Carter and Eli do NYC

Carter and I made a trip to NYC in late May. We were partly celebrating his accomplishment of having earned 300 stars during first grade (stars are earned for doing homework, practicing piano, etc), partly to experience Newsies on Broadway (beloved by me from it's original release, and beloved by Carter since I introduced him to it) and partly just to have some fun the week after school let out. And since we were going to be in NYC, we added a second show for good measure, since Carter also loves Annie. 

This is a bunch of photos. I couldn't cut it down any further!

The plane tickets were his 300 star surprise

Checking out the view from our hotel

A favorite  activity - climbing the rocks in Central Park

The Beast!

On the Beast - en route to see the Statue of Liberty

On a carousel. In a Toys R Us. After 10:30pm.

Street vendor dinner

At Newsies in his Newsies cap

Pedicab!

Sleeping until 10am after 2 nights of Broadway and late night room service 

With Joo on the Brooklyn Bridge

DIY hot chocolate at Joo's dinner pick (and C's favorite)

BFFs. And secret-sharers.

So tired. Ready to go home.

C's list of favorite things in NYC

(Yes, he did wear the same shirt on several different days.)

Dragon*con

Ashley talked me in to going to Dragon*con this year. We only went for a day, and we had a great time. We saw the True Blood and Vampire Diaries panels and we did a lot of people watching. A smattering of photos that don't even begin to do the even justice below...

Ash made our shirts!

So, so many dice.

I took this photo for just for Thomas. And the rest of you that read this who will know who this guy is dressed as. 

Bring Your Kids to Work

Last week, we had Bring Your Kids to Work day at my office. This was the first year that Carter was old enough to attend. There were lots of games and activities for the kids, and Carter had a good time. His favorite part was "all of it."

Sight word relay for the 6-7yr olds

Tricycle racing
(Have you seen the Razor tricycles? They are super cool!)

I managed to get a whole hour of work done. And this is how...

Sand, Steam and Pisco, and Pandas

Just a few things that appeared during our weekend.  We had a really fun, very busy, and somewhat productive weekend!

Thomas won tickets to the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, which is a three-day food and drinking extravaganza that runs from Friday morning through Sunday evening. We only participated in a small fraction of the events, but really enjoyed everything we did. We got a sitter and went to a dinner Friday night, but on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we got together with the other Fowlkes' and each gender got an afternoon away.

Thomas' company also hosted a festival on a property they own on Saturday, so we also did that.

And Carter performed at church on Sunday.

And I did some much needed shopping.

And I made a lot of baby food.

And John learned to crawl.

That doesn't seem like TOO much in words, but really, it was a crazy weekend. So I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Friday Night: Food & Wine Festival (FWF) dinner at JCT Kitchen.
Where I met my new favorite cocktail: vodka, lime juice, maple syrup, white pepper and a tequila floater.
Seriously. So, so, SO good.  

Saturday morning: Festival at Riverview Landing
Playing in the sand ring
Carter says, "Mom, is there anything better than sand?"

Exploring the river
Anything to distract Carter from his demands that we take a dog home with us
(it was a dog-centric festival)

Saturday afternoon: the Fowlkes men head to the FWF
Ashley and I take four children under the age of 6 to the mall
All children survived and were allowed to ride the train
John opted to skip it in favor of milk with mom
Ashley and I actually manage to shop (briefly)
And we only buy one thing that's exactly the same (pretty amazing for us)

Thomas sends a photo of his point-of-view from the FWF
The "wine" part of the name is a bit misleading
There was wine, but there was also an abundance of beer, bourbon, pisco, vodka, tequila, moonshine, etc etc etc 

Later that afternoon, the cousins had some good outside fun

While I got busy steaming a LOT of veggies in preparation for smushing them for John
I'm pretty sure that this was my last batch of mush
By the time John eats all of this, I think he'll be on to all finger foods!

When Thomas returns from the FWF, the glass around his neck is empty

He takes a nap in the midst of the chaos
(remember: 4 children under 6 running about)

It really doesn't seem to bother Thomas

He did eventually perk up in time to eat again

Sunday morning: We're all up VERY early for Carter's last choir performance
(in my opinion, a big mother's day scheduling failure on the part of the church)
Carter did great, in part, (I think) because his ability to choose whether or not to be part of the choir again next year was predicated on him doing well. So he did. And I suspect that was his final performance.  

Saturday afternoon: Our turn at the FWF
Happy Mother's Day to us! 

Thomas and Park weren't able to do this on Saturday, so we got our glasses waxed by the Maker's Mark people 

Can we do this for Mother's Day every year?
Seriously. 

Home!

Rachel recently did a nice post detailing her work travels, along with what her family was up to. I left town last Monday with aspirations to do a similar post about my 6 day, 5 night trip this week (my longest since John was born). Alas, much to Carter's chagrin, I neglected to take any photos, so I'll just say this:

I was in San Diego all week for the annual Boys & Girls Clubs of America national conference. I presented, networked, had a lot of meetings, went to a Padres game and saw several famous alums accept hall of fame awards (a few from this year: CC Sabathia, Ne-Yo and Cuba Gooding Jr). At one point, I snuck out to get a much needed massage. I returned home with the most milk I've hauled to date, and the San Diego airport didn't even screen it! I'm very happy to be home, and I'm also happy that John didn't start crawling while I was away. He did, however, start pulling up!

John Recents

I have been known to say, "He's lucky he's cute". And he is. SO very cute! Right?!

Homes Sweet Former Homes

Last week, my work took me to NYC and Chicago. It was so nice to visit my former home cities. There are things that I just love so much about both places, and at the top of the list is the people I know that still live there! In NYC, I got to have dinner with my friend Paul (Joo was out of town - boo!), and in Chicago, I got to have dinner with the Stubblefields and breakfast with the Martens. It was such a treat!

The bottom view is from the window of my hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. Now that I work for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, I don't usually stay at places like the Four Seasons, so it was a real treat (due to the meeting I was there for taking place at the hotel). Now, I learned something very interesting on this trip. This go around with breastfeeding, I have found it much more difficult to travel and pump milk than it was five years ago. This is largely due to the fact that hotels used to be very accommodating with refrigerating things for me and freezing my ice packs, but I have had the hardest time getting hotels to do that now. Several hotels have cited something about health department restrictions on refrigerating things for guests, so I thought perhaps that there may be some new policies at play. But that theory was disproved when I asked at the Four Seasons and they were only too happy to take care of my milk and ice packs. This lead to the realization that the difference is most likely due to the very different quality of hotel that I was staying in five years ago when I worked in the corporate world versus now...

My Week (so far) In Numbers

5
talks and workshops presented

4
pounds of milk pumped, chilled and schlepped

3
nights in myrtle beach (and four very full days)

2
times I stepped foot outside of the hotel (and the second time was to go to the airport)

1
tired me


The upside of traveling: My boys were all happy to see me when I got home. John was the most expressive, but Carter warmed up when he realized that I was home in time to take him to the family reading night at his school (pajamas required). Thomas seems quite relieved to have me home. I'm trying to avoid mention of next week's trip for as long as possible.

Yep, that's 4lbs of milk