KerryAndGabe.com

Other participants: Audrey

Something that made me smile this week: Cashing a winning trifecta ticket at Keeneland on Friday!

Something I’m thinking: The drive back from Lexington is REALLY long. Maddie does pretty well until what should be the last two hours of the trip. We had to make a few extra stops both times in the final legs of the trip.

Something I am hoping: That our team can raise a bunch of money for the National MS Society. Please visit us here:
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/goto/team_bpatrol

Something happening around the house: The cleaners did their monthly thing on Tuesday. Since we left for Kentucky on Thursday morning, the house is still (mostly) clean! It’s amazing to me how quickly that the house’s condition can go downhill after the cleaners sometimes. I guess I should say MOST times.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Book Thief while I was in Kentucky. I am not sure what I am going to read next.

Something tasty I ate this week: We treated Gabe’s parents to a meal at deSha’s in Lexington last night. My french onion soup, filet mignon and mushrooms were quite tasty.

Something Maddie did this week: Maddie witnessed her first horse racing events at Keeneland!

Something I struggled with this week: I didn’t have any major struggles this week, except for a seminar about baby and toddler illnesses and injuries. The seminar was intended to alleviate stress and anxiety about common accidents and sicknesses. I think that it elevated my worries instead! It’s amazing that any of us ever made it to adulthood.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I have been talking to several mortgage lenders, and we are proceeding with refinancing our mortgages. I am a little nervous about the appraisal in today’s market. Some exciting things have been happening with my fundraising goals as well. We have several small businesses offering to help us raise money! I posted about the deal with Catherine Keene Photography. I will be posting two more deals with Whimsical Cookies and ShambroLa Wood Art.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: Maddie is transitioning to the toddler classroom this week, and we have a playdate next weekend at the Museum of Life and Science.

Something I captured: Fast horsies on Friday!

It’s time again for The Sunday Somethings! Let us know if you want to join us, and we’ll to link to you. Be sure to check out Audrey‘s blog for her installment this week.

Something that made me smile this week: This morning when we had our friends visit spur of the moment for pancakes and a playdate! Fun!

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about some of my answers to the Facebook “Pick 5″ questions…

Something I am hoping: That Maddie’s sleep issues earlier this week were related to her new second tooth! The tooth finally broke through the skin yesterday. I think it has been bothering her for almost 2 weeks.

Something happening around the house: Maddie is napping, Gabe is getting ready to watch some basketball, and I need to pay the bills.

Something I’m reading: I’ve been reading board books mostly this week. Maddie has been showing a greater interest in books this week! Favorites include Guess How Much I Love You, That’s Not My Lion…, That’s Not My Puppy…, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I might have read a few pages of The Book Thief for book club.

Something tasty I ate this week: I treated myself to some yummy mint Premium M&Ms. I tried some of the other flavors, but mint chocolate is still my favorite.

Something Maddie did this week: While I was getting ready for work one morning, Maddie fell and bonked her head on a door frame. Daddy picked her up and comforted her. Usually she wants Mommy in these situations, and I went over to comfort her and she held on tight to Daddy! This is the first time that she shunned me to prefer her Daddy. It hurt my feelings a little bit, but it’s good for her to want her Daddy sometimes, too! She continues to call him “dada” but almost never calls me “mama.” Lately, she has been waking up and saying, “dada!” with a huge smile. It’s no secret that she still prefers me most of the time, but she sure loves her Daddy.

Something I struggled with this week: Sleep, but what else is new?

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’ve contacted a few mortgage companies to get quotes for refinancing. Hopefully, we can get this process started soon as I think it will be worth it! I’ve been creating spreadsheets to compare our various options. For the ongoing goal of “make meals for people,” I’m making dinner for friends tonight with a new baby, and I arranged to deliver two more meals to another family this week.

Something I’m looking forward to next week: Our trip to Kentucky to visit Gabe’s family and see some horse racing.

Something I captured: More fun in the sun!

We have added a few trips to our list for this year. We’re planning to visit Gabe’s family in Kentucky for the opening weekend at Keeneland in April. We missed opening weekend last year since Maddie was so young, so we are glad we can make it this year. In September, we are going on a cruise to New England and Canada with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Since our Alaskan Cruise, we have been interested in taking future cruises. We are very excited for the opportunity to take Maddie on her first cruise. We’re working on a few more travel plans and hope to have more to post soon!

The photos from Thanksgiving have been posted to the website. Hopefully, I’ll have some time over the next several days to organize more of our photos.

It seems that I have written the longest letter to Maddie yet. I don’t expect that many of you are reading all of this! Oh well, at least I have posted some new photos! Hopefully, Maddie will enjoy reading the letters someday. (more…)

As I’m sitting here in the hotel in Atlanta, I figured I should probably catch up with my trip report for our Thanksgiving trip to Kentucky to visit with Gabe’s family. Originally, we had planned to split the drive to and from Kentucky into two days, both ways. We changed our plans at the last minute to leave a bit earlier on Tuesday and drive the entire distance. The last time we went a longer distance was Atlanta in August, and we had decided to not do that again for a while! We heard that snow and ice was predicted for our halfway point in West Virginia, so we wanted to avoid possible weather complications. We were nervous about spending that much time in the car with Maddie! The worst part was arriving in Kentucky (and then back home) after Maddie spent the majority of the day sleeping. We were ready to hit the sack, but Maddie was ready to play! She did pretty well on the way to Kentucky, though she did get fed up with being in the car about 2 hours away from Lexington. We ended up stopping at Kohl’s for an hour or so to go shopping. Maddie slept the rest of the way after that. She experienced her first snow on the ground when we stopped at the Cracker Barrel for dinner in West Virginia.

