^^ Gussied up in our fanciest for a very pretty (if somewhat cold!) Central Park wedding.
Hi friends,
Well we just returned from a super quick and very fun trip over to the east coast. We headed out last Friday, arriving in Pennsylvania around 10:30 p.m. for a second Christmas with my dad and stepmom, sisters and their husbands and Rory and Jude. Nan and Aussie Poppa came, too, which made the trip a super lot more fun.
Second Chrissy was only one of our objectives with this trip — we also rented a car and drove to Brooklyn on Monday, where we stayed with a friend of mine in her gorgeous brownstone and attended a wedding in Central Park on Tuesday and the reception at the Wythe Hotel.
This was Lotte’s second trip out to the east coast — a trip that followed quickly behind her trip out the mountains at the end of last year — and she was nothing but a wonderful pumpkin full of smiles the whole time.
Something tells me we got super lucky with this kid of ours.
Anyway, here’s what we got up to, in photos 😉
^^ Super pumped for her second trip out east!
^^ These two together … it seriously always warms my heart.
^^ My family has a little tradition of doing a taste-testing competition for one holiday (usually it’s Thanksgiving), and although we’d already done wine in the past, we decided why not do it again 😉 After what was meant to be a tie-breaker using beer between the three wine-tasting winners (my dad and both my brothers-in-law), both of my brothers-in-law won the beer round. This was not in the least surprising 😉
^^ Steph and I chipped in to get Rory an actual excavator toy that he can ride, and I think it’s safe to say he liked it. (Thanks Uncle Brian for setting it up!)
^^ The chef — aka my brother-in-law — hard at work.
^^ My delicious dinner plate. These shrimp with Kev’s homemade barbecue sauce were to die for.
^^ At the sports bar the next day with the fam!
^^ A poopy diaper explosion meant Lotte was taking photos with her cousins in pjs instead of her super cute daytime outfit. Oh well, still cute, though!
^^ Yup. Parenting is tiring.
^^ Sleeping on the ride from Pennsylvania to Brooklyn.
^^ The gorgeous setting for Tuesday’s wedding in Central Park.
^^ Almost four years ago, exactly, Chris and I stood under those very same arches and sat on those very same steps, taking photos of our own after we had just been married 😉
^^ Meanwhile, my friend Carla manned the fort back in Brooklyn with both of our babies … and her dog Simon helped.
^^ After a short hiatus, the reception took place at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, which was nice because I had never been before. The views of Manhattan were spectacular, and the food was super delish. All-in-all, it was a very fun wedding.
^^ At one point during the night Carla sent me this picture, which I seriously adore. She even said Lotte went down super easy that night, which may have been because of …
^^ This amazing sleepsuit! Have you heard of this?! Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit is, as promised, magic! Lotte simply loves it, and although I’m pretty sure I’m not meant to be using it anymore since she can roll over, for now I’m just grateful it’s helped get her to sleep after the disruption of her routine over the past couple weeks. Thanks Carla, for letting Lotte borrow Fiona’s!
^^ Fiona and Lotte the morning before we left to fly back to Denver. It is my sincere hope that these two become good, lifelong friends. At least I know Carla and I will do everything in our power to help make that happen.
^^ Home. There’s no place like it.
And that was our trip in a nutshell, friends. We’ve got a pretty busy couple first months coming up, with trips planned and visitors coming out. But busy is how we like to be 😉
Until next time – bis bald!
^^ You have no idea how long it took us to get this photo – and I’m obviously mid-sentence 😉 But what can you do … the good of the many!
^^ Thoroughly unimpressed by Santa.
^^ The meeting between Lotte and my grandmother was one of the biggest highlights of this trip. I’ll never, ever forget it.
^^ Chris just kept taking shots while we were moving around the room, and this totally candid and ridiculous one has got to be one of my favorites, too.
^^ Snowflakes in front of my face … love it!
^^ Oh you know, just sittin’ on a bench in the snow. No big deal 😉
^^ I’m sorry Chris didn’t make it home from work before it got dark (at like 4:30 p.m., mind you!), because we couldn’t take pictures with him in them. Something tells me we’ll have plenty more opportunity, though!
^^ Have you ever seen a happier dog? Can you blame him — look at that view!
^^ Chris’s traditional birthday steak dinner … just one night early 😉
^^ What you see here are parents who are ecstatic that their child slept through their meal!
^^ After presents we made our way to 
^^ The falls!
^^ The rising sun was not my photography friend on this hike, but the falls are there, if you look hard enough!
^^ Again, slept like a champ throughout the whole thing! We made sure to rug her up so she was nice and warm, all cozy-like against dad’s chest for the hike.
^^ After the hike we had a seriously delicious breakfast at 
^^ Bloody Mary’s all around!
^^ Under the table and dreaming 😉
^^ See? How cute is this back patio?!
^^ After breakfast we went for a little walk in town to do some shopping and check out the fall colors. Although some things were unfortunately closed for the season (like back patios, for example, and the gondola), I would highly recommend traveling during this time. It was really quiet, which was nice, and the views were spectacular.
^^ Cowboy boots for days!
^^ They had ’em for kids, too!
^^ See what I mean about the fall colors? Glorious!
^^ 
^^ After shopping we hopped in the car for a (super) short ride to 
^^ Again, ecstatic parents that their child is cooperating …
^^ Lotte did wake up from a short nap here, which allowed us to take some silly pictures. Always a plus in my book.
^^ Silly pic No. 1 …
^^ And 2 …
^^ And 3 …
^^ And 4 … and trust me, there were many more, but I’ll spare you. You get the picture.
^^ We tried to hang at 
^^ On Sunday morning we had to get rugged up again (which someone was not happy about at first), because we took a walk down by the 
^^ On the way back to the lodge to grab the car we stopped in 
^^ We definitely wanted to check out the area near the mountain while we were there as well. It’s really cute with lots of little shops and restaurants, and while you can tell it would probably be crazy packed in winter, again, at this perfect time of year, it was pretty empty, which is always amazing for a ski town.
^^ Improvising when no ramp is available.
^^ We grabbed lunch at 
^^ Multitasking at its best.
^^ Views on the drive home.
^^ Look at these awesomely accommodating grandparents! Honestly, though, they loved the ride, so that was a good thing!
^^ Tuckered our from her full day of carousel fun!
^^ Going anywhere with a child these days requires lots and lots of mechanisms to keep said child happy, like jumping up and down in a pumpkin field. (P.S. Note the face … still not happy!)
^^ Our family selfie game could use some work …
^^ Hmmm … better?? Lotte seems to think not.
^^ Much better when someone else takes the photo — thanks MIL!
^^ While the rest of the group may have been happy to take on one of the longer corn maze options, I, however, refused to. So it was the short loop for us, friends, and that was just fine by me!
^^^The (incredibly amazing) reason I’ve been MIA …
