baby cousin emily

we wanted to get toby ready for a visit from uncle mark, aunt leanne, and 6 month old cousin emily. so we looked at lots of pictures online, saying all of thier names over and over again. the name we used with emily was "baby cousin emily". well, now, and probably forever more, she must be called by all three names. if we say cousin emily, or baby emily, or baby cousin, we are quickly corrected by sir toby. no, baby cousin emily.

we were thrilled to have the "other" coates family from mobile, alabama come for a visit. here are lots of pictures to prove it.................

we accosted them straight off the airplane.

then later had a family game night. we sure are a fun family...

sweet hugssilly sunglasses

jacobus n me

i just love this pic!!!

we miss you already! we love the mobile coates!

don't be fooled by plastic "toy" tools!

yesterday, my husband comes into the bathroom after my shower, and says "toby made a new gate". i think he may have finally broken through the wood fence panel between us and the neighbor. he says no, just go look. i walk out to this................

i realize the damage is minimal, and he seems so proud, what could i do? run and get the camera, of course. now i understand the danger of blogging- to document the misbehavior seems counterproductive.


mommy brain wants to get across: don't do this anymore, tools don't touch the hoouse, lets clean up.

toddler brain thinks: "how could something she laughs and takes pictures of be bad?" this is best personified by these pictures............









here's the "damage" and the pleased smile of my four year old thinking he's a "worker man".

aaaaaacccccckkkkkk!

120 days! that's only four months til toby's 5th birthday...................

kid birthday parties are fun for parents, sometimes....

so, there were two birthday parties back to back this weekend. both from toby's class at bethany learning center. saturday was kennedy's birthday party. super fun for the kids- splashing in a water feature at the park, and of course, the arizona kid birthday party staple-the bouncy.
toby enjoyed himself very much, save a slightly fat lip injury on one of the water tube thingies.
daddy, however, was tired and hot after an open house in a bank owned home (read: no a/c!). and we had a new house on our search to check out, so we left the party after about an hour and a half. happy birthday kennedy!
then on sunday afternoon, it was time for finn's birthday party at bounce u. we'd never been. i had checked it out online, and it said parents are encouraged to play. i plotted on how to get matthew in the bouncy features......
but it was me who joined in the fun. i didn't bring socks, so i had to buy some there. a paltry 3.50 for some super fun! i loved it. and the kids thought it was such a hoot to have a mom on the giant slide. they kept wanting to slide down with me. pizza (for i think the third time this week) and cake and presents finished up a fun sunday afternoon.
i've gotta get all my posts caught up. there's some pics and stories from mark, leanne and emmi's visit, and t-ball to discuss. i'll try to get those loaded soon.

Chi-town wrap-up. part two.

it's starting to get fuzzy in my memory, and so much is happening in my life, so i need to finish about chicago and then i'll be able to post more about other things.

saturday- well, we didn't have much of a plan, other than fireworks at navy pier later in the evening, so we headed out walking.

we didn't really do anything for a while, then decided to hop on the water taxi for chinatown. sounds easy, right? not so much. there's only one water taxi company that goes to chinatown. and finding their "port" was quite confusing. the staircase that usually leads right to them was closed. so we walked around and around and around. three blocks later, we see people standing under a banner on the other side of the river with the correct water taxi banner above them. now we just had to figure out how they got down there. we asked around, were sent the wrong way by a local (who didn't know the original staircase was closed). eventually, though, we got on the right boat, and matthew snapped another nice picture (see above).

on the way, he pointed out this building- i almost didn't get the picture in time, but was thrilled to at least see the gorgeous architecture myself. and spent a moment dreaming of that other lifetime as a famous opera-singer-to-be.

after a long afternoon, and a short nap in between, we were excited to head out to navy pier once again for fireworks and the amusement park.

we were silly on the ferris wheel.

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matthew took this super cool picture from the base of the ferris wheel before we rode. it went really high, and we took some pictures of the skyline, but nothing was really that great of a shot. and i only give the best to my special bloggies.

we were most excited to find out that the imax at navy pier was showing batman, the dark night. but they were sold out for the night we were there. but they had tickets for sunday night! so we made plans to come back for the third day in a row.

side story- a brilliant bride had her reception in the big glass building at navy pier. it was full of greenery, had twinkly lights cascading down, the huge lit up ferris wheel outside in the background, and fireworks at 10pm! free fireworks- to end your reception! smart girl!

sunday- we really had no idea what to do with our sunday. sunday=early wake up, church, nap, etc. what could we do? we asked the concierge again about the place to get real chicago style pizza, and decided to do a late lunch. and thought we'd do some light shopping before. next door to our hotel was a mens suit place, so we bought matthew a new sportcoat. adult men need a good, versatile sport coat. his new one is blue. it's at our tailor now. look for it at a holiday party coming soon. we looked for purses and window shopped some more, but weren't really feelin' it, so we started heading toward giordano's pizza. and we are glad we did. it's quite an operation. we checked in. we were told: 1 hour 15 min wait. pre-order your pizza in half and hour at the counter over there. (imagine pointing)

okay, so we followed orders, and eventually had an amazing lunch with plenty of leftovers. we even took a piece or two back to the concierge! more sightseeing, walking, etc. we went up to the top of the john hancock building and got these beauties:

so that's our trip- hope you enjoyed the play-by-play dissertation.

tune in soon for more exciting news from the closet.........

