Adventure installment numero Deux!

I am so glad I had this adventure idea!  This has been so much fun!  I've gotten to explore so many new places and try new things; it's been a blast!  And the best adventures are yet to come!


Adventure #6:  Minestrone--Adventures in Cooking

This day was just crummy.  We set out to find a geocache which wasn't there (we're pretty sure someone stole it.), we had gotten hardly any sleep the night before, and were just plain grumpy and exhausted.  So, luckily, I had planned a new meal for our menu this night because it's the only adventure we were able to manage.  But oh boy, it turned out delicious!  This minestrone soup is perfect for Tommy to eat, since the vegetable pieces are just right for his eating skill level, and it turned out well!

Adventure #7:  Tomato Pesto--More Adventures in Cooking  

Yes, another food adventure!  Oooh, this one was SOO good!  I tried making a pesto for the first time.  I'm not particularly fond of your run of the mill green pesto stuff, but this tomato pesto was incredibly good.  Basically it's just tomato paste mixed with herbs, spices, and you're also supposed to have toasted pine nuts in there but we skipped those since pine nuts are SO expensive and I have no idea where to find them at ShopRite.  Then just eat it with spaghetti noodles!  Oh, man, we just about died and went to heaven.

Adventure #8:  Woodcock Trail--A Hiking Adventure

Living in New Jersey has given us a huge appreciation for our mountains and hikes back home.  It's very flat out here, and so hikes are more like walks, really.  The terrain and vegetation are so different that, while it has been fun to explore around here, it seems so alien and makes me miss my mountains.  At least until I hiked along the Woodcock trail, which is part of a Cape May wildlife refuge.  It made me feel so much like I had finally come home, just the way the trees were and the trail wound through them, and there were lots of ponds around.  The best part, though, was the wildlife!  I saw two fox kits in the wild for the first time!  Their den was dug in the middle of the trail I was following, so after I took a couple of pics I figured that was a good enough sign to head back and start exploring a different side trail.  I also saw some fresh deer tracks, but no deer sightings.  The trail goes all the way to Delaware Bay, and I got to see some boats.  I really loved this hike!  (Ok, nature walk.)

Happy hikers!

Loved this trail!

Can you spot the foxes?

Adventure #9:  Songbird Trail--A Geocaching Adventure

Tommy and I explored the Woodcock trail while Skye was at work, but our adventure today we waited until the evening to do so Skye was able to come with us.  Just north of the Woodcock trail, as part of the same nature preserve, is another trail called the Songbird trail.  This trail, as it turns out, has a geocache along it for us to find!  This cache was very cleverly hidden, really well-camouflaged.  We looked in the wrong area for a few minutes (in tree cover, GPS units are not super accurate.) but finally Skye found it!  We returned home triumphant.

Can you spot the cache?

Tommy just wanted to look at the trees--he was fascinated by them!

Love this boy!

Adventure #10:  Montego Bay--A Swimming Adventure

Our branch planned a branch activity tonight at Montego Bay, an indoor water park in North Wildwood.  We had a wonderful time with all the other branch members, and enjoyed visiting a new place.  Tommy has been swimming before, but this time he really seemed to enjoy it, despite the water being too cold.  At least there was a hot tub, which seemed to be about the temperature of his baths so we sat in there with him for a while.  There was pizza, friends, a pool...it was a perfect little adventure for us!

Handsome boys!  Aren't Tommy's trunks so cute?

The first adventure installment

Here are the first 5 adventures I went on!  So far this has been really cool!

Adventure #1:  A "Wild" Ride -- Adventures in Biking

For our first adventure we packed up our bikes (an adventure in itself!) and headed one town north of Cape May to bike along the Wildwood boardwalk.  We have visited the boardwalk before, but had never biked along it and hadn't seen the ENTIRE thing.  We started at the Wildwood Crest bike path which runs right into the boardwalk, and rode 'til the very end!  It was not crowded, since the tourist season hasn't started yet, but there were lots of shop owners getting things set up for summer!  By the time we got back to the car Tommy was fast asleep in his trailer.  What a cute little guy!  We love adventuring with him!

We rode all the way to the end!

