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I’m slowly digging out from under the virtual mountain of photos. I’ve posted two new albums: June and July. These have photos that didn’t fit into any other “events” for the months. Click on June or July for the full albums.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: I played the “gimme 5, up high, down low/too slow” game with Maddie a few days ago. She caught on fast and started saying “down low” as soon as I said “up high.” She eventually stopped playing along since she knew I was going to trick her! She cracked me up every time she said “down low.”

Something I’m thinking: I’m so tired! Games Night was fun, but we stayed up too late and woke up too early.

Something I’m hoping: To watch a movie with my hubby tonight, if we can both stay awake once I finish writing this.

Something happening around the house: Gabe is still working on his deck project. He made some progress on it today while I entertained Maddie. It is very tedious work.

Something I’m reading: I finally finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, just a day or so before book club! The next book is My Sister’s Keeper which I have read twice now. Once about 4 years ago and then again in the last few months (after I saw the movie).

Something tasty I ate this week: Hrm, nothing stands out too much. We had a pretty lazy week with our food.

Something Maddie did this week: She had her 18-month appointment where she weighed 22 pounds, 5 ounces (with her clothes on) and is now in the 20th percentile. Seems like she’s getting plenty to eat, despite the fact that she eats like a bird all the time. She’s still a little thing!

Something happening with the pregnancy: Still not feeling the baby move all that much. I’m looking forward to the more obvious kicks and punches.

Something I struggled with this week: A little bit of sickness with a cold and either food poisoning or a stomach bug. We’ve all been a little under the weather this week.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Not much, though I did go to book club, so I guess that counts for staying active in at least one book club.

Something I learned this week: That Maddie has a sort of scar on her forehead from hitting her head a month or so ago. She’s dented (literally). The doc said that it will probably never heal though she will grow and the dent will not. It’s not too big now but is just something I had noticed since her big bruise.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: Dinner date with Keira and her Mommy, book club movie outing, and visiting with family. Big week!

Something random: Gabe rescued a praying mantis who had made its way inside our house and released him into the wild.

Something I captured: My sweet little girl and me.

In June, we had a pool party at work for just the littlest kids. We attended the Itty Bitty Beach Party and took a few photos. Maddie enjoyed playing in the pool! Click on the photo below for the rest of the album.

UPDATE 03/11/2011: This post was simply intended to show the beautiful stroller that came into my possession (and that we sold to benefit the National MS Society). This is not intended to be a stroller swap board, though you are welcome to leave your contact information in the comments. Note that you must include your email address in the body of the comment for it to be displayed on the page. I suggest that you check out the StrollerSWAP Yahoo group for all of your stroller swapping needs. If you want to see some pretty pictures of a (sold) Ringo from the late 80s/early 90s, read on…

We received a huge variety of donations with the over 50 families that donated to our National MS Society yard sale. Some donations were quite interesting. Perhaps the most interesting set of donations that we received were three Emmaljunga products – a Ringo stroller, a Kimi stroller, and a bassinet with stand. All of them were products from the late 80s and early 90s. It took a bit of research to find out what models that I had (and approximately what years that they were from). I found that there are quite a few people who are very excited about these strollers, which surprised me considering the age of them.

I got in touch with a variety of collectors – some who were using the strollers for their babies, some who just liked to collect them. Apparently, Emmaljunga is a very high end brand. I have no idea how much that they cost new considering that I have been able to find very little information about prices (nothing on new strollers). I saw one on ebay that was about 3 years old or so that was going for over $700. The two that I’m selling are still worth $60-150, and they are more than 15 years old! Emmaljunga no longer allows sales to the United States.

I posted a few photos onto the stroller board, and I got several responses about them, identifying the models and years. From this, I learned that the stroller pictured in this blog post is a fairly rare Ringo model from the early 90s. Just by posting a few quick photos, I had one person in Washington state who was very interested in purchasing the stroller and having it shipped to her. I had not even tried to market or sell them yet! I was thrilled that someone was interested in the stroller. Unfortunately, the stroller is huge and shipping it is a bit of a pain. Gabe painstakingly took it apart and packed it very nicely into a very large box. We are hoping that the shipping doesn’t cut too much into the profits for the National MS Society (since I agreed on a price that included shipping).

