Serendipity

I haven't been traveling as much as Ashley, but I have been making more frequent quick trips up to NYC for last minute work stuff. And one of those last-minute trips happened to coincide with Ashley's brief trip to NYC.

Joo, Ashley and I had dinner at Westville, where Ash got the true NYC experience of waiting for over an hour for a table at a (really, really good) hole-in-the-wall. Then we hit Magnolia for some cupcakes. The following day, I got to show Ashley my office (more importantly, the view from my office) and then we had lunch! It was such a treat!

Cousin Love

Between the two of us, Ashley and I have been traveling so much that we hadn't seen much of those other Fowlkes' for several weeks (except that Ash and I did get to connect when we were both in NYC for work at the same time!). But the last couple of weekends we've made up for lost time.

Last weekend, Anna (and her parents) came over for dinner.

Then this weekend, Ashley and I took the kids to see Dora Live,

followed by lunch (including a pregnant-lady-sized beer for Ashley),

simultaneous naps for both kids in the car, and a trip to the mall to get the kiddos new shoes for the fall.

When they weren't sleeping, the kids were very chatty in the car. My second favorite conversation went like this:

Anna: Carter!

Carter: I'm right here.

Anna: Carter!

Carter: I'm right here!

Anna: Carter!

Carter: I'M RIGHT HERE!

(and so on)

But my very favorite was on the way home, Carter kept saying "I love you, Nanna" over and over again.

Poser

I got the camera out the other day to video something funny that Carter was saying. But as soon as he saw the camera, he started posing and demanding, "take picture of me!" So I did. That's a sticker he put on his nose for your viewing pleasure. I swear he made these poses all on his own!

Then, at a festival a few days later, he was similarly demanding about being photographed, but was too preoccupied with his italian ice to pose for you.

Letter to Helen and Phil

as dictated to Mama

[Dear Mama Helen & Daddy Phil,]

Helen and Daddy Phil need to go home. I want to go to Helen's house and Daddy Phil's house. I would like to go to pool. I like go pool. I like to go to home. Carter and Mama and Dada need go home. That a lot of letters [i.e. words on the page]. I'm sayin'. I like to go to pool. And then I go to playground. That's all.

[Love,]
Carter

[P.S.] Cart Cart take me to a movie.

Vacation - Cozumel

In honor of our 6th wedding anniversary today, I'm posting pictures of our day in Cozumel last week. We did an adventure course, some snorkeling, some drinking...

The drinks were well deserved after I conquered great (and not so great) heights with Thomas. A (vaguely, emotionally) traumatic experience at age 12 has kept me far, far away from anything involving harnesses and carabiners. But Thomas really wanted to do this, and I need to keep up my best-wife-ever credentials, so I agreed. Pretty much all the pictures are of me because I couldn't be trusted with a camera while we were doing this stuff.

See the fear?! Trust me. It's there. I spoke very little while the helmet was on. I just gave this terrified smile and kept my mouth shut to avoid sounding like a total idiot (er, scaredy cat).

But I did do the rock climbing

and the rappelling

and the ropes course-ing, including a very small zip line. The short length of the zip line didn't assuage my nerves because for me, it's not about the height, it's about the edge, which is why the part pictured below was the easiest thing for me (no edges!).

After the helmet was off, I was feeling much more in my element with snorkeling (no photos of that) and then with tacos, beer, and margaritas. And with what we believe were our first tequila shots as a married couple. It took us six years?! Possibly we just don't remember previous experiences, which would make sense...

Vacation-Dzibilchaltun

The Mayan ruins in Progresso were named Dzibilchaltun (pronounced like it looks) and aside from the cenote and the grand plaza ruins (see Part I), this was the structure that we jogged to (over 1/2 mile in the freakin' HOT sun). It is a temple that also acts as a celestial calendar as the sun shines through the door opening on the solstices and the windows on the equinoxes (equinoxi?). Apparently this is one of the only Mayan structures to have windows, so they know it was important as a calendar. All in all pretty cool.

And we ran up the steps too, Rocky style. Wait, no we didn't, since Elizabeth hasn't seen Rocky and thus would not appreciate the music in my head and the arms raised at the top. And it was hot.

Vacation - Part I

The first night of our vacation was spent in New Orleans, where we learned (re-learned) the important (but easy to forget) lesson: You should never, never order a second Hurricane.

The next afternoon, we left on a cruise. We were surprised by how MANY hours we spent on the Mississippi after leaving New Orleans...

before finally hitting the gulf.

The cruise made two stops in Mexico. The first was in a town called Progreso. We didn't want to get up crazy early and we didn't want to spend 5 hours on a bus, so we declined to go to Chichen Itza, the most famous of the Mayan ruins in the area (if all you can think at this point is "Chichen Itza Pizza", you've definitely watched too many episodes of the Backyardigans), but we toured a lesser known Mayan ruin.

We climbed the ruins, including a separate ruin set quite long way away from the rest. I'll have you know that we jogged on the long path to that one (take that Park you-totally won't-exercise-on-vacation Fowlkes; we did exercise - twice!). But my favorite part was swimming in the cenote.

The other great thing about going to the ruins close to town was that it left us time for lunch and massages on the beach afterwards. I may never have another massage indoors again!

I'll let Thomas blog about the rest of the vacation another night this week. I'm off to NYC for a few days.

Thelma y Luis Photo Gallery

Anyone who knows me well knows that my one hidden talent is for taking Thelma-and-Louise style portraits. Seriously. I can get upwards of 5 people in the frame with my monkey arms and uncanny ability to frame the pic. This ability comes in handy on a couple vacation seeing as how neither Thomas nor I enjoy asking strangers to take our photos. So, here's a handful of photos I took of the two of us on our vacation.

Yeah, it's just a bunch of pictures of our boring faces. Over and over and over again.

Carter's Vacation

I stay at Helen's house. Daddy Phil live there, too. And I live there!

I was hitting a ball.

I was sitting in bucket.

I was eating my ice cream in in Helen's car and Daddy Phil's car. Daddy Phil gave me ice cream. I eating my ice cream all up.

I was watching my movie!

I'm kicking. I go swimming with Helen!

I was riding silly donkey. Helen needed more money.

The Drop Off

We made it to Mama Helen and Daddy Phil's house in just over 9 hours yesterday. Carter told us where he wanted to go approximately 150 times during the drive. It ranged from "I want go Helen's house" to "I WANT GO HELEN'S HOUSE, NOW!".

We're here now, and he seems quite happy, though he's still warming up to the dogs. Thomas and I are headed out to New Orleans this morning.