Tommy passed out

Adventure #2:  Bugs! -- A Geocaching Adventure

Our second adventure was finding a new geocache.  Now I guess I'll have to explain what geocaching is because a lot of our adventures will be finding them.  "Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online."  There, I stole that from the Cape May County Department of Tourism's website.  Ha!  Look at me citing my sources!  I'm such a good academic.  *eye roll*  Ok, so this geocache was along a bike trail that I plan on exploring more later.  It was hidden in a cleverly camouflaged log, which had been hollowed out and the top made into a hinged lid.  The only problem was that as I lifted up the lid, the first thing I saw was a whole slew of creepy crawly bugs scuttling around being icky and gross.  Bleagh!  I had to be like Indiana Jones and reach my hand in there anyway to grab the cache, because Skyelr was holding Tommy.  Yeech!  I am so brave!  Anyway, it all turned out ok.  We searched for another cache after that but weren't able to find it, but we did find a beautiful "park" (basically just a pier) on a pretty lake-ish thing.  Salt marsh?  I dunno.  So that was a fun adventure!

Found it!

He was hitting my head.

Happy guys!

Adventure #3:  El Lame-o -- Adventures in Hiking

The day of the third adventure Skye had duty so Tommy and I went out on this one ourselves.  We decided to explore an area near Cape May Zoo that we had briefly visited before while geocaching, but warranted further exploration.  With my trusty companion slung on my back (Hooray Ergo carrier!) I ventured into the unknown.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a pretty lame nature walk.  It's hard to feel nature-y when a hundred feet away is a parking lot and in the other direction a busy road.  Plus spring hasn't quite sprung there yet; it was brown and dreary.  But I found a small trail off the beaten path that I was curious about exploring, but it just ended up in a golf course.  Oh well, not every adventure can be super duper awesome!

This was the cool little side trail.  It looks neat, huh?

Adventure #4:  The 5-star -- A Geocaching Adventure

We had hoped to try out an event cache for this adventure, but we mistook the time so we missed it.  Instead we decided to cheer ourselves up with a challenging find instead.  Caches have a difficulty rating system of stars:  one star for the easiest you can find, five stars for the hardest to find.  We did our first 5 star cache.  Why was it so hard?  Because there were 4 stages to it, meaning we had to find 4 caches, each with coordinates to the next, and only the 3rd cache had the coordinates to the final cache hide where we can sign the log.  And on top of that, each of the caches was only a bit bigger than a pencil eraser.  This was such a fun adventure!  One of our favorite caches we've found so far.  It was super challenging, and that made it all the better.

First stage!

This was the second cache.

Skyelr and the third cache.

Us and the final cache!  Tommy once again fell asleep. 

Adventure #5:  Tomato Chicken -- An Adventure in Cooking

Today we didn't have the inclination to go on an outdoor adventure, so we tried a cooking adventure instead.  I made a tomato chicken recipe that I found in my baby-led weaning cookbook.  One of my favorite cookbooks, by the way.  It has so many simple, nutritious recipes that I love to feed my boys.  Skye really liked it, as did Tommy.  It was a nice, easy one-pan meal. 

Served it with rice and veggies!

I had a blast with these first 5 adventures!  (except for El Lame-o, but oh well.)  Can't wait for the next 20!

Life of Adventure!

Ok, folks, are you ready for this?

My 25th birthday is in 24 days.  Since 25 is a pretty awesome milestone, (I mean, heck, I can finally rent a car!) I decided I need to celebrate this one big time.  SO-- here's how I'm making this birthday EPIC:

On each of the 25 days leading up to my 25th birthday I am going to have an adventure. 

 

There, a little clip from The Hobbit to inspire you!

What kind of adventures? you ask.  Well, lots of different kinds.  Exploring new places, exploring new foods, finding Geocaches, (then it's like a mini treasure hunt!) adventures in gardening, trying out new hobbies, you get the picture.  And to top it all off, at the end of the 25 days my wonderful hubby is taking our family on a trip to Puerto Rico to cap off the adventurousness!  

SO-- the rules are:  I have to have a new adventure each day, and I have to take a picture to document it, (adventures in photography!) and then I have to blog about it, or it doesn't count.  I figure I'll write about 5 adventures at a time, so look for the next adventure installment in a few days!  Yesterday's adventure was really fun, and I'm looking forward to today's!  

--Jessianne

February's end

Phew!  We made it through February!

This month has been hard.  Not having your husband around stinks.  But, things got much better after the first week of him being gone.  "How does she do it?"  you ask.  "How does she manage with a child and no husband for a month at a time?"  I'll tell you:  you get into a routine and stick to it, and you surround yourself with wonderful branch members who love to help you out.  And stay as busy as you can.  I take Tommy to story time at the library twice a week and to the zoo once each week.  And whenever he takes a nap I get to relax and take time for myself.  Even if there's dishes to be done, nap time is Jessianne time.

So tomorrow Tommy and I are flying to Colorado to visit Aunt Lauren and Uncle Turner and their two adorable daughters!  I'm so excited to finally be around family and I'm so proud of myself for making it through February all by myself!  I'm such a big girl!

