Back to Normal

It's July 17th and I'm finally back home. I left for vacation (for me)/work (for Trevor) on July 4th and it really went by very quick but it's hard to be away from home for 2 weeks with a baby. During the trip Ava got her first tooth and on the way home we realized she had yet another tooth coming in right next to it so that's a pretty big deal since she's almost 11 months old already. She's still trying to figure out how to take her first step but she's pretty much mastered standing on her own. Also, she learned how to feed herself puffs while we were away and now she's a puff eating machine. She went in the pool for the first time too but the water was freezing (confusing since it was 343487 degrees outside) so she didn't like it much but we took her in the warmer pool in San Diego and she didn't seem to mind as much. All in all it was a pretty big 2 weeks in Miss Ava's life thus far.

So about my trip in Vegas...

I have to say that going into the trip I had no idea what to expect since I was going to be staying in a house with some people I just met and others I never met while Trevor was going to be out playing in the World Series. I trust his judgement though, so I wasn't too concerned with having to share a house with strangers (is that bad? and for the record, Trevor knows them). I did ask him if he thought that there was anyone I wouldn't get along with since I'm sure it's no secret that I can be mildly confrontation if necessary. He said no and he was right. Everyone was great and offered to help me out with Ava and changed plans to accomodate her naps and anything else. Basically, we stayed with the best people we could have. Nanny Luke and Daddy Dan were always taking care of Ava and a super special thanks to Luke for babysitting in the Rio so I could watch Trevor play and make it into the money at the WSOP Main Event. I don't want to leave them out so Jay and Ken were also helpful during the time they were there so thank you guys!

Overall, I spent the trip laughing nonstop at all the ridiculousness that ensued - including myself - and spent more than one night awake until 5 am (and woke up a few hours later when Ava got up). I may or may not have drank too much those nights and made fun of people (Dan, Luke, and Ken) mercilessly for not wanting to stay awake and play cards so I ended up playing Go Fish with Jay which was fun - from what I remember. I was also introduced to a lovely new game called 3-5-7 which I could never really explain but it caused commotion one night when I refused to cheat in the game with Trevor. He claims I didn't understand but I just really wanted to win or lose fair and square and I think Jay loved it since he was benefiting from me calling Trevor every time. It was a good time.

Now we're finally home and going to try to get back to normal, whatever that may be. I'm pretty sure we have lots of fun trips in the works in the forseeable future. Ava has been to 14 states already and she's not even 11 months old and the list will continue to grow. It makes it easy to travel with her because she's so happy all of the time so hopefully her demeanor stays the same. We'll at least be at home for a few weeks and I'm happy about that.

On a side note - I've always made fun of Trevor for meeting a lot of the people he talks to now on the internet and while I still kind of laugh at it I will admit that he found the right group of people to befriend over the web. Everyone was great and made the trip really fun. Ken and I had a conversation at the Burger Bar one night about meeting friends through the message boards and while I don't remember details I do remember that he made a lot of sense. I also need to say thanks to Matt and Lindsey for letting us crash at their house and for helping us out with babysitting and the car seat so thank you! I know I left out a ton of details in this post but I haven't really slept since I had to share a bed with a baby who kicked me in the face all night last night and then we flew home today nice and early. Ava finally went to sleep (knock wood) so we're finally free to follow. So if this post is rambling and makes no sense, that's my excuse :)

PS - I have to thank Jay and Trevor for helping me name my new blog...thanks :)