Summer Vacation

Last week was our summer vacation. It started out with a visit from my friend Kim, who had yet to meet Ella. Kim brought Ella her very first Red Sox hat! We're very excited for her to wear it, and cheer on our favorite team!

That Friday night, our friends Sarah and Wes, and their baby London came down for dinner.

We also had our friends Leti and James, and their baby Finn, visiting from Virginia.

It was fun to see Finn, who is almost 1 year old, and to imagine that Ella will be sitting, crawling, and walking within the year. I think Finn was smitten with Ella, and she seemed to be playing hard-to-get.

We've given them the celebrity couple name "EllaFinn". While the Hansens were here, we went to a local winery, and got a great Reisling and a White Sangria. It was almost like living in California again, being near Napa...almost. EllaFinn also had their first dinner date, but Ella slept pretty much through the entire thing. Finn just was not keeping her attention!

Sunday we made the trip up to NH. It took 8.5 hours to get there - much longer than the typical 5.5 hours! We hit some torrential downpours in NY and CT. And, of course, we had to stop a few times to feed and change Ella. Ella tolerated the trip pretty well for about the first 6 hours, and then was definitely ready to be done with our travel. We were exhausted by the time we got there, but glad to be back.

The week started off cool and rainy in NH, but we welcomed the weather as we've been used to high 90's and high humidity all summer.

We had a great time visiting with family, and we certainly ate well - all of our favorites (homemade Spaghetti, Lasagna, La Caretta, blueberry oatmeal pancakes, lobster, the list goes on and on)!

The weather got much nicer towards the middle and end of the week, and we got to go for a nice walk around Dorrs pond. Ella got to see all of her grandparents, Aunt Mary, her uncles, cousins, a great-grandmother, and lots of other extended family members. It was a week full of fun visits!

We took a visit up to Maine, and Ella "met" her first lobster, and also had her first trip to the beach. We dipped her feet in the water, and she didn't seem to mind it at all.

On our trip back to PA last Sunday, we got into a fender-bender. We were stopping in Lowell, MA to get lunch, and while stopped on the road, someone rear-ended us. Luckily we were all unharmed (Griffin included, even though he didn't have a safety belt on), but it was certainly a scary thing to experience. I was terrified that Ella might be hurt. Ella slept through the entire ordeal! We were so relieved that we were all safe.