Pittsburgh Zoo

We finally made it to the Pittsburgh Zoo yesterday and it was a great success. The zoo is clean and beautiful, and it wasn't even that big a deal that it was 90+ degrees. I think I want to go back in a couple of weeks with my mom, since Daddy is going back to work next week. YEA!

The sea lions were awesome. We liked listening to them bark. The baby sea lion came to check out the baby Owen. He actually got more from the animals this time. He was pointing at them and yelling. He "got it."

The kangaroos there were slightly less entertaining than the Kangaroo Senior Portraits at Oglebay, but still cool.

Elephants. There is a baby hiding under one of the bigger ones. It was so cute. They were throwing dirt on themselves to cool off because it was so hot. This silverback gorilla (behind the dude in the orange shirt) was just hanging out staring back at the people staring at him. It was pretty awesome, although the gorilla looks ticked.After an outfit change because it was so hot, we had a carousel ride and decided to head home.

It was necessary to stop at Sarris Chocolate Factory on the way home for a milkshake. Owen finally figured out how to use a straw, and he loved Mama's chocolate and banana shake.

The highlight of the trip, was very obviously the polar bear. We were walking under a glass tunnel looking at the sharks, when we realized we were now under the polar bear exhibit. Clint and I were quietly praying that the polar bear, Owen's favorite thing in the world, would make an appearance in the water. After only a couple minutes, he jumped down in the water and started swimming above us. It was so amazing. Owen immediately recognized what it was and started yelling at him and pointing. I managed to get a pretty decent video. This was a few minutes after he came down into the water. Owen is yelling at him and talking almost the entire time. And if you will notice, he's also holding HIS polar bear. I am pretty sure he loved it.

And the trip was all the more awesome because we went up in my new car! :) Last week, I ended up getting a 2010 graphite-colored 4-door Civic. It had 21 miles on it when I bought it. Now it has 350. I love it love it love it.

Mother of three, for three days only.

We finally planned a trip to Columbus that involved bringing additional children with us home to Wheeling. We went up on Tuesday and brought Andrew and Allie back home with us for three nights.



They were jam-packed days, and not everything went according to plan, but we still had an awesome time.

Early morning piano shenanigans.

Three hot kids on a chair.

Approximately 10 minutes after arriving back in Wheeling, our power goes out as I am making grilled cheese sandwiches for all the kids. I think it's important to note that it was exactly 96 degrees that day. The kids were uncomfortable. We went and rented a movie, and by the time we came home, the power was back on and we enjoyed a dinner of chicken enchiladas.

What I did not realize, was that something happened to the refrigerator during the power outage. The light was still on, the freezer was still cold, but by Thursday morning, the fridge was getting less cold than it should have been. I was thinking it may have had something to do with the excessive heat.

So, Thursday we packed up Andrew and Allie (Grandma stayed with Owen at our house) and went to Sandcastle. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures while at Sandcastle, because my phone was stored in a locker while we ran around the waterpark.

We first hit up the wave pool (always a favorite). The kids weren't sure what to expect, but once the waves started churning, and the kids started getting bounced around, we knew they were having an awesome time. Then Clint and I both got a double innertube to go down the Blue Tubalooba with each of the kids, the most awesome water slide in the history of water slides. After going down it once the kids immediate screamed, "Let's do that again!!!!!" The lazy river was not quite as big a hit, so we went back to the wave pool before lunch.

After lunch, Allie and I went to the kids' pool, which even as an adult, was awesome. I can't wait until Owen gets a little bigger so he can enjoy that. After the little pool, we tried to see if Allie could go down some slides in a single tube. Thankfully she was tall enough, so we each went down two more slides side by side. She was having a blast. Meanwhile, Andrew and Clint were going down the terrifying really tall slides. We met back up to go in the wave pool one more time before heading home.

We left Sandcastle at 5:30, and didn't reach the Fort Pitt Tunnel until 6:45... It's approximately 10 miles, maybe less. There was so much traffic. It was disastrous. The kids were exhausted and both took a nap in the car, but woke up before we even left Pittsburgh.

Below is Allie passed out in the car on the way home from Sandcastle.

When we got home, my mom says, "Kara, I don't think your fridge is keeping things cold..." The refrigerator that I bought 2.5 years ago when we first moved into our apartment is now ruined. Friday morning brought stress and refrigerator estimates. One company told me it would cost between $200-400 to fix it. Another company was going to charge me $80 just to come look at it, and they couldn't come look at it until the 20th (I called on the 9th)...

