dennis and i arrived safely back from aruba last wednesday night around 10:30pm. we had thursday to relax at home.. and then we drove up to boston friday morning and stayed at my parents’ house until sunday evening.
the above photos are soon after we arrived at my parents’ house. penny had lunch and then we went outside for a walk. she LOVES going outside.. sometimes she throws a tantrum when we come back in -_-
lately all she wants to do is walk and she’s getting better at it every day. we purchased her sneakers recently too to help encourage her walking 🙂
our main reason for visiting massachusetts was to see my grandmother who is recovering from a recent spinal surgery. being 95 years old, she has brittle bones so even just moving a certain way can cause those fragile bones to fracture. she’s in a rehabilitation home for the time being and we really want penny to see my grandma as much as possible because, honestly, who knows how much time we all really have..?

she loves playing with the selfie stick

remarking over penny’s feet and sneakers
my grandma was so surprised to see us! we made her very happy, and we are thrilled that we were able to see her too. we came back to visit her the next evening and she was, again, surprised to see us because she thought we had already gone back home.

she was thankful to eat korean food for dinner two nights in a row

penny did not like being held!

my grandma was shocked at how strong penny is…

avery & penny
hopefully we can arrange more play dates (and parent dates) with our friends in boston too. we met up with a group of friends for lunch on saturday, and it was chaotic with 3 little girls. olivia k. was napping so we couldn’t get in a picture of all 3 of them.

bringing the walker along helped save our backs!

one of her favorite things to do is point.. at everything!

cute little bunny in the backyard on sunday morning

penny pretending to mow the lawn like aunt jen!

on our way to the ice cream shop!

penny loved her vanilla soft serve!

she signed for “milk” after we came home

eating dinner at my parents’ restaurant in boston before we head home

an employee gave her a $20 bill…
it’s tough because dennis works every other weekend and some of those weekends are already accounted for, such as weddings and other events.. but we are definitely going to go up again this summer to spend more time with my parents, siblings, and grandma. summer in boston should be a lot of fun!
after we got back from aruba, we barely had time to unwind. we spent most of the day at home on thursday but we decided to buy penny her first pair of walking sneakers so we went to the mall and met up with the gardners.

trying out see kai run sneakers

ended up getting nikes

they look miserable but they had fun!
we wanted to purchase stride rite sneakers after hearing great feedback from many people but found out that nordstrom is slowly phasing them out in favor of their own brand: see kai run. this is also a highly rated brand as well. after trying on toms, see kai run, and nike free we ended up getting penny the nike sneakers because the soles were lighter and had more cushion. i still want to get her see kai run and stride rite too but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. the nike ones were $48! :-O
the aruba trip was amazing… i’ll have to write a post on that destination wedding/vacation alone! i can’t wait to share all of the pictures. as always, it was awesome to get a break away from penny because we got to sleep in and do what we wanted to do.. but, of course, we missed her… and it was also nice coming back home.
Aw! Go Penny! Em wants to walk ALL THE TIME too! She’s not even crawling -_-, I’m like girl, crawl first pls. LOL. It’s great that you and your hubby get to get a break, we have yet to do that! I’ll have to go on a business trip for a week in August and that’ll be my first time being away from Em, and I’m super nervous about it! Any advice on managing the nervousness being away for the first time? 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aw yeah.. the first time leaving the baby behind is so tough! How old will Em be in August? The first time we left Penny was when she was almost 7 months old. We went to Vegas for my birthday with some friends so we were away for 4 days. I was so anxious that I almost canceled the trip!
Luckily, she’s used to my MIL so that helped immensely.. just be firm about having Em keep to her schedule. I had my MIL (and still do) write down everything such as when she woke/slept, how much she ate, and how many wet/dirty diapers. I was also anal about her sleeping.. so I told her about her awake time and when to put her down and stuff like that. Penny did really well while we were gone so we were less nervous when we went away in January.. and of course, last week. Make sure whoever watches Em sends you lots of pics too! My MIL also sent videos 🙂
LikeLike