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| Yearly ski trip to Colorado |
So I only posted once in 2017, which is absolutely abysmal. A LOT happened in the past year, mine and S's lives have drastically changed. And there is quite a bit to catch up on in the blog. I never even posted the pictures from our belated honeymoon trip to Italy, and that was in October of 2016! I will try to catch up on stuff this year, beginning with a quick recap of 2017.
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| Scott's sweet new ride |
We started off the year with S's exciting new car purchase, a 2017 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport. It is a super pretty car and one that he has had a lot of fun driving. We also started taking Penny to dog training classes and I attended the Houston Women's March with my friend B. I have to say it was such an inspiring event to participate in! So many people from so many different backgrounds marching, chanting, and demanding change together!
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| Houston Women's March with B! |
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| There was a huge turnout as we marched into the city |
In February we went on our yearly ski trip up to Colorado with friends. We convinced everyone to give Winter Park a try this year as it is a bit more affordable and also because it is at a lower altitude than Breckenridge, for those of us who had really bad altitude sickness the year before. The weather was great! We got in some good skiing as well as a fun snowmobiling excursion and S got to see some ice racing, which he is convinced he will participate in the next time we are up in the mountains. I think it's terrifying! Penny graduated from beginner dog training this month as well. And February was also the month we had to deal with some difficult family news, including the passing of my parent's sweet, beloved dog Tashi and the unexpected end to my brother's marriage.
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| Snowmobiling excursion in Winter Park |
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| Penny graduating from beginner training |
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| My parent's sweet dog Tashi |
We started off our very eventful March with a trip to the Houston Rodeo BBQ Cookoff, which I had been wanting to go to for years! It was cold and rainy, so slightly less than optimal, and the number of people there was kind of unreal. Food was great though! S and I celebrated our first anniversary with a trip to Cuba (a dedicated post to this will be coming up - there was so much we did)!! It was a once in a lifetime trip and I'm so glad we were able to go before the country starts to become more commercialized with the increase in tourism that they have seen in recent years.
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| Rodeo BBQ cookoff with a great group of friends! |
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| The main square in Havana |
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| Havana Club Rum museum tour |
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| Vintage car tour of Havana area |
Shortly after returning from Cuba we learned that I was pregnant! The next 2 months were filled with plenty of doctors appointments, "we're not ready for this" moments, and a realization that we would probably want to upgrade the size of our house before baby arrived. We also chose not to find out the gender of the baby, which drove our friends and family crazy...
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| The little nugget that was Baby Chladek |
In May we went to Cleveland to visit my bestie K and her family at their new home. We announced our pregnancy to them only to learn that both she and her sister were also pregnant and due right around the same time as me! It was pretty exciting! We then spent the rest of the long weekend playing with their son R, exploring the Cleveland area, hiking in the woods, and letting the guys each drink for 2...
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| Sporting matching baby bumps! |
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| Goofballs! |
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| Cooking for 7, drinking for 4... |
After returning home we jumped back into intermediate training classes with Penny, started fixing up the kitchen in our house (ordering new counters, backsplash, sink, etc), going to more doctor appointments for baby, and in June flying out to Delaware to attend the baby shower for my brother J and sister-in-law J's baby shower. Their baby girl was due 4 months before ours and we were so excited that the cousins would be close in age!
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| Andromeda in the womb at 5 months |
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| Cousins in utero |
When we returned both the kitchen mini-renovation began as well as some slightly more seriously house hunting. We drove out to hill country for a weekend to visit with S's family and get in some summer swim time on the river. And upon returning went house hunting some more and found our new home! That kicked off a lot of time on phones and the internet filling out mortgage applications, title company forms, insurance requests, etc.
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| Kitchen demo work |
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| Summer break in Hill Country with a bikini baby bump |
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| New kitchen updates: counters, backsplash, sink, faucet, and cabinet hardware |
August was a super eventful month. My niece was born on August 11 and was such an adorable little peanut. My brother J was such a proud daddy and my parents were ecstatic to finally become grandparents! We closed on the house in the middle of August while we were still working hard to prep our old house for sale. Just after we closed, Hurricane Harvey hit. We were very lucky that both of our houses fared the storm well. No flooding in our old neighborhood, just some minor roof leaks due to the large amount of rainfall. There was street flooding in the new neighborhood, but it stopped just short of our new house, so the property was 100% okay. We had to wade through knee high water that could not be traversed by car to reach the house, though, so it's good to know that we'd essentially be trapped on an island if we ever had another storm like Harvey and chose to ride it out.
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| My newborn niece snuggling with her daddy! |
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| We moved into a new house! |
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| Hurricane Harvey flooding in our new neighborhood |
After the storm we moved into the new house. We had been planning to spend about 1-2 months fixing up the old house in order to put it on the market, so we cracked down on getting those repairs in work. In the meantime, a number of our friends and coworkers had been kicked out of their homes due to Harvey flooding, so we made the old house available to them as a place to stay for 2 months while they got their housing situation figured out. A coworker and her family took us up on the offer and they stayed in the house until we managed to sell it. The next few months were a frenzy of unpacking the new house, fixing up the old house, getting ready for baby, throwing our annual Oktoberfest Party, 2 baby showers, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.
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| S's first official daddy duty: building the crib. The pups helped... |
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| Believe it or not, this kegstand pic is from our baby shower... |
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| To make the most of my new baby bump real estate, I was a super geeky "Mother Earth" for Halloween this year |
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| Both sets of parents and S's brother and nephew joined us for a Thanksgiving at home this year |
Our little bundle of joy Andromeda Corinne joined us 1.5 weeks after her due date on December 8 after a freak Houston snowstorm! My doctor told me at my 41 week and 2 day appointment on December 7 that baby was not showing any signs of coming but my amniotic fluid was low and so we would have to induce. Shortly after starting induction my body caught up with the times and I started going through natural labor. The next afternoon Andromeda joined us! She was a fairly easy newborn, generally a good eater, a good sleeper, though once we got home she would only sleep in my arms, and an expert snuggler. My parents were in town for the birth, my mom was actually in the delivery room when Andi arrived and my dad was a huge help in taking care of the pups for us.
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| Welcome to the world Andromeda! |
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| Some proud and exhausted parents wondering what we just got ourselves into... |
2 weeks after she arrived we made the somewhat crazy decision to drive out to Florida with a newborn and 2 dogs. The drive was actually better than we expected and Andi got to meet her Aunt and Uncles, cousin G, extended cousins, and her great grandparents! While in Florida, S and I enrolled the dogs in a 2 week training class to fine tune some behaviors that we wanted to work on before baby arrived but never really had time to do because of the house move and such. It was a much different Florida trip than I'm used to since we were operating on the schedule of a newborn and didn't get to see quite as much family or explore as much as we were used to. But I'm glad that everyone was able to meet and snuggle the baby.
And that pretty much catches us up! Coming soon - monthly baby updates, an Italy trip recap, and post about our Cuba trip!