I asked Gabe to take some more photos of the stroller before he dismantled it, and as he did he learned that the stroller is really quite neat. It has many different ways that it can be configured (and the wheels had mechanisms that allowed it to pop off easily). He took several photos of the various configurations. It rolls very, very nicely, too. One of the enthusiasts on the board was talking about her Ringo and how she can go off-roading over tree stumps and uneven terrain with her stroller and the baby never feels a bump. I guess there’s something to be said for fancy strollers!

Overall, it has been an interesting journey. I have been intrigued by the stroller culture, amazed at how excited people have been getting, and have a bit of appreciation for the merchandise. Will our next baby be strolling around in an Emmaljunga stroller? Probably not! But he or she will probably be drooling if we encounter one on our walks!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: Maddie started saying, “oh goodness” only it sounds like “oh goosh” – makes me smile every time she says it.

Something I’m thinking: Our cruise is coming up fast!

Something I’m hoping: To get Maddie’s big girl room painted soon. I’ve selected the colors, and we’re hoping to get some paints this afternoon.

Something happening around the house: We had guests this weekend – Gabe’s parents came for the Lazy Daze festival and craft show. My parents came into town for the event, too. We had everyone (including my sister and brother-in-law) over for dinner last night and my dad made his famous meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Something I’m reading: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish it before book club on Wednesday!

Something tasty I ate this week: My dad’s meatloaf and homemade mashed potatoes. YUM!!!!

Something Maddie did this week: She gained a new tooth, finally. I think she’s still working on a few more (plus this one is just barely through the gum). This makes tooth #5 for her! On top of the teething, she’s gotten a cold or something and has had a rough couple of nights with sleep (which means we’ve had a rough couple of nights with sleep!!!).

Something happening with the pregnancy: I have thought that maybe I’ve been feeling the baby move for weeks, but this week I decided that I definitely have been feeling the baby. I only doubted it earlier because I thought it may be too early. I guess you really are more aware the second time around!

Something I struggled with this week: Sleep!! With Maddie’s teething and her cold, we have had some challenging nights.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Nothing, really.

Something I learned this week: Lots of new things about our shiny new minivan!!! I’m still nervous about parking it and backing up (as I mentioned last week, I had problems backing up with the old car).

Something I’m looking forward to next week: Book club, Maddie’s 18-month check-up, and games night.

Something random: Sometime this week, we need to complete a development questionnaire for Maddie’s 18-month appointment.

Something I captured: Our new minivan!

Something tells me that I should have stuck with these monthly letters…it’s going to take a while to sum up what has happened in the past THREE months. I can’t believe that my little girl is a year and a half already. Wow! (more…)

I’ve been really behind on my photos. I’ve finally sorted, edited, and captioned the photos from our Father’s Day Cincinnati trip. Click on the photo to see the rest of the album.

Day 3 in Cincinnati was Father’s Day! We had plans to go to the baseball game in the afternoon with Gabe’s parents. We started the day with breakfast at one of the places that we had found the previous day. Yum! Going out to breakfast is one of my favorite things to do on vacation.

The baseball game was in the early afternoon, so we didn’t have too much time before we needed to leave the hotel for the long walk over to the stadium. I had made this walk one other time when we went to the Bengals game when I was pregnant with Maddie. I am not too fond of the long bridge over the river!

After the game, we decided that we were not going to take Maddie to a sporting event for a long, long time. We had hoped that she would fall asleep in the sling after walking around the stadium a bit. It was naptime, and then we were thinking she would snooze in the stands for a little while. This may have worked most times, but not on this day.

She resisted her nap, and we finally resorted to getting the stroller back out of the guest services where we had checked it. It wasn’t long before Maddie fell asleep in the stroller, but now we had to take turns strolling Maddie. It was just as well to keep Maddie in the shade as it was HOT in the stands. We spent about half the time tending to Maddie and half the time in the stands while the grandparents strolled around with her. They were finally able to find a spot where they could sit and watch the game while Maddie snoozed in the stroller.