New refrigerator it is! I got a pretty sweet deal on a Whirpool brand (bottom freezer) refrigerator that was half off!!!! It was a good day to buy a fridge.

The rest of Friday was spent at the park, Andrew and Clint hitting up Cabela's, and Allie, Owen and me going shopping at Target where Allie got some cute new outfits and I got some new sunglasses to replace the ones broken at Sandcastle. (I cannot be without sunglasses on sunny days.)

Owey was also a fan of the shades.

Owey and his best friend (substitute polar bear), Andrew.

If the polar bear is not near, and Andrew is, Owey is happy! I have an almost identical shot of these two from our trip to the Columbus zoo.

The night in Columbus consisted of Bananagrams with my gutter-brained husband, Scott and Cristie, and two defunct dictionaries that couldn't keep up with my vocabulary. Thank God for Scott's iPhone. Good times, friends.

I just want to say how adorable Allie is with all her little dresses. I have known this little lady since she was nine days old, and in the past five years, I don't remember ever seeing her wear anything other than dresses (except for pajamas). Cristie says it doesn't happen too often.

Allie is very good at making Owey giggle.

Especially when she acts like she is biting his hands. The expression on Owen's face is his deliriously happy face.

And Allie can fly!

Action shot of Allie~!

Bubbles! Allie was blowing bubbles and Owey was chasing them.

Down the tubes.

Saturday morning, the entire Kimmins fam had breakfast in the Amie abode. I don't do it very often, but when there is a special occasion, I love to cook up a big breakfast. Cristie always prepares a huge breakfast for us the last day of our visits to Columbus, so I thought it only fair I return the favor. It was awesome having them all over! I'm looking forward to having a house with more livable areas so that I can do more entertaining (without having people climb three flights of stairs)... I'm pretty sure Owey was very sad to see his friends leave, and I'm sure he is looking forward to another visit soon.

Back to the fridge drama. Because it was considered an "emergency fridge," they did not give me a time window on when the fridge was going to be delivered, only that it would be Saturday. Clint went and got a few breakfast essentials this morning, and more ice. I had everything from the fridge within a cooler and a huge freezer bag.

I figured it would be delivered midday. Nope.

At 4:00pm, I called Lowes to find out where the fridge was. They took my number and told me they would call me back. At 6:00pm, with no word from Lowes, I called back. This new girl I talked to contacted the driver while on the phone with me, only to find out that they were "backed up" but it would definitely be today. I was upset. By this point, all the ice had melted from everywhere, and everything in the cooler and freezer bag was ruined. I told them I had kids in my house and needed to be able to have essential food items. I had planned on going shopping as soon as the fridge was delivered to replace everything that was ruined. Luckily, I stored all of our meat from the freezer with our upstairs neighbor, who was very accommodating, even though she is vegan!!! I relayed this to the girl on the phone, who promptly transferred me to a manager.

I'm kind of surprised at this. I wasn't really angry, I just wanted to know when the damn fridge was going to be delivered. I am not one to hold back a complaint at places like restaurants and retail stores. I worked as a waitress and a sales associate before. I know the deal. Customer's are paying you for a service, and if that service is not delivered as expected, the customer should benefit. But in this case, I wasn't even that mad when on the phone. Clint said it sounded like I was going to cry, but I think I was just really tired. This phone call resulted in the darling manager from Lowes leaving $15o dollars at the customer service desk for me to replace my groceries. I'm still ticked that I had to replace a 2.5 year old fridge, but that was a huge help, especially with Clint being laid off and all that. Thanks Ashley the manager!

The fridge was finally in place in my kitchen at 8:15pm.

After the crazy week I have had, I made some plans with my dear Natalie for sushi and secret-spilling. The sweet-potato rolls were sweet-ass. After sushi-fest, I hightailed it to the grocery store to replace all my perishables, courtesy of Lowes.

Tonight, the house is quiet after three days of being a family of five. While I know our family will likely only ever be a family of four, having Andrew and Allie with us made me look forward to giving Owen a sibling in a few years. He was clearly sad when he woke up from his nap and realized that the big kids were not there anymore.

Kids are awesome. One of Clint's highlights from the week: Listening to Andrew and Allie giggle while watching "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." It was infectious. Love it.