So Tommy is so close to crawling I can almost taste it.  He's pretty adept at moving around backwards on all fours, he just can't figure out the forwards part yet.  No new teeth since January, but I think his next ones are coming in based on the constantly running nose, the sleepless nights, and the slight increase in grouchiness.  I can't complain, though, because for the most part he's the most charming, happy boy you've ever seen and everyone (myself included) loves him!  He's so darn sweet and cute!  He learned how to wave recently, and he's increased the sounds he makes to include, "nananana" and "papapapa".  He's ready to hang out with some grandparents!  And the night of the Superbowl he figured out how to clap his hands and has had fun doing that ever since!

On Valentine's Day we went on a dinner date together!

And this is his Valentine from mommy--a big ole balloon.  He loves it!

I can't wait to see what the next month brings for us!

February

Hello!

It's now February, we made it through January!  Tommy turns 8 months old tomorrow.  He has grown up quite a bit since my last post!  In January he got 2 teeth, he became really good at rolling around, and he can sit up on his own now for long periods of time.  It's so nice! 

Tommy has been learning and experimenting with food a lot this past month.  He eats whatever we eat for dinner, so I have been taking extra care to prepare healthy foods for our family.  His favorites so far are falafel, papaya, and chicken.  Tonight we're going to try salmon.

This past month we had a couple of adventures!  In the middle of the month Skye's parents came to visit for a week, and we were able to show his dad around Cape May.  Then, at the end of the month, we went up to Trenton, NJ to visit the place where George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River on Christmas in 1776.  

Skye is gone on a patrol now, and he won't be back for a couple of months.  I'm going to break up the time by visiting family at the beginning of March.  I relapsed back into post-partum anxiety at the beginning of last month, but I'm back on medication and coping with this patrol rather well so far.  The key is to stay busy!  I'll update again next month!

My guys on buffaloes!

Loves trying new foods!

Sightseeing in Cape May with Skye's parents

One of my favorite pics of my boys!

New Year! 2013 here we come!

Happy New Year!

2013 already!  We have great hopes for this upcoming year.  Hopefully Skyelr will get to go to A-school and we'll move on to another part of this Coast Guard adventure.  I'm excited for Tommy to turn 1 and learn and grow even more this next year.  And I hope we meet new friends and experience new things and travel new places.  Like Disneyworld.  Always wanted to go there.

So, also, I want to give an update on Tommy, as he'll turn 7 months this Saturday:
He has gotten much better at rolling around this month, and he's started babbling a little, saying "mamamama" and "babababa."  Yesterday he looked right at me and said, "mama" but I don't know if that counts as a real word (probably not) or if he was just babbling.  He's started learning how to eat solid foods this past month, but he doesn't really seem to be into it very much yet.  He's getting very good at spitting things out of his mouth though!  I think he'll be excited to self-feed when he's ready for that, he's just not quite there yet!  He can sit up on his own for about 5 seconds at a time, as long as there isn't anything interesting he wants to lunge toward and explore.  We sure love having a baby boy!

Thanksgiving 2012

Tommy's first solid foods!  He liked them for a couple of weeks, but now not so much.

We spent Tommy's first Christmas with the Bairds in CA.  It was a wonderful trip!

Welcome!

Hi!  It's only been forever since I've posted!  This is great!

It's been many many months since any updates, so here's a quick synopsis:

I had a baby!  Thomas Ulysses Baird was born June 5th, 2012 at 8:26 a.m.

Tommy and Mommy 5 Jun 2012

Skye left on a patrol about a month later and I fell into postpartum depression, boo, but with the help of my branch members and family, and zoloft (yay!) I was able to make it through to the end of the patrol. 

Vig homecoming 2 Aug 2012

Skye came back and we had a wonderful two months together!  We blessed Tommy out in Utah with all the family and I took my first surfing lesson.

Four generations of Thomas Bairds!

First time surfing

Those who came to support us at Tommy's blessing

Sightseeing in Philadelphia!

The next patrol Skye went on I just packed up and headed out to Utah to stay with my family the whole time.  What an awesome way to spend that patrol!  I totally missed Hurricane Sandy, I got to see tons of my old friends, I got to attend karate class again (thanks mom for babysitting!), and Tommy grew and grew showered by love from both sets of grandparents.  I also chopped off my hair and I LOVE IT!

With Papa Bill

Kisses from Oma Stacee

Nana and Gramps and cousin Julian!

Now I'm back in New Jersey and I feel so good!  I'm off the zoloft, I'm excited to be a mom, and I love seeing Tommy grow!  He turns 6 months next week, HOLY COW!  Glad we made it through, and I'm excited to see how he grows the next 6 months!

Thanksgiving family picture!