Chi-town wrap-up. part one.

so i promised a trip post over a week ago. here it is. not that anyone's reading this. oh well.

we left on thursday, very early. since we did our trip with priceline, we got to pick our hotel, but not our flights. so thursday was spent going through atlanta, then to o'hare.

we arrived at our hotel, the intercontinental, at like, 730ish. so we quickly unloaded and set up our room, and headed out for some dinner. the concierge showed us a few places on a map, and we ended up at an italian (shock, i know) place called bice (that's bee-chay for you americanos). it was fabulous, a little expensive, but so nice and quiet and delicious. we took a long walk after dinner and stopped at walgreens for snacks and breakfasty things. we knew it would be easier to just get a big entenmans (sp?) danish and a half gallon of juice for our breakfast. this way, we could just lay around in our pjs extra long in the morning, and not feel rushed to get ready to go out for breakfast-and not have to pay for room service.

now, about our hotel. it could not have been more perfect. four stars, giant, comfy king size bed, a red velvet couch, flat panel plasma tv, 18th floor=great view. right in the middle of the magnificent mile (michigan ave. and illinois for any chicago-ites).

friday- we wanted tickets to wicked. the concierge told us our best bet for last minute tix was to head to the theater box office as close to 10 am as we could. so, we slept in, had our walgreens room breakfast and headed out. the weather was perfect. sunny, 80s, beautiful. like late march/early april here. we secured tickets for that night.

we then rode a water taxi- much cheaper than the tour boats- same scenery, out to navy pier.

it was nice, a bit warm, but we found out while there that fireworks were scheduled for saturday night. we knew where we'd go saturday- back to navy pier for fireworks and the ferris wheel.

here's the view from navy pier ---->

we made reservations for dinner at shaw's crab house. really fabulous. and a classic chicago looking restaurant. rich cherry wood booths/tables, white linens, servers in black with white aprons. and the food- we love seafood and this was all great. then.........

wicked was amazing! i'd never seen the show, just heard about it from students. but we both loved it. then, another slow walk home. it was just lovely to enjoy each other's company.

we realized this night that we could actually call each other by our first names for the next few days- no more mommy and daddy- we could be matthew and tia again for a while! sad, but true.

Vacation

a seldom used word in the coates closet. matthew and i went on our honeymoon ten years ago. it was 7 days in hawaii. since then, we have only been out of town for either a 3 day weekend (usually at the family cabin in prescott) or for business trips/rewards- 4 days tops. in ten years, no real vacations. i have been warning matthew for the last few years that his work pace would catch up with him eventually, and it did back in july.
he said, "we have got to get away for at least 5-7 days". i was shocked. okay, i thought. what exactly does he mean? over the next couple weeks we nailed out some details. we discussed a family trip in many forms. the three of us, the five of us (adding my folks to the mix, so we could get a little time alone), the two of us alone, the three of us and then the five later. but matthew really wanted to decompress, and not "do" all the running around that inevitably ensues on a "family" vacation. so, we decided on just the two of us. then the question became, what do we do with toby?
see, the only childcare we have is basically my parents. my 74 year old dad and 70 year old mom. not exactly the pace of our lively 4 year old son. but, they are pretty kickin' for "old folks". pretty active. matthew's parents often help out, too. but aren't as available, as they enjoy traveling themselves and still have very demanding careers. so, i was not about to saddle my sweet, ever-giving parents with my crazy kid for any longer than 4 days. but we figured out how to juggle him around to get us 5.
next question- where to go? we decided to leave this a little to chance. we kept an eye on the "last minute deals" on several travel websites. seattle was a very strong contender for quite a while. then, in the last few days before our trip was scheduled, a new destination came into the game. chicago! neither of us had ever been anywhere near chicago. we knew very little about it, except of course, what movies had taught us. untouchables, ferris bueller, and my best friend's wedding. sounds like a fun place, right? so, we sat down tuesday night (a full 36 hours before leaving!) and booked a trip to chicago. we got a smokin' deal too. 4 nights in a 4diamond hotel, right in the middle of downtown, plus airfare, for 1200. we got really excited, and then it was time to pack up and go!
there are about a thousand mini-story blogs, and tons of pictures to share. i'll start a thread in the next couple days. keep checking in, and don't forget to comment. i live for comments!