parents to Outer Banks before they had to head home. We drove just a few hours east and there we were at the ocean!

We of course got in a lot of beach and pool time!

Ben and Dad boogie-boarding

Paige loved sun-bathing with Grandma

Ben was really excited to go miniature golfing one night. It started out really fun, even with a ride to the "course", but suddenly the humidity hit and we were all dripping! The humidity here is seriously crazy.

I made us stop for a few pictures right behind out hotel.

We had dinner right on the water and as soon as we were leaving a storm rolled in. Within minutes it was crazy flooding, with thunder and lighting and boats' ties breaking and crashing against things. 

We drove to a lighthouse, but sadly it was under construction. Then on the way out of town we drove by where the Wright brothers first took flight and then stopped at the sand dunes. We climbed up a hill of sand to have the awesome view. It was such a cool sight and so fun to run down giant hills of sand!

After hitting up a few outlet stores and a giant Christmas store, we headed back home, but not without a stop for some side-of-the-road boiled peanuts.

This looks like they're on American Pickers

Thanks mom and dad for a fun trip to Outer Banks! Definitely a place we hope to visit often while we're out here!

Road Trip to NC

(A lot of writing, but I want to remember our move!)
After our fun visit in WA, it was time to start working our way across the country. My amazing parents were not only nice enough to let me stay with them for 6 weeks, but they even agreed to help us move. With many bursting-at-the-seems suitcases, we flew from Seattle to Chicago. All of our house stuff was in a pod being moved to NC, but our cars were still in IL. We stayed with my brother for a few days, just relaxing, searching for fancy houses, meeting up with some friends, visiting the ward for the last time, and getting in a few more IL restaurants (including Portillo's and Vans frozen custard...so good.)

Then we filled both cars to the brim and hit the road! My parents were troopers in the little Civic the whole time, with my mom navigating with her tried-and-true maps :) We were in the other car with Paige, who was an awesome traveler, besides getting a fever from teething. The first day we made it passed Lexington, Kentucky. The night was pretty rough with Paige up most of the night from her teeth and not wanting to sleep in the hotel crib. Although we were groggy, the next morning started off with an exciting spotting of the Wiener mobile!

Next we made it to the booming town of Pigeon Forge, TN. This place was hilarious, with random tourist attractions and the one of the biggest Christmas stores I've ever seen.

Then we headed 10 minutes down the road to adorable Gatlinburg, TN! Ben's family had recommended it and we were so glad we stopped! It's pretty much a random tourist town in the middle of the smokey mountains. We walked along all the cute shops and restaurants, Ben tried a deep fried Snickers, and my parents had their first funnel cake. Then we drove by Dollywood to try to catch a glimpse of Dolly, but they don't let you get anywhere near the park from the road.

After Gatlinburg we realized the Biltmore mansion closed earlier than we thought (huge bummer since that was the whole reason we took this route and one of the few things my mom wanted to see). We drove through Asheville and got as close to the mansion as possible, and then vowed we would make it back there while I live in NC.

The one thing my dad wanted to do on the trip was drive through the Smokey Mountains (he did it as a kid). So we started heading up the windy, 2 lane road. This was the first time I had driven during the trip, and all of the sudden the GPS and radio shut off and I lose power steering. I manage to get the car to the shoulder before it completely dies, and then it begins to roll backwards as I quickly pull the emergency brake. It was TERRIFYING! To add to the situation, we have no cell reception (we're in the mountains) and my parents were ahead of us and didn't see our car stop. So we're just stuck, hoping they realize we're not behind them anymore. Luckily my parents were observant, realized something must be wrong, and turned back for us. We got the car to turn back on, and due to my refusal to go any farther in the mountains, we backtracked and took a different route east. While we were on the freeway the car slowly began to die again. So scary! So the entire rest of the way to NC we drove with no radio or AC, windows down, in 90 degree heat plus humidity, with a teething-feverish baby in the back. Awesome. My parents were sure glad they chose the civic. At least our day was brightened by our first taste of Chick-fil-a, which we all loved!

We finally made it to Durham, got the car fixed (only a minor battery thing), and saw our town home in person for the very first time! Then we felt humidity like we've never felt it before as we unloaded the pod. So, so, hot. We were quite the team and got everything but the piano in (some awesome guys from our new ward helped with that). On top of that, there were some issues getting our water, cable, and internet on by the time we arrived....so we were some stinky, sweaty people for 2 days.

Of course while my parents were here we had to show them Duke!

My lens was a little foggy from the crazy humidity!

Beautiful Duke Chapel

And of course we had to give my parents a taste of the South with some good ol' Southern BBQ at Q-Shack. So so thankful my parents were willing to help us move and put up with all the craziness of the drive and unpacking. And so glad to be moved in and settling in out her in NC. Now we're just waiting for some visitors :)