Friday, July 16, 2010

Mini Getaway

Yesterday afternoon Joe and I embarked on a new adventure, our first little vacation without Charlie. We dropped the bean off at a very close friend's house and instead of a tearful goodbye he giggled and blew us kisses. I did notice he was crooking his neck to see our car go out of sight as much as I was craning mine. I felt like I had left my heart at my dear friend's doorstep, but I knew he was in the most loving hands and had his best friend to play with so he would be ok.

Joe and I stayed at the Saybrook Point Inn and Spa in Old Saybrook, CT. It was so beautiful, our room was gorgeous, the staff so was kind and polite and the view of the water was amazing. After we checked in and explored our room a little we walked the grounds and marina. We had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, Terra Mar and it was fabulous.

Joe had this yummy 'taste of summer' appetizer with grilled corn and safron and lobster fritters and I had a delish salad with pears, the creamiest dolce gorgonzola, sliced almonds and bibb lettuce. Then Joe had a cioppino seafood soup over angel hair and it had the most wonderful white wine in it. I had swordfish with creamy polenta and roasted eggplant and other veggies. The restaurnt gave us a free little bite of scallop tartar that had citrusf fruits diced in and it was refresing and yummy. We were so stuffed we couldn't do dessert but they brought out these crisp, buttery cranberry biscotti, makes me want to make a batch now!

After dinner we drove to Essex, a sweet little town that Joe and I visited by boat 3 years ago. They had a beautiful historic downtown filled with antique shops. We grabbed an ice cream and I nervously waited to find out how Charlie fared at bedtime. He didn't even cry which totally blew me away considering he cries at home for me!

After our ice cream and some time for my nerves to cool off (lol) we discovered this gorgeous beach on the way back to the hotel. The sand was so soft and the view was just amazing. Joe and I actually held hands and cuddled looking up at the crescent moon.

This morning we grabbed breakfast at the same restaurant (fabulous again). Then we cleaned up and checked out of the hotel went back to Essex to do some shopping and then we grabbed lunch at the Griswold Inn , which has been around since the Declaration of Independence.

After lunch we did some antiquing and I found a little treasure in one of the stores. I had to convince Joe of it at first but we haggled a little over the price of a beautiful original oil painting and nabbed it for $135! Back home (and honestly in most of the other antique stores we've ever been in CT) this beauty would have fetched at least $500. I would have admired it and gone home empty-handed. But not today, it was our lucky day!
Here 'she' is hanging at the top of our stairs:
A close up. Can I tell you the frame alone would have cost $200 in this area!
This is her neighbor (a painting I bought for Joe a looooong time ago):
Oh and here are the presents we found for the bean while in Essex :o)
It was a wonderful trip, so lovely to be able to spend some time alone with Joe, but I missed Charlie every second of it too! I couldn't wait to get back to snuggle with him.

Monday, July 5, 2010

26 months

My dear boy,

It's been far too long since I've thrown an update on all your milestones and new activities so here goes...

At 2 yrs and 2 months you can:
-Say your last name and the town we live in
-Count to 20 somewhat consistently
-You lace your fingers together to pray twice a day (at dinner-time and bed-time)
-Eat chicken soup on your own very well (this may not seem big but for a child who basically refuses to eat veggies 99.9% of the time, Mommy considers this a huge victory)
-Walk down stairs with little help from Mommy (I basically hold out a limp hand)
-Ask to go on the Elmo potty and have consistently gone poop and peepee on a nightly basis. I am doing this solely on your interest level, really didn't want to start the training so early, but we are taking a no-stress approach to this right now.
-Use sentences for everything. "Need more smoothie please" :o) "Where's crabby- there he is!"
-You parrot back what I say as well as what others say. When we were stuck outside Trader Joe's a week ago b/c of a fast summer shower a lady beside us said "Oh Geeze" and you promptly parrotted that back to her.
-You love apples and samples when we are food shopping (Traders and Costco are our favs)
-You mimic your friends and then crack yourself up doing it.
-You love playing in the bath with your crabby, and dumping water over your head.
-You love reading and pretend to read to yourself, it is so sweet.
-You love to sing itsy bitsy spider, ABC's, and the wheels on the bus but you love all music.
-You know some of your colors but some days everything is blue, lol
-You want to sit in your big boy booster seat for every meal now, so we eat together at the kitchen table and it's so wonderful to look across at my sweet boy :o)

I still miss you when you are asleep my dear boy, but I doubt that will ever change.

All my love,
Mama

Sunday, July 4, 2010

What we've been up to lately...

Some fun at the farm...
More fun on the boat...

Fireworks for the Fourth!
wow!

And then I had to throw this one in.. Today I stepped away from the kitchen table to clean something in the sink. I hear Charlie singing to himself and then counting. And this is what he did with his lunch. A birthday cake ala Charlie :o)
Happy Fourth everyone!



 

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