U.S. Botantical Gardens

This past Sunday the 4 of us ventured down to the U.S. Botanical Gardens to see their buildings made from plants and the train display. Although I didn't catch it on camera, Drew had the BIGGEST smile on his face the entire time and kept pointing to every train. Ady was also quite fond of everything she saw and exclaimed with excitement every 9 seconds as well!

And then, per Drew's suggestion, we watched seagulls in front of the capitol.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

FROM MY FAMILY TO YOURS!

When Life Throws You Lemons...

On November 19th I was sent an internal im from our Media Director at the ad agency I had worked at for 11 years... and I knew exactly what it was. Our company had lost a couple big accounts and we knew major layoffs were coming. I held on hope that my tenure would keep me there but unfortunately those of us that worked remotely were the first to be cut, regardless of how senior we were or how long we had been there. But those didn't help.

I was officially laid off.

But what's funny is that I really wasn't too upset. Ultimately photography is my true passion. I adored my agency, but things had changed a lot in the last 2 years and my heart wasn't in it as much as it used to be. I had considered doing photography full time in Ohio, but then Derek received his promotion and that meant 18 months in DC where I didn't have a single client. I guess God made my decision for me!

There were tears though. Lots of them to be honest. Working full time had been part of my identity since graduating college in 2003. I loved so many people I worked with throughout the years and am proud I was able to work up to a position where I supervised my own team in our department! It's always been my CHOICE to work and although we never needed my salary, I felt strong about contributing more to our family. So I cried. The reality that I would no longer have a full time job was still hard to swallow and would take tears to get over and move forward.

But you know what's funny? The next day the inquiries out here in DC started pouring in for sessions. I booked left and right and the month of December has been INCREDIBLY busy. There was even a week where I grossed about the same as my full time corporate job gave me and probably worked near 40 hours as well! It was a fluke week where I had TONS of sessions, but I think it was His way of saying 'go for it'. I am still working on my corporate resume since we were given a career coach and I don't think it hurts to have an updated one, but I'm not actively looking for another corporate job. We had a couple December vacations on the books anyway and I'm mostly looking forward to more time with my munchkins enjoying this new life. I love that I can now take Drew to a random mid-week movie or take Ady with me to Target while he's at school and not have to rush back before my lunch ends. And I'm VERY lucky to still have in-home help from our in-laws for another 15 months so that I can go out and do sessions whenever they need.

In the end, I feel as though I'm really making lemonade out of the lemons life gave me.
And so far, it tastes delicious.

The Tree is Trimmed

And all of the ornaments are more than 4 feet from the ground thanks to a certain 17 month old who insists on pulling them off.

Aruba Recap

It. Was. Awesome.

And I just had to take a few minutes to jot everything down before all was lost in my mind! And let me preface this post by saying that I did NOT take my good cameras and only used my iphone to snap pictures. This was a device and social media free trip for us to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary (back in June) and I was going to soak up every kidless minute possible!

(click for a larger size)

We flew Southwest from Baltimore to Aruba direct and arrived in the early afternoon to the beach. It was perfectly sunny and we enjoyed our first afternoon doing nothing and watching a beautiful sunset. Derek set us up Hyatt credit cards last year and stayed at their hotels when he traveled to earn us Diamond Status for this trip. That meant breakfast, snacks and dinner were all free as well as bottled water, pops and coffees 24 hours a day as well as 4pm check out and the best views in the hotel! It was AMAZEBALLS.

90% of the trip was spent relaxing either in the shade or in the sun on the pristine white beaches. We did a sunset booze cruise and a snorkel pirate ship excursion but that was about it.

Except for on night 2, Derek had planned for a SUPER romantic 7-course diner in a private cabana by the ocean to watch the sunset. It was the most romantic dinner I've ever had and the food was absolutely amazing.

We spent each evening in the hot tubs, ventured to a couple souvenir shops near the Hyatt but that's about it. We walked the beaches every day and even laid on a dock one night to watch the stars. It was perfect.

The 2nd to last day we took a booze cruise on an old pirate ship to snorkel in 2 spots and jump off their rope swing. I was super hesitant due to my fear of sharks but knowing there hasn't been a single shark attack on Aruba ever, I felt fine. We saw a ship at one point about 60 feet down and tons of beautiful fish in the super blue waters.

Here are a couple videos of us doing the rope swing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ46K2oqQLk&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJmP8G-Q6NI&feature=youtu.be

And then, to end the trip right, we flew first class back to DC. This was my first class experience and it's going to be hard to every NOT fly that again. The leg room for my 5'10" self , the food, endless drinks, movies, warm wet towels and warm cookies were to die for. I felt like a queen already on this trip but this was the icing on the cake! So yes, I did what any normal blogger would do and snapped a picture of my dinner!

We did facetime the kiddos 2 times and sent them a couple quick videos, but other than that, there was no email or social media or game score checking while we were there. Just fruity drinks, sand and sun.

And it was heaven.

A HUUUUUGE thank you to Derek's parents for watching our kiddos while

Thanksgiving Recap

Only a week late but hey, better than never! So this year we drove from DC back to Cleveland, Ohio to meet my parents who drove up from KC and my brother who drove over from Detroit! It was a nice 4 days of eating, drinking and watching the kids play with their grandparents and uncle.

My brother got a mini drone and the boys were obsessed.... of course.

We are renting our house out during our stay here in DC so we opted for a Thanksgiving meal from Bob Evans which was quite tasty! And the 'no cooking' was the best part!

Then on Saturday we went to a local nursery where Santa arrived by firetruck and greeted all the kids. This was the only picture I got of the 2 of them all in their finest...

So we walked around a bit, watched Santa and I genuinely thought Ady would do just fine with Santa. She's super social to strangers (heaven help us) and is completely over stranger danger.

But then it happened....

The screaming and tears and annoyance that Derek and I had to jump in the $15 picture to get her to calm down.

Drew was a rockstar though and told Santa exactly what he wanted and really wasn't scared at all!

We walked around for a bit and a tree started talking to the kids. It was adorable but, yet again, their personalities came right through in these photos...

Ady; super excited wanted to crawl right over the fence to get to the tree...

Drew; nervous as hell backed right up to Poppa for protection and wouldn't even step up to the thing...

But then we got this GREAT family picture!

And another not-so-good one but one good enough for the blog...

It was a much needed mini-vacay back to Cleveland to spend time with family and eat good food! Hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! Now on to my favorite Holiday of the year!

3 Generation Pictures

Thanksgiving pictures will be up soon but I wanted to post our most recent 3 generation pictures for both the girls (my mom and I with Ady) and boys (Drew, Derek and Derek's dad)!