Our Friend from Australia

While at Carolina, Will rowed and made some lasting friendships with the guys on crew. One of those friendships was with a guy named Michael Bulman, a foreign exchange student from Australia. Mike fell in love with everything Carolina and after his first year here was somehow able to come back for a couple more semesters . Then he fell in love with an American girl, and that brought him back a few more times.;) Unfortunately, the long-distance relationship didn't last and he became busy with medical school over in Melbourne, so it's been years since we've seen him.

We were so excited when we found out that he was spending his two week vacation in the states to see friends! Listen to this crazy schedule: he flew from Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to LA, LA to Seattle (to visit a friend), Seattle back to LA, LA to New Orleans (for a friend's batchelor party), New Orleans to DC, DC to Raleigh (where we picked him up and then dropped him off after our visit), Raleigh to Philly, Philly to NYC (where he was staying with another friend), NY back to LA, LA to Sydney, and Sydney to Melbourne. Crazy!! And he did all of this flying for relatively cheap--I was shocked when I heard what he got all of those flights for!

Anyway, we had a great visit with him. It was neat to see these two guys 11-12 years later, with a little gray starting to show in their hair, still talking about old crew days. Oh, the joys of nostalgia! Anna loved hanging out with Mr. Mike, too. She introduced him to the worlds of Dora and The Wonder Pets. She was upset that she was sick and couldn't go to the baseball game with him and then was afraid we were going to lose him at the mall. Before he left, he told her that she could come back to Australia with him and see all of the kangaroos and koala bears and platapuses. She thought about it hard for a few seconds! On our way to drop him off in Raleigh, we all stopped in Chapel Hill and had dinner and then drove around campus to see what all had changed. I guess we are pretty lucky to be just an hour and a half down the road from that beautiful place when there are people willing to fly half way around the world to come back to it!

We keep telling Mike that we're going to make it over there to see him one of these days. He's really eager to repay some of our hospitality. Wouldn't that be an awesome 10 year anniversary trip?!

Baby Puh-matoes

I consider myself to have an olive green thumb. I like working with plants and am still learning the tricks of making them grow better. Obviously, they don't always survive. My sister-in-law, Erin, told me a great quote the other day pertaining to this: "You don't truly understand a plant until you've killed it three times." I'm not sure where she got that from, but it made me feel better!

So, when Santa brought me a really neat planter for Christmas at the Hege house this year, I was excited and a little nervous at the same time. Nannie used several of them last summer at her house and got tons of veggies. But she's really good with plants. What made me feel a little more confident is that it has a huge well underneath so that you only have to keep that full instead of watering the actual plants--they just pull from it when they need to. It also came with this implanted fertilizer that keeps the plants going. I was hoping this was fool-proof.

Several weekends ago, Anna and I filled up the planter with soil and planted a couple of tomato plants and several cucumber plants. They have been growing like weeds and look pretty, but we have yet to see any fruit of our labor (haha).

A couple of days ago, Anna was checking out our plants and came running over yelling, "Mommy, I see baby puh-matoes!" It was precious. And sure enough, there they were. No cucumbers yet, but the cutest little green baby "puh-matoes" you have ever seen. I had to document the evidence...

Here's to hoping we have lots of tomatoes and cucumbers this summer!

Our Playdate with Cousins

Since my cousin, David, and his wife, Claire, moved to Charlotte several years ago, we have talked at every family gathering about how we should get together more often since we're so close. When their little girl, Katelyn, was born almost a year ago, the talking got serious. Well, we FINALLY settled on a date and they drove over Saturday to meet us and Sarah for a little get-together to let the girls play. It was so fun!

Anna and Katelyn have the same shoes!

Katelyn showing off her walking skills--she's almost there!

Cutie pie!

The cousins

All the girls

We owe David and Claire a huge thank you for driving our way. It was so fun to watch the girls play together and to reminisce about all of the cousins playing that way 25-30 years ago! How time flies! We can't wait to see them again soon!

Swim Class

This week Anna and I started the parent-child swim class at the YMCA. Anna LOVES the pool, so I hesitated doing this class since it's primarily a water acclimation class and she is already well acclimated. Technical swim lessons don't start until age 3. However, I also wanted to make sure she knew the basics before we started going to the pool this summer. Although it's mostly little baby games and singing in the pool, it does teach her how to wait for me to say it's OK to get in the pool and introduces the skill of floating on her back. Plus, she does have a really great time. I was excited because the instructor, Miss Melinda, told me that she is going to get her a swim jacket next time (we have just been holding them thus far) because she thinks Anna is ready for the next stage. Yay! Miss "I Want to Do It Myself" will love that. The greater news is that even though the class is only 30 minutes long, it's way more of a workout than I thought it would be--I'm exhausted when we get home! Here is a picture of someone NOT happy that it was time to get out of the pool...

Seven

Anna has always been an amazing sleeper. I credit much of that to our adoption of Babywise ideals and maybe a little to the fact that I can sleep whenever I'm horizontal.;) Since I can remember, she has gone down around 8:30 at night and slept 11-12 hours. However, over Easter when we were home at my parent's house, Anna was sleeping in the same room with my cousin's 5-year-old, Macguire. Well, Mac gets up around 6:30...and so Anna joined him after the second morning. That would have been fine if we hadn't been going to bed later than usual with all the family togetherness!

I tried to relax about it and figured she would revert back to old times once we got home and back into our routine. Guess again! That little face started showing up at our bedside at earlier and earlier intervals. One morning just after 6 am, I had had enough and decided to institute a rule that my good friend, Sarah, used with her little boy, Clayton. I showed Anna the clock on the CD player in her room and told her that she couldn't come downstairs until the first number was a seven. If she woke up and it wasn't a seven, she needed to go back to sleep or play quietly in her room until it was a seven. After a few mornings of explanation, she grasped this concept.

For the past couple of weeks she has come downstairs in the morning exclaiming, "It's a seven!". This morning I was expecting to see her little face at 7:02 like I have most mornings. But at 7:55, she still wasn't up and I had to go wake her up so we could make it to school. Are we getting our old sleeping Anna back? We'll have to wait and see!

Over the Years

I can't believe this is my third Mother's Day! I am so blessed!

Mother's Day 2010

Mother's Day was wonderful because Will and I got to see both our mothers! Mom drove up for Saturday night and we took her to breakfast Sunday morning with Sarah and Jason.

Then we went to lunch with the Hege family at the Bermuda Run Country Club.

Four generations

All the ladies

Anna and Aunt Erin

Our family

Such a cutie!