A Wedding in the Catskills

       Okay, let's disregard the fact that I have been very much an absentee blogger. I'm here, my kid is napping, and I've finally got some time to write. I've got lots to catch you up on so I'm going to work backwards, starting with my recent adventure.

Mama Milam got away last weekend to the 

Catskills in New York

to celebrate and be a part a very good friends wedding.

Maria and I met in Ecuador on Christmas Day, seven years ago
(yes, I had my nose pierced, and yes, we look greasy. 
That's Lake Titicaca behind us!) .

We had so many adventures together while we were there
(including trips to the hospital, lost passports, endless bus rides, 
learning to surf, dysentery, and the list goes on). 

(Now I'm thinking I need to do a few posts about our time down there).

Fast forward to the present
and  Maria was going to be walking down the aisle! 

They chose a rural Inn property for their wedding.

The location was picture perfect.

Initially the boys were going to travel with me too

and we were going to make a family vacay out of it.

But then we realized that our son

would have nothing to do with sitting in a plane for seven hours.

 The foliage was out of this world.

The property where the wedding was held

and where we all stayed,

was scattered with several old buildings and cabins.

I stayed in the main building on the grounds.

These old buildings just oozed character and charm.

I woke up to this view from my room.

There was a fire pit 

where everyone ended up after the rehearsal dinner.

And a stream traversed through the back of the property.

It was amazing to see Maria again, 

and meet so many of the friends I had heard about.

On Friday before the wedding

a few of us hopped in the car and found a small 

market where everything was made from scratch (even the mayo and mustard!).

We devoured some delicious sandwiches.

The location of the Inn was in an area affected by Hurricane Irene. 

When I turned on to the final road before the resort, 

I was greeted by these signs 

(which were kind of creepy at midnight after a long day of traveling).

I soon realized that the signs were in place due

to damage that the flooding had caused to the roads

(again, an eerie discovery on dark unfamiliar roads).

Sadly, this house was now nearly falling into the roadway.

It looks like the house is for sale now,

and they're willing to negotiate the price.

Just sayin.

Many of their neighbors in the area had similar experiences.

There seemed to be remnants of the storm 

scattered all over the area,

and the river was still running very brown.

The rehearsal dinner was held in an old barn on the property.

The morning of the wedding, 

I needed to grab a couple of things

 so I drove down to the nearest town,

about twenty minutes away.

Talk about small town charm.

It had charm to spare.

The actual wedding was wicked 

(that's a word I picked up out there), 

although I have very few pictures to prove it. 

The following morning my feet were covered in blisters

 and my ears were ringing (from the 7 piece band!).

  True signs of a great celebration!

I did manage to snap this picture of the new

 Mr. & Mrs. Haun.

Beauteous right?

Maria was glowing. 

As much fun as it was, 

I was so happy to get back to my boys. 

More to come soon, I promise. 

A Book of Memories

       Whew! As a family, we are exhausted. Poor Nolan has been having growing pains (or teething, we really aren't quite sure), which means he's been sleeping lots but whining when he's not sleeping. And the whining... oh the whining. We can hardly handle it. We've also been trying to savor the last few weeks of Summer (and warm weather!), but they seemed to have slipped by too quickly. Jon continues to work like a madman. Literally, a madman. He must be mad to actually be keeping up his schedule.
      But, back to the post at hand. With Buzz approaching the 14 month mark, I've been trying to wrap up his babybook.   I knew if I didn't kick myself to really finish it, then it may go almost finished, but not quite done forever. So here it is, a glimpse at how his book-o-memories has turned out.

I like the book that we found for him. 

It took me a while to find something that I liked, 

but I'm glad that I settled on this one.

You can find it here.

It includes a book and drawer for saving momentos, 

as well as lots of nifty envelopes and stickers

for adding in additional keepsakes. 

The content of the book was simple, 

but I think that's why I liked it. 

There was plenty of room for photos. 

And a spot to add his ultrasounds.