We didn’t take too many photos while we were at the game, but we did manage to take a few on the walk back over to the hotel.

Gabe’s parents left to go back to Lexington, and the three of us went out to eat at The Montgomery Inn. Gabe had been wanting to eat there for a while, so it seemed like Father’s Day was a great opportunity to give it a try! They are known for their ribs.

We had to wake up super early in the morning (again) to catch our flight back home. Maddie started crying before we left the ground. We were scared that we were in for another awful flight, but miraculously she fell asleep shortly after take off. Thank goodness! She slept the rest of the flight. This time we were extremely glad to have the carseat – no way she would have fallen asleep otherwise!

We were happy to return home. Overall, we had a great trip and had fun visiting with family. We are looking forward to more trips to Cincinnati (and returns to the Children’s Museum!).

…and we came home with this:

We started our second day with breakfast in the hotel lobby. They were in the process of renovating the restaurant, so they had a temporary “Construction Cafe” in the atrium. It was an overpriced and very mediocre buffet. Gabe and I decided that we had had much better breakfasts at extremely cheap hotels. The only good thing that I can say about it is that they didn’t charge us for Maddie.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to get ready for the pool! We brought Maddie’s new raft in anticipation for the event. That morning, we had to change a series of dirty diapers which we felt may have been a reaction to the antibiotic. She only had issues for that one day, but we were seriously concerned about running out of diapers (and the swim diapers, since we only brought 2 or 3 and wasted one before we got to the pool). I mean, I know they have stores in Cincinnati, but we really didn’t want to have to go out and buy more diapers!

The hotel had a very convoluted elevator system. Since they were doing renovations, the elevator on our side only went down to the 2nd floor. From there, you could either go down the stairs to the lobby or take the elevator on the other side to the lobby level. If you wanted to go to the parking garage, you had to take yet another elevator. This same elevator was one that took you to the gym. We had a hard time finding the pool! We finally discovered another secret elevator in the gym that lead us to the pool. Crazy!

Maddie had a great time playing in the pool. Afterward, we went back to get baths and showers. We decided to put Maddie in the stroller and walk around to see what we could find for lunch. We ended up finding two potential places for breakfast/brunch the next day, and settled on a bar and grill looking place for lunch. It wasn’t too bad and reasonably priced. We took a nice stroll along the waterfront after our lunch, and Maddie took a nap in the stroller. Once she was soundly asleep, we went back to the hotel room to relax while she snoozed. Gabe’s parents arrived during her nap.

Maddie took a nice long nap! Once she woke up, we decided to take her back to the children’s museum where we hoped Maddie would show the same excitement she had the previous day. We didn’t have much time at the museum before it closed, but it was plenty for Miss Maddie. She wasn’t excited about the same things as the first time, but this time she LOVED the slide and had fun in some areas that we didn’t see the previous day.

After the museum, we went to pick up Mick so we could all go to dinner. Gabe and his mom remembered going to the Spaghetti Factory on previous trips, and we knew that Mick would like it, too. We didn’t tell him where we were going and set out with the GPS. I drove the rental car…right into baseball traffic. UGH!! And to make matters worse, it was so congested that we missed a few turns and had to drive back into the traffic several times. It was awful! The worst part was that by the time we found where we were supposed to be going, we came to the horrifying realization that it no longer exists!!! We ended up going back to Newport on the Levee to eat at an Italian restaurant which was pretty tasty.

Shortly after we returned to the hotel, we decided to take Maddie on another walk along the riverfront. We really enjoyed our hotel’s location! Grandma Debbie joined us for our walk, and we walked until Maddie was asleep. We used the camera to zoom in on the scoreboard at the baseball game so that Gabe could stay informed on the progress of the game. We saw lots of people enjoying the night with lawn chairs facing the river and the baseball stadium. Very nice!

Maddie didn’t sleep very well in the hotel on this trip. She ended up spending very little time in the pack-n-play and quite a bit of time in our bed. We think she was getting over her ear infection and maybe had a bit of an upset tummy. Fortunately, this didn’t put too much of a damper on our trip. We still had a great time!