Tag Archives: nana and papa

I Rocked My First Easter at Nana and Papa’s

We’re traveling back in time to Easter 2 years ago. Our daughter was 5 months old, but apparently quite fluent in speaking/writing. I enjoy looking back at our little chubby-cheeked sweetheart, so I thought I’d share her story of rocking her first Easter.

Today’s she’s rocking her third Easter and hopefully finding all of the eggs hidden in our backyard. Guess we’ll know if she missed one if our dog has worse than usual gas. Whomp-whomp.

Happy Easter!


Hey there all you bunny-loving babies! Did you just get through your first Easter like I did; crazy, huh? Bunnies, colored eggs, stuff called candy, a basket, and a search to put the colored eggs in a basket.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole occasion, but I owned the day like a baby boss and made sure I had everyone’s full attention! Here’s how I owned the day and plan on doing the same for the next time I am put in a crazy situation…

First things first, right when we arrived at Nana and Papa’s, several giant babies called my family immediately flocked to me. You might deal with the same thing if you are the only baby around; learn to embrace this and take advantage.

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Don’t act very enthused at first, that’s too easy, just kind of stare and look droopy. No hard feelings, Papa, just making sure you know who’s in control here.

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And Aunt Stef, I know you were excited to see me, but I was more interested in watching those little hairy things scurry around and bark.

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After a lot of banter over how much I’ve grown and blah blah, things were quiet for a while. Aunt Stef held me and I could see the other giant family babies with plates of food. I didn’t like the quiet, so I made my loud chicken sounds and screeches which made everyone acknowledge my presence again.

With eating out of the way, I was told it was time to hunt for Easter eggs. I found out, this is similar to when Daddy and I went on a scavenger hunt for Mommy’s breast pads, only it’s outside. Oh, and instead of a laundry basket, you put eggs in an Easter basket. My basket was the head of a rabbit with my name on it. It seems pretty cruel to make a basket out of bunny’s head, but he looked happy.

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There was no way I was going to just go hunt the eggs, so I demanded Mommy to carry me to my plastic prey.

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My first quarry; a shiny golden egg! I was pretty excited about reaching out and getting this one.

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But then I noticed the floppy ear on my bunny head basket and became distracted. What egg?

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So take note, there will be distractions, but don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal; get the eggs! I let my defenses down there, but luckily Daddy but it in that poor bunny’s head. I directed Mommy to my next destination where I was faced with two eggs! Ahhh, choices!!

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But I maintained my composure and made the obvious choice; the shiny blue egg!

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One of those barking things (my family calls them dogs) looked like a threat, so I snatch the egg and held tight!

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Once the barking threat was gone, I safely placed my glistening trophy in the bunny basket.

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Moving on, I directed Mommy to another popular egg hang out where I was once again faced with two non-shiny options. They were dull and I was not egg-cited about either one. Ha ha, get it? No? Was it a bad yolk?

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Mommy tried to pick one for me, but I just laughed at her simple mindedness.

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But Nana’s plants were intriguing…

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It was an arduous egg hunt, I even lost a shoe, but I let Mommy hold me a little longer and even smiled for pictures. Another note, everyone want to take pictures of everything you do; just use it to your advantage and watch as they make ridiculous sounds and faces.

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I told Mommy to let Daddy hold me for a while since she did a good job, but something didn’t seem right when he had me.

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Oh yeah, I wanted to be higher! I promptly demanded Daddy to hold me higher so I could see everything and have the giant babies look up to me just as they should! This made me happy.

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Daddy didn’t hold me higher for very long until he brought me down again. I did not like being lower and let everyone know with my “not cool” face.

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But this didn’t bode too well for me; I just started to get passed around. First it was my great grandma, Papa’s mom.

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Sweet lady, but I was still bored, or maybe it was that hat…hmmmm. Then my cousin, Garrett, took over. I didn’t even know what to do with this, so I tried to make it an awkward situation with my wide-eyed poker face.

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It worked and I finally got to do something fun; play with aunt Stef and my cousin Taylor!

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Playtime was tiring and I was demanding we leave soon, but first I wanted a picture with “the girls.”

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Back home, all of the activities from the day caught up to me and I became very tired. I let Mommy and Daddy know just how tired I was by using my vocals until they put me to bed. It worked. My Mommy rocked me to sleep and I slept well!

Colorado Family Vacation Finale: I Jumped But She’s Crazy

The last day of our Colorado Family Vacation, day 5, was far from a lackluster day. Usually, the trip back from vacation entails lots of sitting, waiting, and sulking from having to get back to reality. But since we had a late afternoon flight, that meant there was more fun to be had!

