Rowan comes to Aunt Beth's!

Last Friday I got to babysit little Ro-bee!!

WooHoo!!

Rachael claims that I was doing her a favor,

but anyone who's laid eyes on her

sweet little girl will know that she was doing

ME the favor!!!

She dropped her off around 2:30 so that she could

make it to her hair appointment and run

a few other errands....

and then...

It was just me and baby...

in my house!!

Weird!

I kept looking at her sleeping thinking,

'ohmygosh, theres a baby....in my house...

...on my couch'

For some reason it was just really striking

a chord with me and I was having

all these thoughts about what it will one

day look like to have a baby of my

own sleeping on my couch...

Needless to say, little Rowan was an

angel and so much fun.

I think I may have felt my ovaries kick me a few times...

but don't worry, I told those two ovary hooligans

to get back in line!!

And then Roy came home and was excited to 

finally meet Rowan!

It was pretty cute.

We talked and played with her and

she did super-cute baby things and

made super-cute baby noises.

Roy styled her hair into a mohawk and

then deemed it a Ro-Hawk.

I showed him her cloth diapers and he was

impressed by the fact that they were such fun colors

with easy to use snaps...

he was totally picturing old fashioned, 

white cloth diapers with pins and all!

I was glad that I got to give him some sort of

an introduction to cloth diapers, albeit brief, cause

it's something I'd really like us to consider

doing when we have a baby someday. 

And of course...I took pictures! Duh!

She was sacked out and didn't even

bat an eye when I took her out of her carseat.

You'll notice a common theme here that I'd like to 

call holycraptheresababysleepingoverthereonmycouch!!

Hence the 24 pictures I took of her sleeping!!

Rowan says 'Hey, Roy!' with a friendly wave.

Roy looks leery but I think he was 

mid conversation

What a freakin' angel. 

She's awesome.

Point. Blank. Period.

Thanks for coming to play Ro!!

Come back soon and see us!!

Stacey's Wedding

Last Saturday we attended the wedding of my friend from

work, Stacey. After an 18 month engagement,

her and her longtime boyfriend, Chase, finally tied the knot!!

( Sheesh! That seems like an eternity compared to our 4 month engagement!)

This was Roy's first wedding for a coworker 

that we were going to attend together. 

Which sounds strange since we've 

A) been together for so long and 

B) Because I have so many friends who have been married in the last few years.

The explanation is that several of my other friends have been married in

September when he's busy with fall/leaf clean-up AND

I'm not gonna lie...I've been guilty of letting him bow out of 

joining me at work functions/weddings without much fuss.

The truth is, I worry about him feeling uncomfortable or bored
and I'm always afraid that it will manifest
in him being quiet, shy and miserable.

And sometimes, quite honestly, I just enjoy
an evening/night out with my friends!!
I've never been one who feels like my husband HAS
 to accompany me to everything I do.

But, seeing has how it's August
and we're in the middle of a freaking drought,

I thought it was high time that we bite the bullet
and act like normal social adults!
 No more using work as an excuse!

And in the end...it was just fine. 

Phew. 

I wish Saturday August 18th Beth could tell August 11th Beth

that everything is going to be okay! Relax!

Of course we were running late...

(I mean, this is US we're talking about afterall..)

which was culminated in a last minute run to Kohls to get Roy

a different sized dress shirt. Ugh..my fault I guess.... 

Apparently, (unbenownst to me when I bought the shirt) 

Roy has a fat neck and short arms... hmph, who knew?!

I guess I should just be happy that we were only 10 minutes late!

I'm sure we looked like quite the site running through Kohls, me

in my high heels and fancy dress and Roy in dress pants,an undershirt

and a tie slung around his neck...ha!

But all in all, we had a good time....we even tore up the dance floor a lil bit!!
 Roy mentioned several times

later that night and the next day that he had fun and that he 

really like the guys that we were seated with...

well DUH, my friends husbands are of course awesome!!

And now for the pictures...

The lovely Clarks

and The Copes

and us of course..

best friends

and then there was dancing....

Congratulations Stacey & Chase!!

InstaFriday and my week in review

This was just going to be a post of the past weeks Instagram pics, 

but then I realized that I didn't Instagram all that much....

So, it's just turning into a random spattering of pictures.

Some Instagram,

Some not.

Some boring.

Some delicious.

and some very cute.

Starting with last Thursday...

I got together with some girls from work to assemble 

carekits for Heart to Heart International.

My friend Amy is quite the hostess and turned our

volunteer time into a dinner party. She fixed us all a 

yummy Italian dinner...the cherry on top was this

little cutie Savannah, my friend Cathi's daughter!

10 months old and so much fun!

Friday

Friday I met my mom, sister and Alicia in the Westbottoms 

for another month of First Fridays!  Alicia and I had plans

for fried pickles and cheese fries afterwards so I purposefully

headed out with on empty stomach...

this unfortunately just led to me being tired, hot and hungry so

we only stayed for about 2 hours and then had a 

long awaited rendezvous with Tomfooleries' fried pickles..

YUM.

Saturday

Not much other than Olympic watching.

Still loving it!!

Sunday

I finally got my butt in gear on Sunday and

hung the windows that I bought in July at First Fridays.

(I can't have too many First Friday projects hanging

over my head afterall...)

