Family | Off Boulevard

Snowshoe Wonderland

March 16, 2013 By Meredith 1 Comment

It was the vacation that almost never happened. After driving up a mountain in a complete whiteout…and possibly hitching a ride from a complete stranger the last mile…we safely arrived at Snowshoe Mountain for a family ski trip with the Hawkins clan. The next morning we woke up to these views from our condo -

Yeah, just a little bit of snow. But after riding out the storm for another day, we were able to escape and enjoy all the snow. While everyone hit the slopes, I hung back with the nugget. I’m not exactly a fan of any sports where things are attached to you, let alone spending hours outside when it’s freezing (I know, I know, I’m from Michigan and I should be used to it…), so a play date with Juice was perfect. We spent hours running up and down the halls of the lodge saying hello to everyone, looking out the windows at all the skiers, and playing with her new puzzle -

And Juice loved all the time she got to spend with her cousins -

When everyone wasn’t skiing, we headed to the pool -

Hit the snow tubing hill -

Hung out in the village -

And took Juice to enjoy her (hopefully) last snow of the season -

And while I’m probably permanently traumatized by the drive up and Brian will want to pump me full of Xanax and tranquilizers next time we travel, it was totally worth it in the end.

Filed Under: Family, Travel

Pure Michigan Christmas

January 1, 2013 By Meredith Leave a Comment

So this post has been a bit delayed as I’ve spent the last couple days laying in the fetal position in bed and in the ER due to a nasty little stomach bug. Ending 2012 with a bang!

This Christmas, we packed up our presents and got our snow on in Michigan. It’s a quick 12 hour drive, but thanks to a new DVD player for the car, Juice was a champ during the trip -

The weather made our travels a little suspect at times, but we made it safe and sound to the big mitten. While there wasn’t a ton of it, Brian immediately took Olivia out to play in the snow, something she’d never seen before -

Then Brian and I headed out to catch a Michigan State basketball game -

We spent the next couple days with family, and lots of food, and then it was Christmas time!

Olivia had a very successful Christmas, but apparently she favors more masculine toys because she immediately snatched up her cousins Ninja Turtles, The Hulk, and dinosaurs -

And she got a sled, which would come in handy the next couple days -

She even got a little sledding practice in when her cousin Luke pulled her around the house -

To truely make it a Michigan Christmas, I gave Brian a box full of Michigan goodies, including beer brewed in Michigan, Faygo, Verners, Schulers Cheese, Sanders ice cream topping, Cherry Republic cherry salsa and cherry jam, and a Say Yes to Michigan shirt -

After Christmas we headed up to my parents cottage and spent the next couple days playing in the snow -

Then it was time for the slopes, where Brian managed to get me on a snowboard -

I never made it off the bunny hill, spending most of my time on my backside cursing at all the little kids skiing laps around me, including our nephews -

So the next day we kept it a little more low key and went snowshoeing -

In the end, it was another great trip back home, Pure Michigan style. After an action packed week, Juice was ready for some sleep -

Filed Under: Family, Holiday

Turkey Rewind

November 27, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

Wow, I’ve been really bad at this blog thing the last couple weeks. Holidays + 9 to 5 + Life = No Time. But I’m back! While I’ve got some small crafty holiday projects and a couple home projects up my sleeve for the next couple weeks (including furniture making, gasp!), I thought I’d start with a quick recap of our Thanksgiving break. I was lucky to have 5 days off work and I spent it doing more R&R than DIY. We spent Thanksgiving morning at the park, where Juice has discovered her love of slides. She’s totally cool with going down by herself, but every time she flips herself over on her stomach and slides down feet first. Apparently Brian loves slides too as he mushed himself and Livie down this slide -

Let’s just say the slide wasn’t made for an adult butt. After Thanksgiving dinner with Brian’s fam, we brought home the left over turkey carcass so Brian could make his post-Thanksgiving turkey soup. This is the highlight of every Thanksgiving for him (besides family time of course), it’s about the only time of the year he’s really excited to be in the kitchen. He even made me a vegetarian batch this year, my sweet husband.