I tucked away goodies from his baby showers.

And I included a wrap up on his nursery. 

Of course, we saved some important keepsakes from his birth. 

Like his foot prints, newspaper birth announcement, and medical bracelets.

One of my favorite things about the book

is that it had a place for month by month photos and milestones.

Each month, 

I tried to update the book to include a recent photo, 

and I wrote in milestones as they occurred. 

The book also has a place to add photos 

from our first vacation, first holiday together, 

and his first hair cut. 

The book wrapped up with a few pages for remembering his 1st Birthday!

In the drawer of the memory box, 

I tucked away several things from his first year. 

I included all of the cards we received at his birth and birthday, 

his first shoes (although I lost one of them!), 

and the story of his birth. 

I also plan on adding to the drawer a onesie, 

my favorite hat of his, and a 

photo CD with picures and videos from his first year.

If I can only summon the energy to finish it!

I'm hoping to wrap it up tonight (crossed fingers), 

and tuck it away with our other valuable momentos.  

Hopefully someday in the waaay future Nolan will

share it with his wife and kids (now that's a crazy thought!). 

I wonder if I'll keep this up for baby #2?

Oh, and we are absolutely, positvely, 

not expecting a number 2 anytime soon!

Real Estate Reality

       I've heard a saying that real estate is like porn for women (apologies for the vulgerity), and maybe, just maybe, you enjoy shopping around homes as much as I do, so I'll share. We've mentioned that we've been keeping our eyes on the real estate market here in our area for some time. We've been doing our research, working on paying down debt, and trying to think logically about the process. Some days we feel that we're about 90% ready to be homeowners but other days we still only feel about 40% prepared. We've been pre-aproved and we've punched some numbers to see what we can afford, but our reality is that things are still quite unsettled for us, as Jon is still in the thick of working on his fire career. But, if we do settle here, we want to know we're getting what we want and that we're getting the most for our money. So, even though we may not be on the brink of pulling the trigger we hope to be prepared when we finally get there.
       We're primarily looking in the Glenshire neighborhood of Truckee. It's a neighborhood nestled in a large quiet valley and has lots of pros: it's a very family friendly area,  has a neighboorhood pool and clubhouse, receives less snow then surrounding areas and we have lots of friends already settled out there! The downsides are that it is a bit out there (it's several minutes from downtown), and it takes about 35 minutes to get to Tahoe City and ummm... the lake that we love so much.

It's quiet beauty gets me every time we drive out there.

We viewed this house about a month ago. 

It was listed at a very competitive price and was in

 seemingly great shape for its asking.

It's what I call "Mountain Style," 

which accounts for a lot of homes in our area.
Unfortunately, I haven't really decided if "Mountain Style"
is our style. 

From the outside all seemed nice. 

But inside, the house told another story. 

Three words: Dog. Pee. Everywhere. 

Yep. 

The owners were letting the house be ruined by their yapper of a dog.

Viewing the home was definitely a disappointment, 

and sad to know that people take so little pride

in caring for their homes. 

We did love the large 1/4 acre lot, 

but it was all dirt and shrubs and would require

LOTS of dinero to get it into shape. 

Then two weeks ago,

 a house came on my radar and I kind

of fell in love with it from the photos alone. 

We got in to see it a few days later. 

We liked. A lot. 

The exterior photos that I grabbed don't really do it justice. 

It needed to be cleaned up a bit, but it oozed charm.

Maybe I was a little pre-mature in imagining it 

all decorated for Halloween?

Here's another view of the front yard, 

as seen from the master bedroom balcony.

Jon said that we could drink mimosas on that balcony. 

The house had a foyer!

An actual foyer. 

Homes in our area in our budget, 

don't have foyers. 

Sure, the tile wasn't us,

 and I already saw some upgrades to do, 

but I liked. 

The kitchen had cabinets that went 

all the way to the ceiling, 

which I love. 

I already had some ideas for a facelift for the space. 

But the bones were there.

On top of four bedrooms, the house had a small den. 