Roy was working, and I nearly killed myself hanging these

50lb windows (as in...falling off an inadequate barstool turned ladder with

the window coming down with me....), but I got it done!!

It was a very 'Iamwomanhearmeroar!' kind of moment when

I finally stood back and admired my hard work.

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

Tuesday

I've spent much of this week fretting about what I'm going

to wear to a wedding we have this Saturday...

Dress on the left is the what I'd like to wear IF I can

squeeze into it...it's a little bit tight and I don't think I need

to be bustin' seams on the dance floor.

Dress on the right is cute too and quite stretchy...

hmmmm

This predicament was not made easier by these 

cupcakes I decided to pick up for my orientee's last night

with me on Tuesday.

But they were delicious, and definitely worth the

calorie splurge...right???

Wednesday

Wednesday was super fun.

I went and visited Rachael and Ro 

(I got my R&R as I like to say...

please remember, I'm a fan of corny sayings)

Little Ro was sleepin when we got there,

but she just looked so cute and cozy that I just

had to give her a snuggle...

those boppys are freakin' comfortable PS...

After visiting Rach I went home to get ready for

date night!! WooHoo!

We decided to go to CinemaSuites and solve the

elusive question of 'dinner first or movie first??'  

It's a little bit pricey, but a fun date night every once in awhile.

Apparently I couldn't take my eyes off the 

spell binding previews...?

We also saw a really pretty double rainbow on our

way to the movies

(and yes, it rained....THANK YOU GOD!!!)

I thought it was cool that this rainbow ended right

on top of Lifeway Christian Store.

A great reminder of what rainbows were originally 

meant to stand for!!!

Thursday

I just hadn't gotten enough of my Rachael and Ro time

so I went back over to visit and got to go on a walk!!

It wasn't too hot when the sun went behind a cloud,

but when it came out we started getting a little toasty

and had to make a short lap home.

Roy wanted me to send him a video of little Rowan in 

her stroller. I happily obliged. 

Cause thats what proud Aunties do!!

Friday

My friend at work let me try some of her pickles.

She canned them herself and I about went freaking

crazy....SO GOOD!  

And then just like some sort of angel she was like

'Hey, you want a jar? I've got extra' and I looked

at her like she'd just offered me her kidney!

I ate 1/3rd of the jar over the second half of my shift!

I couldn't stop myself!!

I'm for sure gonna swell up like a balloon and 

not be able to wear the striped dress to the wedding!!

Good thing I've got the stretchy pickle-friendly dress

as a back-up!

Roy went and worked with his best friend Ed today. 

The two of them have this 'bring your best friend to work' thing going on, 

and Ed has ridden along with Roy a few times,

 so today Roy was an honorary vault man.

Vaults. 

Not bank vaults.

As in...a vault you put a casket in...

Wierd job, right?? 

I dont get why people pay extra money to put their casket

inside a sealed vault? Are they planning to exume the person?

Want them to stay earthworm free for eternity?

I told Roy he better not even think about spending any

extra money on a valult for me....he can just buy the

bargain casket and be good to go.

He sent me this cute picture of himself out on the job.

I just wanna pinch him.

And that's it!!

It's been pretty busy week.

Tomorrow is the wedding and we'll have the

final dress showdown....stay tuned...

Dun-dun-dunnnnnn

Omaha part duece...

Day two we woke up and headed for the zoo!

Doors opened at 9am and we were there by 9:30.

The zoo was awesome. Totally met all of

my expectations and then some.

The animals had ah-mazing exhibits that still

managed to allow easy visibility.

And on a 95 degree day I appreciated all the huge indoor

exhibits. 

I really don't even feel like 

we spent that much time outside!!

Rainforest Exhibit

Butterfly Pavillion:

This exhibit wasn't the biggest, but you instantly

felt like you had walked into some ethereal forest...

it was quite the Zelda moment...

On top of the awesome zoo, they recently opened 

an aquarium...inside the zoo....

included in the cost of admission...say what!?!?

I liked this guy...he looked like he was

smiling at me

Monkey Lake

I always love watching the apes...

they always amaze me in how human they act.

This one female gorilla was just sitting on a bucket

biting her nails while the big male gorilla picked his nose

and ate his boogers....lovely.

You can see the female gorilla in the background

on her bucket and the male gorilla chillaxin' with

his feet up..typical ;)

Desert Dome

we made another friend

Underneath the desert dome was another huge 

exhibit called Creatures of the Night. It was 

a really cool exhibit, but you weren't supposed to

use flash photography, so alas, no photos :(

Skyfari ride across the zoo:

This rhino was like 6 feet beneath us!

It was so cool!

The only exhibit that I wasn't super impressed by

was the big cat exhibit...

It was your typical cement block room circa 1977

There were some cheetahs we saw that were outside

in an open exhibit, but honestly, they looked hot

as hell, so maybe the cement block room wasn't so bad

after all..

Omaha as a city: pretty boring.

Omaha zoo: awesome. worth the drive.  you should go.

I can't wait to go back and take the Royster!!

We stayed until the zoo closed around 5pm and then

went back to the hotel to shower and get cleaned up.

Dinner was at Rockbottom Brewery, which was just 'so-so'.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel, got some

Starbucks and bagels at Brueggers Bagels and then

hit the road...destination: HOME!!