The next day Brian, his brother, and his dad headed to ECU to catch a football game and I hunkered down to avoid anything Black Friday related. Me and crowds do not equal a fun time. Instead, I took advantage of the good weather and spent some more outdoor time with Liv. On our walk I snapped some pics of fall in all it’s glory -

That last picture? Our grass, BOOM! And…I may have borrowed some foliage from the park…and it may be on our mantel right now…

They were on the ground, don’t judge. Finally, we capped the weekend off by picking up our nugget of a Christmas tree -

Oh yes, it easily fit in a shopping cart. We’re headed to Michigan for Christmas this year so we opted for a Charlie Brown tree. But of course, Juice was the highlight of my time off. After 5 days, we had to find new “toys” for her -

She had a couple cases of crazy nap hair -

She spent some quality time with Riley -

And there were even a couple meltdowns -

Not gonna lie, I may have been wishing for Monday at this particular moment.

Filed Under: Family, Holiday, Life

Parenting Lesson

August 22, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

We had two very special, and very energetic, little visitors recently, our nephews Evan and Luke. They are almost 5 and it was their first trip to Virginia. In between touring Richmond, discovering Livie’s affection for monster trucks, and answering “Why?” questions, we got a pretty good parenting lesson from my sister and her husband.

Always carry food
Any sane parent let’s their kids watch TV
Don’t go to Sweet Frog (and probably any buffet style establishment) when it’s crowded
Meltdowns are going to happen, just try to make it home before they do
At the first sign of trouble, redirect their attention
Kids have a finite distance they can walk, bring something with wheels
And most importantly, keep em’ busy!

And stay busy we did. We went to the park -

The Children’s Museum -

The zoo -

Side note – check out the chubbiest monkey ever!

And to the river -

Already looking forward to our next trip to Michigan to see the boys again!

Filed Under: Family, Life

Year One

July 5, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

One year ago today, our little girl was born and changed our lives forever. Everyone told us how fast the time would fly, and oh man were they right!

Happy 1st birthday Olivia!

Filed Under: Family, Kids, Life

Proud Papa

June 17, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

Almost one year ago, Juice joined our family and Brian was smitten right from the start -

Everyone says Livie is Brian’s little clone, so it’s only fitting that they do everything together. Brian reads to her -

They take naps together -

He takes her to games -

Teaches her to play the guitar -

They even hang out at the beach together -

Happy 1st Father’s Day Daddy!

XOXO

Olivia

Filed Under: Family, Holiday

Be A Man Week

June 5, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

There are many benefits to being married to a CPA. Obviously, the benefit of having my taxes done for free (and presumably correctly) every year is huge. The downside is Brian being MIA for three months out of the year. It wasn’t bad the first couple years, I just looked at it as an opportunity to get a little me time in. But this past year, our first tax season with Juice, was miserable. Brian couldn’t be much help at home and on many nights he missed seeing Baby O all together. Well piece out public accounting, Brian recently got a new job in corporate tax! Besides being very excited to start his new job, he’s looking forward to all the perks that come along with not working nonstop from February to April, like going skiing, being able to watch March Madness, and celebrating my birthday (okay, maybe I’m excited about that one…). With the change, Brian took the opportunity to take a week off between jobs and dubbed it his “Be a Man Week”. During this so called Be a Man Week, he worked on some projects around the house, got some quality time in with his guitars, and let let his vacation beard grow. The big project of the week was cutting down a holly tree that’s been a thorn in our sides, or more literally, a thorn in our feet. It was blocking the sun to our garden and dropping it’s lovely spiky leaves all over the ground.

With our neighbor’s help (the tree is technically on their property), Brian was able to cut down all of the branches so now our back garden bed can get a full days worth of sunshine. Unfortunately the chainsaw conked out at the end so the trunk will have to wait for another “man time”.

Project number two of BAM Week was to complete the gutter on our back porch. The gutter itself was already there when we moved in, but the downspout was missing, creating a giant crater in the ground where all the rain poured out. It helped when we put the rocks down for our patio border, but we still needed a permanent fix. Here was our poor spout-less gutter -

And the new and improved gutter -

Another project we worked on was a baby gate for our newly walking little girl. It involves an oddly shaped space, an old door, and a new sander.