The den was pretty teeny tiny,

but had lots of potential for becoming a comfy 

room for games and family hang out time.

The master bedroom was charming, 

with angled ceilings and walk out french doors

(which I failed to take photos of).

But the thing we loved the most...

was the backyard. 

Sure, it needed a deck,

but we could also imagine a built in stone firepit, 

encircled with adirondak chairs. 

That house was definitely over our budget, 

which is probably one of the reasons we liked it so much. 

We're staying put for the time being,

and keeping our eyes out for new listings. 

A Case of Crazy Hair

       We've been looking at Nolan's sweet face for over a year so to me his hair is the norm. But, man do we get a lot of stares and snickers when we go out (I think I counted about 30 comments on one shopping trip in Reno. 30!). Sometimes I actually get sick of the comments. Is that bad?And then, add to it all of the times that he's confused for a girl, even though he's wearing a blue shirt. And fireman socks.  Sure signs that he's a boy people. I'll admit, I have a running list of Afro inspired Halloween costume ideas for him (Kramer, anyone?). Here are the things we're ALWAYS hearing when we go out.

1) Where does he get that hair?

                 This is the number one question that we get.  They look at my straight blond hair and then to Jon's short do and they can't figure it out. This is when we clue then in as to why oh why we keep Jon's hair short. That was Jon many a year ago and a glimpse of my son in a few years.

2) Do you style it like that?
                Absolutely not. I rarely comb his hair. Bad mom perhaps? It actually gets bigger if you comb it.

3) Can't you use some gel on it?
                We've tried mousse. I was advised that mousse was the way to go. The mousse looked cute for about 5 minutes and then it was gone. No trace that it was ever there. I'm wanting to try some curling gel soon.

4) Do you ever cut it?
                 Before his first birthday I had trimmed it about 3 times. I saved a few of those locks. We wanted to let it go natural, but after a while the long fuzz wasn't allowing for his cool curls to be shown off.
       So at some point, we decided that after he turned a year, it was time to tame that curly beast. We let it go natural for long enough. We waited for Jon's mom and sister to visit, so that they could see the fro in it's full glory before we took some scissors to it. And then...we cut it. Here I am in action with the scissors (sorry for the not so great photos. I just picked them up and started at it.)

And here's what we were left with. 

Quit gross actually.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to bring myself to saving his fluff.

The next day, this is what my sweet boy was looking like. 

Plenty of curls, but not so much crazy fluff. 

We're still getting lots of comments but 

the girl confusion has calmed down a bit. 

I think it's already grown out a little. 

I better keep the scissors handy...

Just a Little Bit Behind

       We're just a little bit behind when it comes to keeping you updated on Milam happenings. When a cold sweeps through the Milam house, followed by a broken rib, we tend to find ourselves a bit off balance. But we're healing and getting ourselves back on track now.
       A couple of weeks ago Jon's mom and sister came out to stay with us and oh what fun we did have.

We ate out lots.
(Note: Yes, Nolan's hair is NUTS in this picture,
but stay tuned. I'll share about his first hair
cut later this week)

One morning, while Becky was off getting her yoga on

 we took a walk to grab coffee.

Of course, we beached it up while they were here.

Meeks Bay was our favorite spot this year.

Having the sun paranoa that I do, 

we keep Nolan very much protected when we're on the sand.

He's got his own mini-tent to hang out in.

I love this picture. 

He was trying to get at me through the netting.

Somehow I failed to manage very many good pictures at the beach. 

Imagine us lounging, 

people watching, 

digging sand and rocks out of Nolan's mouth, 

swimming, 

snacking,

and a very blue lake. 

One night we tried a new Mexican restaurant in town.

(Somehow I managed to not get a picture of all of us

together the whole weekend. 

What the heck was I thinking!!!)

Grandma Babs gave Nolan a bath.

I'm kicking myself for not taking more photos from the trip. 

Where was my head?

More on Nolan's haircut on Wednesday!