Pey's First Trip to Boston

Last month, we finally made a trek back to my favorite city in the country. We moved away last May so it had been over a full year since we had been back...which is really just way, way too long.

Our flight out of Atlanta left a little after 10 PM on Wednesday night. We were really hoping Peyton would do us right and sleep the whole way there since this was already way past her bedtime. Man, were we wrong! She fell asleep for about 30 minutes in the car on the way to the airport and then proceeded to stay awake until 12:30... 15 minutes before our flight landed in Boston. She squirmed, screamed, and kicked for a solid two hours before finally giving in to sleep. We hated being "those people" on the plane, especially on such a late night flight, but there was literally nothing we could do to keep her calm. Needless to say, it was a pretty rough flight and the exact opposite of our flights to Miami a few weeks ago! On the flip side, she completely wore herself out during that flight, so when she finally did fall asleep, she was OUT. She didn't flinch during the landing, transporting her from our laps into the Baby Bjorn, on the bus ride over to the rental car lot, transporting her from the Bjorn to the car seat, and finally from the car seat into her pack n play for the night, not waking up until 10 the next morning! Phew!

We visited with Rachel and Chris for just a few minutes at 2:30 AM when we got to their house, but called it a night pretty early. On Thursday, we lounged around the house in the morning, venturing out at lunch time to a restaurant at a driving range, called.... The Range. After lunch, we spent an hour or so lounging outside at the driving range before heading back to the house to get ready for dinner! Rachel and James M. graciously offered to host our friends from LCC at their house for a good old fashioned pot-luck style dinner! It was so good to get to share a meal with these people again, introduce them all to Peyton, and get to meet their new additions, Noah and Braylon!

After dinner, we drove over to the Grant's house so that Wally, Kath, and Sarah could meet little P! Peyton was a little champ and stayed up playing with Kath and Sarah until around 10 pm!

Friday was spent wandering around Assembly Row with Rachel G., Rachel F., Chris, Ryan, and P. We did some shopping (Hello, LOFT!) and then some drinking at a local brewery! That evening, we went back to the Grant/Mirski house to grill out and put Peyton down for an earlier bedtime! We stayed up watching some gymnastics for a little while, but all crashed pretty early!

Saturday was the big day of the trip! I got up bright and early and headed over to Wally and Kathy's house to meet the rest of Rachel's bridesmaids and help set up for the shower! The shower went perfectly and everything was so beautiful! There is definitely something special about watching one of your best friends be completely covered in love and gifts from the people around her! We all love you, Rachel and Chris!!

Sunday morning, we unfortunately had to wake up before the butt crack of dawn to head back to Georgia. It was such a wonderful trip to Boston and the countdown has definitely begun for our next trip!!

Seagrove Beach 2015

This past week, Ryan, Peyton, and I were lucky enough to accompany the rest of the Smith clan down to Seagrove Beach in Florida. This was our first vacation since Aruba in February and Peyton's first vacation ever! 

We left rainy Georgia after a weekend filled with a Marietta high school homecoming event, two GT alumni events, and two weddings. While we loved attending each event, we were more than ready for a little vacation! 

So great to see some of my besties from Marietta! 

Peyton #notimpressed during her first Ramblin' Wreck experience! 

At Charlie and Laurie's beautiful wedding! 

At Lauren and Ricky's beautiful wedding! 

Some photo booth fun from the wedding:

We got to the condo Monday evening, got unpacked, did some grocery shopping, and ate some delicious pizza from Pizza by the Sea before calling it an early night. Peyton, sensing she was on vacation, decided to sleep for 10 hours straight, so I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and ready for the day on Tuesday (and really needing to pump.) The first few days in town were pretty rainy, so we spent a lot of time indoors, driving around Seaside and down 30A to explore. When it wasn't raining, we did get out for some walks on the beach! Peyton fussed a lot going into her Baby Bjorn, but as soon as we started walking, she passed out hard and wouldn't wake up until we got back to the condo. 

Some highlights from the trip (other than Peyton giving us a few AWESOME nights sleep!): 

Around midweek, the sun came out and the ocean calmed down (it had been a double red flag the whole first half of our trip, meaning the beach was closed to swimmers.) Brandon and Rachel bought some kayaks for their condo and almost everyone had a good time taking them out into the water. On Friday, while we were hanging out on the beach, Susan noticed some dolphins jumping just off the coast. The kayaks were taken out immediately to scope everything out up close. Apparently, the dolphins were just as curious and the kayakers were and came about a paddles length away from the boats when Brandon and Rachel had them out. So cool! 

The best beach baby invention ever. Kept the sun and sand out while she played/napped. 

Cousin Smooches

On Thursday from 12-6 p.m., a local restaurant called the Marketplace Cafe, closed their doors and hosted a blow out party to celebrate 66 years of business for the community. It was free to attend and the restaurant handed out free food and drinks the entire time. We went around 4 and got loaded up with shrimp po-boys, grouper sandwiches, cheeseburgers, fries, and tons of beer from Grayton Brewery. It was quite the score! We will miss you Marketplace Cafe! 

Our last day of vacation was Halloween. The shops in downtown Seaside were hosting a Halloween event and passing out candy to trick-or-treaters. We dressed Peyton and Leah up and walked around Saturday night collecting candy! I felt kind of bad collecting candy on behalf of Peyton that she clearly wasn't going to eat... but obviously it didn't stop me. Parents deserve some halloween candy just as much as the kids! While Peyton slept through most of the experience (#notimpressed again), Leah seemed to enjoy herself and it was fun to see all the cuties dressed up in their Halloween best. Leah was an adorable scarecrow, and P was a little Ladybug! 