We arrived around 11pm on Tuesday night and spent the night at Gabe’s parents’ house. We visited with Gabe’s parents, sister, nephew, cousin, cousin’s boyfriend and kids, and step-brother for the next 3 days. Thanksgiving dinner was tasty with lots of turkey, ham, green beans, stuffing, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and a variety of pies. YUM! I think that we need more holidays that are all about the food. We played some games: Pictionary, TriBond, and Trivial Pursuit. We had a nice time visiting with family!

We decided to make the entire trip back on Saturday, as Maddie gave us confidence on the way to Kentucky. We were motivated to have all day Sunday to recover as well. We stopped by Gabe’s parents’ craft fair at Keeneland before leaving town. It was neat to finally see one of their booths! I think they were happy to show off their granddaughter to some of their friends.

The drive back was mostly uneventful, though we did run into quite a bit of snow. I felt like I was driving warp speed through a star field. Maddie is turning into quite the little traveler. She was a very good baby and slept the majority of the trip. Gabe spent a little time in the backseat entertaining her and feeding her Cheerios for maybe an hour or two after we stopped at a rest area. That kept her happy until we stopped for dinner at a random Italian restaurant that our GPS found for us. Unfortunately, the Italian restaurant was NOT very tasty. Oh well, so much for discovering a hidden gem in Pilot Mountain.

We arrived at home around 11pm, and Maddie was wide awake and ready to play. I loved watching her when we got home as she was so excited to see her things again. She kept looking at random things in the house…the fireplace, the animals on the plant ledge, the bookshelves, the foyer…and smiling the biggest smiles. She was so happy to be home sweet home.

We have a ton of photos that need sorting from our Thanksgiving Kentucky trip. I thought I would post a few sneak peeks of what is to come. We ran into some snow while traveling, and the first pic was taken in West Virginia in the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel. She’s probably thinking something along the lines of “WTF? I’ve spent 5 hours in the @#$ carseat and now, parents, you’ve put this ridiculous snowsuit on me and sat me in the wet, freezing snow for, what, the 8 billionth photo of me? Seriously? You have GOT to be kidding me. You really don’t think I’m going to smile, do you?” The second was taken right outside of Gabe’s parents’ house – isn’t she adorable in her “rugby” hat and matching sweater (and mittens, too, if you must know)?

We spent Thanksgiving in Kentucky with Gabe’s family. While visiting, we had a chance to play several games: Pictionary, TriBond, and Trivial Pursuit. I had heard about the 25th Anniversary edition recently, and I knew I had to get it. We decided to brave the madness at Target on Black Friday and purchase the game to play that evening. I’m glad that we did! Gabe, his mom, and I played it on Friday night. I don’t normally play Trivial Pursuit unless I’m a part of a team. I hate not knowing the answer to a question that *everyone* knows…everyone except me, that is! I figure that if I’m part of a team and my team doesn’t know the answer, then at least I’m not the only idiot!

I have many versions of Trivial Pursuit, but I enjoy the updates to the core game the most. I was intrigued by the changes that they made to the core game this time. This version has a few twists. The regular game remains the same, but now the questions have 3 different difficulty levels. The number that you roll determines the difficulty of the question that you have to answer. The cards are separated into 6 different stacks, and each stack has a single category. Each card has 6 questions from that category on a particular topic (1 and 2 are easy, 3 and 4 are medium, and 5 and 6 are hard). I really liked this new element. “Hooray, I landed on a pie wedge space! Oh, no, but I rolled a 5 to get there…the question is going to be impossible!” We didn’t always feel like the easiest questions were “easy,” but the opposite could be said of the “hard” questions. Generally, the questions did seem to be of appropriate difficulty. One drawback to all of the questions on one card dealing with the same topic is that you can no longer pass the card so the person answering can read it for themselves (in the case of a difficult pronunciation, for example). The other questions provide clues and often the answer itself since they deal with the same topic. We did not find this to be a huge deal, just a side note.

The other part of the twist is a “bonus track” around the edge of the board. Everyone has a pawn on the bonus track. As I mentioned previously, the classic game is the same: answer a question correctly, roll again, collect pie pieces when on the appropriate spaces. Whenever you answer any question correctly, you get to advance your colored pawn a number of spaces based on the difficulty of the question (1 for easy, 2 for medium, 3 for hard). The bonus track has several “zones,” and once per zone you have a “special ability.” The “challenge zone” allows you to challenge an opponent when they land on a pie wedge space. Whoever correctly answers the question first wins the pie wedge. Another zone allows you to move an opponent’s piece to another location on the board, possibly moving them further away from the pie wedges that they need. One zone allows you to answer an easy question instead of your designated difficulty. One space on the bonus track grants you a freebie pie wedge (none of us reached this space by the end of the game).

Overall, I liked the extra strategy, although I’m not sure that it changed the game all that much. It was an interesting twist, and it was neat to see how far everyone was advancing on the bonus track (versus the number of pie pieces everyone was collecting). The bonus track could almost be used as a secondary scoring mechanism. I really liked the varying difficulty. It took a little pressure off of me when I knew that I was about to get a hard question. If I knew the answer, I felt pretty good about it…if I didn’t, then I didn’t feel so bad. I did feel pretty stupid sometimes when I didn’t know the answer to an easy question! The designated difficulty is a nice change.

I look forward to playing the Trivial Pursuit 25th Anniversary Edition again, perhaps over the winter break.

Happy 9 months, Madeline! Time for another letter to Maddie. (more…)

I’ve updated the States section of the website. We had been on several trips (including our Alaskan Cruise) since my last update. I’ve also added three future family trips: Visiting Maddie’s Davidson Grandparents, Thanksgiving in Kentucky, and Early Christmas in Atlanta. I’ve been working on photos and hope to post some photo updates soon.