Things I Never Knew Til I Had A Baby

I've been thinking about this topic for a few days now. I've had a few conversations with friends and family lately that have kind of made me half laugh, half be annoyed.

I haven't really thought about it until now, but there are lots of things I never knew until I had my own baby.

I'm not talking about things like newborns poop 24/7 or how to do everything with only one hand.

Scenario 1:

I had a conversation with an out of town friend who is pregnant and she mentioned that next time I'm in town we'll have to have a cook-out. She is due in June and we won't be back in Hometown USA until around 4th of July.

Before I had a kid I would not have even thought twice about this plan. Now that I have a kid, I know that when she has a one month old baby the last thing she's going to want to do is to host a BBQ at her house. More than likely they will both still be getting used to each other and the new challenges they're facing (i.e. sleeping, getting a shower, eating, etc.).

Scenario 2:

We know a couple stationed here from a previous duty station. She is pregnant and due in April. We've been trying to get together with them since we got her about a month ago. We've invited them over for dinner several times and our schedules have just not clicked.

They invited us to go out to dinner with them this weekend, which with an-almost-one-year-old is not really high on our list of fun ways to spend Friday night. We declined, explaining why and mentioned that lunch would be a whole heck of a lot easier for us, if they were up for it.

Last night D got a text from the guy, asking if we wanted to see a movie on Saturday (today).

Um. Really?

Don't get me wrong, I know that before you have kids there are a lot of things that you don't know and lots that you probably don't even think about (like how miserable it is to try and eat and entertain your tired, hungry, crabby 11-month-old in a restaurant while everyone glares at you...I'm not enjoying this either, people!).

Heck, I actually found it a little bit funny at first, making a comment to D along the lines of "they will find out soon enough!" That is until we got the movie invitation. I think that it is probably common sense to assume that if dinner out will be a challenge then a movie is simply out of the question.

We're not bummed out that we can't do these types of things anymore, we just accepted it as a part of parenthood. We actually like the fact that we rarely eat out anymore. It makes the times we do eat out that much more special (it also saves us a lot of money).

I know you want to look at this face while eating....

So, you're welcome. We're the parents who don't force you to listen to our kid whine, scream and cry during your Friday night out!

**I should add that this post may sound a little snarky, but I really just thought it was funny!**

Man Vs. Food

Last week D found out what language he will be studying for his new job so Saturday we took a trip to the big city to check out the university bookstore's stock of language books. While we were there we obviously stopped by my brother's apartment and picked him up! We had a little bit of time to kill before the bookstore opened, so we headed toward campus to get lunch. Brother knew about a BBQ restaurant that was featured on Man Vs. Food, so we went!

The restaurant is called Pappy's Smokehouse. Here's the front of the restaurant.
The storefront is deceiving in two ways. The first being that you're not allowed to walk in the front. You have to go in the back door because that is where the end of the line is. Secondly, the front looks like its a sketchy place, totally not the case, folks!

On to my review. OMG. It was so good! We walked in a few minutes before noon and waited in line for about 15-20 minutes to order.

The line in front of us.

And the line behind us.

My food. A half slab of ribs, sweet potato fries, baked beans. Yum!

D's food. Pulled pork, cole slaw, sweet potato fries.

Brother's food. Brisket, baked beans and cole slaw (he was holding it).

In case you were wondering (like my mom was) about what food Adam Richman from Man Vs. Food ordered while he was there, prepare to be disgusted.

On the menu it is called the "Adam Bomb" and here's how its listed:

The "Adam" Bomb - In honor of our friend Adam Richman from The Travel Channel's show Man vs. Food. A Big Ben with a Hot Link Frito Pie. $42.99

Now, you might be wondering what a Big Ben and Hot Link Frito Pie are.

Frito Pie - Fritos topped with your choice of meat, baked beans, cheddar cheese and onion. $6.99

THE Big Ben - A full slab of Ribs, a Beef Brisket sandwich and a Pork sandwich, 1/4 Chicken and 4 sides. $36.95

Yep. He ordered and ate $43 worth of food. Basically he ordered all of the food that the three of us had. The difference is, he ate it all and we took to go boxes!

Holding AJ while I try to eat.

AJ eating her first sweet potato fry.

The craziest thing about this place is all the food on their menu is available until the sell out. And seriously, they sell out. Every. Single. Day.

I'm glad that we got there early enough that we didn't have to wait that long in line. The food was definitely worth the wait though.

Not a Workout Update

I've been really really terrible about working out lately, so instead of boring y'all with my update I am going to hold off for another week. Monday August 23 marks the official start of my 12-week half marathon training program, and I will be working out 6 days a week. So, with that being said, Wednesday Workout Update will return next week.

So, today is Wednesday and my little sister, AJ and I are heading out to meet my mom for lunch and then to go shopping! There are a bunch of things that I need (like a swim suit for our upcoming FL trip, a shopping spree in Victoria's Secret, and to go crazy in Gap, BR and J.Crew) and some things for AJ too! I might even throw a quick trip to Tarjay in there too! (Sorry, hunny.)

Then later on I'm leaving AJ with the grandparents and I'm heading out to the spa to get a much-needed massage. My back and shoulders have been so sore lately and I'm super stressed out (for no real reason) so it should be heavenly. I can't wait! I'll be back tomorrow to update you all on my purchases!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Weekend Recap

Friday night we went out to a local steakhouse for dinner with some friends. This place was out in the middle of nowhere and had an amazing view of the valley behind it. The walls on the inside were covered with signatures of people who had eaten one of their T-Bone steaks. The funniest part about it was when you first walk in, the front porch of the place is crawling with cats. Yep. They literally just lay around everywhere and we had to step over them to get inside!

The boys at dinner.

Yesterday while D did some homework took a nap, AJ and I went to the spring with some friends. It was pretty close to our house, but definitely hidden back in the woods. We had a super fun time! The place we went was where the spring meets the river and while the spring water is cold (58 degrees) the river is warm and shallow, so AJ was able to splash around a little bit. We will definitely be going back again soon!

Saturday night AJ fell asleep early which kind of messed up our plans to go to a friend's house for dinner, but luckily, they live about 4 houses down from us so we switched off. I sent D and his buddy, N, over first, then D came home and let me head over for some fun. After a while N was getting tired, so he came back to "babysit" while D and I finished out the night! All in all, it was a fun time!

We don't have any big plans for today, so I decided to write this update a little early instead of waiting for tonight. I think I'm going to go try my box of hair dye now. Eek!

Dinner Out Last Night...

Yesterday was D's 1SG's birthday so a bunch of people from the office went out to eat to celebrate, and obviously I tagged along because there really is not much that I like more than eating out. :) Well, needless to say, we had a GREAT time!

There ended up being 6 of us that went and we went to a place that serves mostly pizza and calzones. Farrelli's is in DuPont, which is right off post and is actually very, very nice. We had heard about DuPont when we moved here and I continue to hear that it is expensive, but I am sure it is worth it if you live that close to post in that nice of an area!

Today I decided to start looking into someplace we can take a little mini vacation this fall (a "baby"moon if you will). Well, we had originally talked about heading East towards the mountains, or maybe down to Portland, but today I found a website that has vacation rentals and most of them are reasonably priced. There were a few up North of us (Whidbey Island) that are right on the beach and look AWESOME! I am going to show them to D tonight when he gets home!