Nana and Pop with their girls! 

Thanks Smith family for another wonderful vacation!! 

Aruba 2015

A few days ago, Ryan and I FINALLY made it back from Aruba! The vacation was amazing, but the travel was a nightmare. Literally, nothing went our way. Well, I guess not nothing...we did get everywhere we needed to be safely and in one piece. But, still. 

So, last Thursday, Ryan and I headed to the airport with the intentions of catching a flight to La Guardia and taxiing over to our hotel near JFK airport, where we were flying out of early the next morning. When we got to our gate, we saw that the flight was delayed by hours and hours...so much so that they couldn't even give us a set departure time. The gate agent was doing everything she could, and eventually got Ryan and I on an earlier flight to JFK, saving us the thirty minute taxi ride. Score! She called the baggage room and had them move our two suitcases on to the new flight, telling us we would have to pick them up and recheck them the next morning. NO problem- we needed them anyways, since all of our toiletries were in them. Fast forward a couple hours to baggage claim at JFK. We had been waiting for at least thirty minutes for our bags, which never showed up. Ryan eventually took the initiative to go to the help desk to find out where our bags were. Turns out, they never got transferred to our new flight and were currently sitting at LGA waiting for us. The customer service rep at the airport promised us that our bags would be on the next flight out in the morning to Aruba via Atlanta...meaning we would just have to meet up with our bags in Aruba. Fine. Annoying, but fine. 

The next morning, Ryan and I woke up and took the hotel shuttle to the airport around 5:00 in the morning. We got to the self check-in kiosk, and put our confirmation number in when the kiosk asked us to swipe our passports. WHAT? It was at this moment, we realized we were screwed. Neither of us had remembered to pack the one thing that would prevent us from getting in and out of the country. After hours of running around the airport talking to literally anybody that could possibly help us, we got rebooked on the same exact flight to Aruba 24 hours later, rented a car, and began our drive back to Boston to retrieve our passports. Boo. Meanwhile, our bags are chilling in sunny Aruba without us! About 10 hours later, Ryan and I found ourselves back at the hotel, ready to start the day ALL over again...this time with passports in hand. 

Everything went smoothly the next day, and around 3:30, we were smacked in the face greeted by an incredible amount of heat/humidity, our luggage, and Brad and Susan's smiling faces. Vacation has officially begun! 

We got loaded in to the car and stopped for lunch at Taco Bell before making our way to the resort! 

View from our balcony! 

Sunset on our first night!

 The first night was pretty low-key since we were pretty exhausted from the last two days of travel. We walked along the beach for a little bit, got changed for dinner, and walked over the the pier restaurant across from the RIU. Needless to say, it was an early night.

The rest of the days were pretty much a blur of lounging under huts on the beach...

 swimming in the ocean...

eating...

walking along the boardwalk, eating, and drinking (virgin daiquiris, anyone?!). 

Did I mention eating?!? 

We also spent a couple evenings in some of the nearby resort casinos. Susan and I started out dropping $20 bills in the penny slot machines, which can go a long way but doesn't really lend to MAKING money. Around the middle of our vacation, we got tired of the slot machines and decided to try our luck on the three-card poker table. While it was a lot more fun... we weren't necessarily any luckier. 

Before dinner at "Taste of Belgium" 

Ryan turned 26 on our second day of vacation. To celebrate, we went to the Muguruza's restaurant by the lighthouse for an amazing dinner with the best view on the island.

Birthday boys get presents, even on vacation.

A couple days later, we took to rental car down to the southernmost point on the island, a place called Baby Beach, where not one sign could be found. The men went out snorkeling, while the women lounged under a palm tree.

On our last night, we decided to try our luck one more time at the casinos. Overall, the casinos had stolen some of all of our money, so we had to have one more shot at winning it back. While walking up to the Occidental Casino, Ryan spotted a bill in the parking lot. He opened it up and quickly realized our luck had changed! It was $100! With this new found money in our hands, we walked straight to the three card poker table, split the money in half, and started playing. I ended up leaving the table a couple hours later with the same $50 I put down and Ryan walked away with an extra $40. It was definitely a great way to go out, up $140! We won't talk about how Brad and Susan ended the night (sorry guys!)

Our last few hours in Aruba were the cloudiest of the whole trip (Aruba was as sad to see us go as we were to leave!).

We got to the airport three hours early to clear customs, only to realize that our flight had been delayed a couple hours, causing us to miss our connecting flight out of JFK to Boston. This flight also happened to be the last flight of the night. While our luck at the casino may have turned, our traveling luck continued. 

Once we landed at JFK, we checked the flight status just to be sure it had departed on time. Turns out, that flight had also been delayed. Only problem was that it had been delayed five hours and wasn't scheduled to depart until around 1 in the morning. After consulting with the gate agents and customer service reps for about an hour, everyone was convinced the flight would be cancelled and not wanting to spend another night in a New York hotel, we decided to once again rent a car and drive the four or so hours back to Boston...without our luggage....again. 

We made it home around 2-2:30 in the morning and our bags made it home around 10:30 the next night. 

While travel was a nightmare, the trip was definitely worth it. I can guarantee you that we will NEVER forget our passports again!