Hello, Long Beach!

This past weekend, we headed down to visit Kate's parents in Long Beach. Or Lido Beach if you want to get technical. We had a great time, and Cole already misses all the snuggles and smiles from the variety of extended family and friends. This morning he was like "Where's G6? Where's Grampa? Where's Liz? What about Maggie, Shira, Gale, Steve, Clive, Susie, Aron, Addie, Jon, and everyone else? This place is so BOOORRRRIIINNNGGG!" Sorry kid, but now it's just us. The amount of love he enjoyed among the visitors was incredible, and his smiles and comfy snoozes were his thanks.











I'll also include this picture of Cole cuddling with Shira because it's an artsypants shot, and you know that's my thang.



This was Cole's first time on the beach. We were very excited about that! I don't know why, but we were compelled to take a bunch of pictures. The first day was chilly and Cole fell asleep instantly.



Note the totally kick ass vintage 70's Knicks jersey he's wearing. That's a hand-me-down from uncle John, whom we saw wearing the very same shirt while perusing a photo album of Kate's youth. Pretty awesome.



Aunt Maggie came down and played with him in the freezing water for a bit.



But his hat flew off



So he had to wear mine, even though it didn't fit very well.



I'm telling you, the water was COLD.



So we abandoned the water and played on the beach a little.



And we experimented with what Cole would look like wearing a long fantastic toupee.



It was chilly in the wind though, so we returned home and took some naps.



And hung out with some new friends.




It was a lovely afternoon. That night my uncle Clive, Aunt Susie and cousin Aron came out for a visit. We had a great time walking on the beach and catching up. It had been a while!




It was so fun that we were all frozen in time for a second, a-la the ending to an 80's TV Show.



It was a beautiful night.




We were visited by UFOs.



The next morning there was finally some sun. So much sun, in fact, that it was impossible to get a photo without over-exposing it.




Until I noticed that you can actually change the settings on the camera. Pretty cool right? Moveable switches.




Cole had some energy and we introduced him to the concept of stomping around in the sand. He enjoyed sqooshing it between his toes, and picking it up and smarshing it between his fingers. He was mesmerized.






Fun! Also fun is relaxing in boingie chairs.



But the most fun is getting MARVEL!



Fun for us anyway. We didn't allow Cole to partake because his little gizzards would probably turn into stone if he ate a single sprinkle. Soon, little guy!

That afternoon, my good friend Jon dropped by for a visit. This is the Jon whom I wrote about on the very first post of this blog. The last time he saw us was Cole's birthday. It was pretty cool to spend time with him again in a less holy-crap-what-the-hell-is-going-on type of environment.



Here's Jon doing his best Cole impersonation.



And who doesn't love a smooch on the head?



Shira took this picture of her iPhone. I'm pretty sure she's going to use that as her wallpaper until the end of time. Right Shira?



I now end the post with a curious seagull.

Inside Out

We accidentally overlooked an opportunity to eat cake (gasp!) on May 29th. That date marks Cole's one hundred and sixteenth day of freedom from the NICU. He has now officially been on the outside longer than he was in the clink. His baby mitzvah if you will. So hooray for tipping the scales in the name of normal. We'll add this date to the other cakeaversaries:

October 13th - Birthday
January 25th - Due date
February 4 - Hatch day (graduation from the NICU)
May 29th - Baby balance day

Bring on the cupcakes!

Experimanicure

I did a test. Just out of curiosity, I cut Cole's fingernails one day, and mine at the same time. Do they grow at the same rate? A couple weeks later, it turns out that they do! We both needed a trim at the same time.

So if you're ever wondering if baby nails grow any faster or slower ... they're just the same! I suppose that shouldn't come as any real surprise, but I thought it was fun.

Alright!

We do this for you.

We're going to try to make more posts more frequently, I swear! In an effort to have something silly to post, we took this:



But then some awesome things actually did happen, which we documented photographically for proof. First, we went out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon walk with the dog at Cabot Woods in Newton. We remembered that our awesome NICU nurse Grace lived near there, so we gave her a call and joined us with her lovely husband and ADORABLE DOG. The walk in the woods was wonderful. And I lied, I didn't have my camera that day so there are no photos. Sorry!

However, we went back to the NICU the next day to say hello to our friend Stacy, and I DID bring the camera that day.





Hello old friend!



Yay! That was such a great visit.

Now here's some random photos because who doesn't love photos? Nobody, that's who.




Snoozy head.


And finally, I am selling the mini. It stunks (typo! But I'm going to leave it because ... "stunks'? That's hilarious! To me.), but it will allow us to buy a better house in a better neighborhood, and Cole deserves that much. He also deserves to be picked up from school in a super rad car, but we'll cross that bridge when he goes to school. Anyway, since the mini is going away, I wanted to do a little photoshoot with it and Cole. Ta daah!















And then we had to stop because he was getting sick of the whole concept.


And that's it for now! Time to go celebrate our anniversary. Because it's our first anniversary. Hooray!