Over Fourth of July weekend, Matt surprised me with a trip to Quebec City as a slightly belated 30th birthday present. And by “surprise” I mean he told me two days in advance. That’s about as surprising as you can get when traveling with a 13-month-old.
Quebec City is the type of place we love to visit – it’s international, a short flight away, and the kind of place that has a European feel to it. And, as it turns out, had incredible luck at our hotel, the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac.
The night we checked in it was late – and way past Eva’s bedtime – and the woman behind the counter said, “Mr. Hartley, we have a surprise for you tonight.” Matt and I made eye contact, both thinking, I hope we have a room. The hotel clerk continued, “We’ve upgraded you to the presidential suite.” It is nearly impossible to surprise Matt, and Matt was surprised that night. The room we had reserved was nowhere near presidential suite level, and we have no idea why we received the upgrade.
I think Eva thought we had moved to a new, much more exciting dwelling. The suite was nearly as big as our house, complete with a living room, dining room, and kitchenette, and Eva crawled laps. She slept in a real crib in the bedroom closet – a closet which was nearly as large as her tiny nursery at home.
Aside from the most amazing accommodations we’ve experienced, Quebec City also turned out to be a great place to take a baby. (Yes, Eva was still a baby then. More on that when I write about the next trip.) There weren’t many museums in the area, and we spent most of the trip walking. Eva loves to walk, and had a great time sitting in her stroller watching crowds of people walk by.
The whole trip was a fantastic experience, I highly recommend Quebec City as a fun weekend getaway. There are more pictures up in the Quebec City photo gallery.
After a busy June, July, and August, it’s time to dust off the old blog and tell our summer tales.
I’ve had a number of blog entries knocking around my brain, but no time to write them between Gymboree, toddler-chasing, and a sudden influx of business. But thanks to a recent huge storm (more on that in a few entries) and a lack of Internet, I had the time to write them down.
So stayed tuned for at least four – yes four – entries on their way. Until then, I give you this video of Eva swinging and signing.
They say 30 is the new twenty. Two weeks into the new decade, I can attest that 30 is way better than twenty. Could I have owned this much dorkiness a decade ago?
Somehow, on my birthday Eva got two presents. The beauty of motherhood is that I enjoyed her gifts more than mine.
A gift for Eva
Gifts for Mama
Not pictured: the huge bouquet of red roses from Matt. One dozen for each decade.
Even better than the gifts, my birthday buddy since the 4th grade was in town to help celebrate. She picked out a beautiful cake.
Finally, this was a birthday of the social networking era. At midnight, between my birthday and Marissa’s, this is what my Facebook page looked like (click to read it).
We celebrated Eva’s first birthday a little over a week ago. It was an event – family flew in from the West Coast and we threw a party. You should know that the last time Matt and I threw a party, we were getting married. It took a week to recover from it all – normally I have a 24 hour turnaround for getting pictures up and this batch took… a week and a half.
The picture above right is from our little family celebration on Eva’s actual birthday. We had breakfast for dinner, because one of Eva’s favorite foods is pancakes – the carbohydrates instantly convert into baby energy.
Two days later we had the official party at a picnic shelter at local park. The park was gorgeous, we couldn’t have asked for better spring weather, and everything went smoothly. The picture below captures the spirit of the party – Eva has not left my arms, and is wondering how everyone she knows ended up in the same place and why they are all singing.
She finally decided she could leave my side when she saw Matt pick up another baby.
Eva got into the spirit of things after guests left. She is missing a shoe, but enjoying the flying paper.
All the pictures are up the photo gallery. We’d better get good at party planning – only 51 weeks until the next one.
Well – it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, so I thought I’d drop in a quick note to say that I’ve just finished class number eleven in my PhD program. This summer I’m working on an independent study and have two classes left past that – then it’ll be prelims and dissertation time! I’m still hoping to finish by 2012, so we’ll see if I can pull that off!
In addition, in case you hadn’t heard, I changed jobs back in January and now work for iSIGHT Partners. It’s been a blast so far and a major learning experience that I’ve greatly enjoyed.
Finally, you might have noticed the monstrous influx of photos on our site recently. These are the result of me being inspired in the last year to kick my interest in photography up to a major hobby – I wonder why? I’ve been working on learning by reading and practicing while acquiring photography equipment (without getting in too much trouble with Allegra). At this point I’m using a Canon 7D, 28-135mm f3/5.-5.6 and 50mm f/1.4 lenses, a 580EX II flash, a Gitzo 2531 tripod with a RRS BH-55 ballhead, and a couple of other accessories. Suffice to say, the number of photos posted online is probably 10-20% of what we’re taking.
Speaking of, we have a ton of photos queued from Eva’s birthday, so keep an eye out, and in the meantime be sure to keep up at our photo page.
Last weekend we went to the Outer Banks. We stay a few miles from the Virginia border in an area that is only accessible by driving on the beach. We almost always see wild horses during our say, but last weekend we had the best wildlife-sighting trip on family record. It was mostly due to this guy:
I’m not sure if you can tell from the picture, but this seal was huge – well over 100 pounds, maybe closer to 200. He happily sunned himself, looking up at the onlookers periodically and waving his flippers. We initially wondered if he was sick, but were told that seals do wash up on the beach with some regularity. Eventually, a sheriff truck showed up and roped off the seal. To protect him from us or us from him?
The horses were also exceptional. I think there is a family of three horses that live near the house, because we saw the same horses every day, sometimes twice a day. I like this one’s black eyes:
This one was the smallest. We saw him gallop off to find his Mama later that day.
For fun, Matt took a few videos of the horses. This one is my favorite:
When Eva was a newborn, I worried I didn’t read to her enough. Sometimes I worry excessively.
The best way to get 20 minutes of quiet time is to put Eva on the floor with a pile of books. She can easily spend an hour throughout the day reading by herself in addition to 20-30 minutes we read together.
The book piles in our living room got out of control after our last trip to Seattle (hmm… what a coincidence), so we picked up a bookcase over the weekend. Yesterday I sat Eva on the floor in front of the bookcase, and she knew exactly what to do.
If you want to see more baby reading in action, take a look at our latest video on YouTube. At three minutes it’s a relatively long one, but Eva “dances” during the first minute and “reads” during the second two minutes.
In the last month, we’ve seen our congenial baby start to form some opinions. Sitting in the recliner? Eva knows there’s a pile of books within Mama’s reach, and we should be reading them right now. A purple toothbrush in sight? A certain baby knows that is her toothbrush, thank you. Time to eat? She’d like to do it herself, even if it takes all day.
Speaking of eating, did you know that snacks taste better when they are arranged in orderly lines?
I wonder where that trait came from. Not Mama, surely. Speaking of Mama’s side of the family:
That is a familiar expression. Follow Eva’s maternal family tree back several generations, and you will find a number of women who unconsciously make this face.
Silly babies. They give away all of your secret genetic tics.