Columbus Revisited

With Clint still out of work, we have a lot of time on our hands. We decided to go visit our friends in Columbus. I think I should stop calling them friends. They are more like family.

I knew Owen liked trains, but now it is clear that he LOVES them. Well, I know what SOMEONE is getting from Santa Claus this year!

Cristie making Owey giggle.

Owey hard at work on the Kimmins' computer.

Ah, is this what it would look like if we had a girl next. Ah, swoon.

Funny girl.

Abbie on the grass.

Abbie and Owey

Clint, Andrew and Owey. Scott, Clint and Andrew all went golfing on Wednesday. They had a great time, but it was probably 1,000 degrees out and they all came back with sunburn.

Owey liked to show the girls how good he is at closing doors.

Adam on the slide. The entire time we were there, Adam only called Owen "Baby Owey." It was pretty much adorable.

Allie taking Owen down the slide.

Owen kept taking Abbie's stroller, so she had to run away with it :)

More train-playing.
Being in Columbus did something to me this trip, and I don't mean make me nauseous when Owen started throwing up in the middle of the night due to strawberry overload during the day. Of course I am from Columbus, spent the majority of my childhood there. I don't know if it's desperation talking, but Clint's job search in the Ohio Valley is getting ridiculously depressing. He has applied to so many jobs, soo sooooo many jobs, and hasn't gotten any interviews. I don't know what the problem is.

On the way home from Columbus, Clint and I started talking about what it would be like to live there. I'm familiar with it already, we have FAMILY there who would make the transition so much easier in so many ways, a booming job market for Clint, so many more housing possibilities...

I have an excellent job that I have no plans of leaving. If we lived in Columbus, I could come back to Wheeling on a Friday afternoon, work my weekend, stay at my mom's and go back to Columbus Monday morning. I could take Owen with me two weekends a month, and leave him in Columbus with Clint two weekends a month. That way, Clint wouldn't be overwhelmed with Owen for three days straight, and my mom would still get to see Owen frequently. I'm really happy with my work schedule, and I think that my commuting for the weekends wouldn't be that difficult. If Clint can get a decent-paying job in Columbus, I think we should try to make it work.

First things first, we have not put the house on the market yet because we figured our next step would be buying a house in this area. If we MAY move out of the area, that won't work. So, either way, we need to sell this house so we can keep our options open. We need to be able to be in a position to move rather quickly (3 months or less) and we may not be able to do that while owning this house. So, a realtor is coming to our apartment on Tuesday.

We have explored so many options. I don't know what the right one is. It's really hard to figure it out. The idea of moving to an area where Clint can find decent work, being close to people we know and love, and being within easy travel distance to our family... seems like a good idea. We shall see.

And - HUGE congratulations to Mrs. Laura Jackson Roberts and family on the birth of new baby Benjamin Michael!!!!

The following pictures are totally out of order, and it's more complicated than you think to rearrange pictures in Blogger once you upload them. So... here they are... out of order, bear with me.

At the Columbus Zoo, all of the kids and Clint. From left, Owey, Clint, Abbie, Andrew, Allie and Adam (wedged between the l and the t!)

Allie, Adam, Andrew and Owey in the Asian part of the Columbus Zoo.

This little man took a thirty minute nap on the way to the zoo, and lasted almost the whole day without a nap. Needless to say, Clint and I bet on how long it would take him to fall asleep once we were in the car. He fell asleep exactly four minutes out.

Allie was teaching Owey how to write with a pen. We keep noticing Owen favoring his left hand for things. Do we have a little South Paw on our hands?

Andrew became Owen's new favorite person. Andrew, always the wonderful big brother, was happy to oblige.

The Amie fam.

Me and Abbie walking to Adam's soccer game! Andrew, me, Abbie, Allie and Owen at Adam's soccer game!

The Kimmins fam at the Columbus Zoo. Too bad Scott had to work!!

My little happy man. I think he's thrilled with himself because he just went #2 for the second time that day. The kid never poops, but he poops twice in a very public area... It was tricky.

Helpful kids.

Abbie feeding Owey pancakes for the first time.

As usual, we had a fantastic time visiting our friends in Columbus. We planned it so we went up on a Tuesday afternoon (Owen napped in the car on the way). We got to go to Adam's soccer game and grill with Cristie and the gang. Owen did not like the group bath, but still managed to sleep a full 12 hours in a pack-n-play. Great success! The next morning we got up, had a big breakfast, packed a picnic lunch and went to the Columbus Zoo! The zoo was great! My favorite part was seeing monkey families. There were two new baby monkeys being held by their mommies with the daddies looking over their shoulders.