More on that to come! Finally, we squeezed in a couple road trips during BAM Week. On Memorial Day, we headed to Lake Gaston, North Carolina where Brian’s parents have a lake house. We took Olivia on her first boat trip and we can now call her Caption Juice!

After navigating the high seas, she was all tuckered out and proceeded to pass out for the rest of the trip -

Even Riley enjoyed the trip. I think she’s the only lab out there that doesn’t like the water, but Brian managed to get her to go for a quick swim -

Most of the time she laid in the sun, barking at other dogs on land and every boat that passed -

To cap off Brian’s week of freedom, we dropped Juice off with Grandpa and Grandma Hawkins and headed out of town for a little adult time. More on that to come too, but here’s a sneak peak -

And so concludes Brian’s Be a Man Week. Riley, Olivia and I are all very excited to have more Brian time, congrats on your new job Love!

Filed Under: DIY, Family, Life, Outdoor Projects, Travel

Strawberry for Me, Strawberry for You

May 25, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

Is there anything better than strawberry season? Fresh strawberries, strawberry jam, strawberry smoothies, strawberry shortcake, strawberry sandwiches…wait, what? We might not eat strawberry sandwiches, but with how many we brought home with us a couple weekends ago, we might just start!

As a Mother’s Day treat, we headed to the Chesterfield Berry Farm with Brian’s parents to pick strawberries to our little heart’s content. The past two years I’ve missed strawberry season all together (in Michigan, strawberry season is in July so my strawberry radar hadn’t adapted to Richmond yet), but this year I was determined to stock up. After packing our Olivia survival bag, slapping on the sunscreen, and grabbing our baskets, we jumped on the tractor and headed to the strawberry fields!

And holy strawberry, there was a whole lotta fruit to pick! So we picked…

And kept Juice amused…

And picked…

And kept Juice amused…

She got a lot of QT with Grandma that day -

And after a couple hours, our baskets (and maybe our bellies) were full of strawberries so we headed back. Check out our stash -

Our little munchkin was an angel the entire time, but was pretty tired by the end of the afternoon. She was going…

Going…

Gone!

When we got home, I spent the next couple hours washing and preparing the berries to be frozen. I flash froze about half of them so we could thaw them individually for things like smoothies, and threw the other half straight into freezer bags.

Now let the countdown to apple season begin!

Filed Under: Family, Holiday, Life

Parent-scaping

April 18, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

Parents are the best. When you were little and you got tired, they picked you up. When you were a teenager and hated the world, they still loved you. When you were in college and they came to visit, they filled your fridge with food. And now, and the ripe old age of 31, when they come to visit I get free landscaping. That’s right, mow-the-grass, plant-this-here, grab-the-shovel landscaping. The first time they visited after we bought our house, they helped us tear out all the overgrown holly bushes in the front of our house (and dig out the stumps, score!). Last year when they came for our baby shower, we overhauled all the landscaping around our house to get ready for the big party. When they visited last week the tradition continued – not only did my dad mow our lawn (twice), he finished the border around the patio we had installed this winter. With Riley supervising of course.

But let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Here’s what our backyard looked like before the project began…

…right after our porch was redone and the patio was poured…

…a couple weeks ago after Brian and I created the border around the patio and did a test patch of rocks…

And finally, drum roll please…..

BAM! Border complete! Brian put the finishing touches on it this weekend by installing a cap on the border so someone doesn’t accidentally stab themselves if they step on it -

And then there’s this little section that we need to finish off with some sort of border, it drives Brian crazy -

I might be partial, but I love it! Thanks for the help Dad! Up next is putting lattice work around the porch to keep our four-legged friend and other animal visitors from camping out under our deck.

Filed Under: Family, Landscaping, Outdoor Projects

Park It

April 9, 2012 By Meredith Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things about living in Richmond is the spring. As soon as the weather hints that winter may be on it’s way out, the trees start to bloom, restaurant patios fill, and the festivals begin. Well it’s been a beautiful spring here in RVA and this weekend we snuck away to the park for a little QT with Mother Nature and the little one. Joining in on the fun were my parents who were in town for the week (who were happy to finally be here when it wasn’t 100 degrees and dripping with humidity). After slapping on some sunscreen and loading up the stroller, we set off for Maymont Park. The park boasts of a small zoo, classic Richmond history, and some serious scenery.