All the kids had a good time! I don't know if Owen got a lot of out of the animals, but he sure enjoyed pushing his stroller around! Aside from the fact that he barely napped all day, we were pretty thrilled with how he behaved. Toward the end he got a little stubborn and grumpy, but it worked out.

We are looking forward to visiting Columbus again soon to see the Kimmins gang again!

It's been a long time.

So, the most exciting thing, is that Clint is back to work. He was called back on September 1st and has been working a few weeks now. I'm so relieved. The only downside is that our insurance ran out on August 31, and instead of just continuing once he got called back to work, he had to open a new plan that will not be active until October 1. So we don't have insurance this month, and Owen has been battling a little cold. I'm praying that it doesn't turn into a big cold. We only have 9 more days until we are insured again!

And the kid is 8 months old! I can't believe he's 8 months old. I have given up on taking pictures with the bear, because he will barely sit still long enough to take a picture. I manage to get him every once in a while. Some big milestones this past couple of months include standing (with support), he rolls over extremely well, he can get up all fours and scoot around (not exactly crawling yet, but very close), he makes a lot more noise, he says dada, mama, hi and sometimes he says no. He is very close to pulling himself up in his crib and against the coffee table. He also apparently loves fruit. If I have an apple or nectarine or something, he will actually pull himself up my body to get to the fruit. If I set it down beside or behind me, he will crane his neck around trying to find the fruit.

This was the first time he had the fruit. I was eating a nectarine while getting him ready for his bath. I was holding him and taking a bite of my nectarine, and he leans in his head and starts biting the nectarine at the same time. It was so cute.

This was the apple. I'm trying to get him to eat cut up bananas in his high chair, but he apparently only wants what I'm eating.

The other big news is that I went to Iowa this past weekend. I left really early in the morning on Friday and had a flight out of Pittsburgh. I had a decent sized layover in Detroit, where I had some fantastic lobster bisque. There is a hallway in the detroit airport where the walls are backlit and the colors change according to the music. It's really neat. I arrived in Iowa to be picked up by Christopher, MJ and Nicole. We all hung out at Krista and Emily's apartment for a while. Then I got checked in to the sweetest hotel I have ever stayed at! The Coralville, Iowa Marriot Conference Center is SUCH a nice hotel. I got to have a king sized bed all to myself, flat screen TV, and all the toiletries were from Bath and Body works! The rehearsal went very well, and the dinner was awesome. I ended up reading "A Marriage" by Michael Blumenthal.

Afterwards we all went back to the Herbert Hoover Presidential (Sweet Ass) Suite. I drank a lot of wine and local beer. It was good times. Below is a picture of me and Krista. I'm in love with my pumpkin orange sweater. It was a great night. The next day, I spent most of the day by myself. I didn't really do much except hang out in the hotel room and relax. Had a good lunch in the hotel restaurant, and all of the staff everywhere was so nice. I like Iowa.

The wedding went off without a hitch. I almost cried during my reading, and I definitely cried a lot when they said their vows. Luckily I came prepared with tissues. The reception was at a golf club called the Brown Deer. There were awesome appetizers, open bar, great music. I sat with Nicole, MJ, Jessica, and Krista's cousins. I loved the whole pumpkin and wasabi colored theme. All the little napkins and seating cards and match books and stuff were so cute.

Everyone went back to the room to party a little more, but I was so tired and full from 'racing MJ' and taking advantage of the open bar the last hour of the reception. I went back to the room and took a shower, then got most of my stuff packed up and passed out.

Most of the way home was spent reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Another Rich recommendation. One of these days I will read another book that has not been referred to me. The book was incredible. Tragic. Heartbreaking. Hopeless. An actual EXPERIENCE for a parent. All in all, a good read. I kept crying during the difficult parts and the people sitting next to me on my flights probably thought I was mentally unstable.

When I got home, I was so happy to see my little boy. I missed him so much it was insane. I brought home Wellsburg DiCarlos on the way home from the airport. Yum. I ate kind of poorly over the weekend, but I'm back on track now.

The Wellness Bridge has been fantastic. In one month I lost 11lbs and 12.5 inches from all over my body. Last week alone, I lost almost five pounds. Woohoo!

Some little videos. In both, please excuse my horrible sounding voice. There aren't any excuses...