I started with my final morning walk before anyone else was up to fit in my much needed daily workout. Seriously, my mental state depends on it! I wound up making the walk from Nana and Papa’s house down to the neighborhood entrance for a playground workout routine.

The walk down was one mile (warm-up), then I did…

7 rounds of:

  • 5 monkey bar pull-ups
  • 10 push-ups
  • 15 Squats

And then briskly walked a mile back up the steep road to the house. I came back to everyone awake and having breakfast. After she was finished eating, Kelley and I planned on walking the 2.5 miles back to the Red Buffalo Cafe for coffee and temporary freedom thanks to Nana agreeing to keep Avery.

With my post-workout feel good endorphins on high, Going Mom and I set off for that beloved cup of coffee. We made sure to soak up the scenery on the way.

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The views all around beat the views of traffic and large buildings back home, so no view was taken for granted. Even the Blue River, which we saw the first time we walked for coffee, had picked up the pace of its current since it just rained.

 

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Seeing the increase flow of the water might deter others with the same plan I had set since the first day we arrived, but I’m not one to back down from a challenge; even if I’m my own challenger. Our first day there, as Steve drove by the Blue River to their home, I claimed I wanted to jump into the clear, cold water while visiting. Well, I hadn’t done it yet, so this was my final chance.

Kelley and I completed our trip for coffee first, and then searched for the best jumping spot as we made the walk back to the house. We passed several “potentials”, but finally settled on a fairly calm area for me to check off my vacation bucket list item.

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I slowly emptied my pockets as I ran what I was about to do through my head.

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Free plug for Zevia here. I love the shirt and all of their drinks! Then off with my trusty Soft Star Shoes and socks.

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Last to go was my shirt and I was already cold ready to go!

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Thanks to my awesome wife, I got it on Instagram and then she followed up with several pictures.

Holy crap, it was cold! I mean, I expected cold, but this was COLD! Hence the look on my face….

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By the time she finished, I was going numb. It was hard enough to keep my grip against the current, and losing my feeling helped not a bit! Needless to say, it was nice once I finally got out.

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Well, out and dry. But I did it, and boy did it feel good! I dried rather quickly as we walked back, and we even ran into Nana and Avery just about to leave the playground I had walked to that morning.

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Avery had blessed her with a nice poop, and we showed up just in time for her to finish changing her diaper. Perfect timing! Thanks, Kathy! 🙂

We finished our walk home to eat and pack for our return. The drive to the Denver Airport was sluggish with traffic clogging the roads. Apparently it’s common around there….bleh. Finally, we made it to the airport where we said goodbye to Papa and waited for our flight.

I thought the first flight wasn’t as bad as expected, so how bad could Avery’s second time flying be? Never should’ve asked! For one thing, it was right around her bedtime which is when her super crazy side comes out. On top of that, she just wasn’t eating much and was obviously hungry. It was even trouble feeding her a banana, one of her favorites!

So, for the entire flight, our beautiful little demon was all over the place, which meant all of us and our floor space. And she might’ve kicked the guy in front of Kelley 1 2 1,000,000 times.

Luckily, we survived, but not without more fussiness all the way home. We only unpacked what we needed as I prepared a quick meal for my hungry girls. Then it was right to bed (after bath and book, of course) for Avery.

And there you have it, our first official Family Vacation is in the books! We don’t have another trip involving planes planned for the near future, but hopefully Avery will be a little easier to communicate with when we do.

Have you ever jumped into cold water? On purpose or by accident?

What do you think is the best age to start flying with your kids? If you had a choice.

Colorado Family Vacation Day 3: Kayaking + She Thought I Was Lost

Day 3 of our stay with Nana and Papa in Colorado had us constantly going. No, not like that, I was trying to make a play on words since this is the Going Dad blog. Oh, did you already get that? Anyway…..

Kayaking was on the agenda for my wife and I while Nana and Cousin Ashlee took Avery to the playground at the Silverthorne Recreation Center. Like practically everything in Colorado, it’s a beautiful area with everything well maintained. But first things first, we needed coffee!

Kelley and I made the 2.5 mile walk from their house to Red Buffalo Cafe to enjoy a good brew by the Blue River. Along the way, we had to stop while crossing a bridge for an obligatory couples selfie.

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I’ve been on a cold brew coffee kick for a while, and loved Red Buffalo’s high octane drink that steeped for 18 hours. Kelley got their house brew, and as an official taste tester of all things pure coffee, I confirmed it was good too! Then I was lucky enough to get to enjoy the coffee with this beautiful smiling lady next to the flowing river.

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That damn old couple took the better bench while watching that fly fisherman, so we had to make due further back. But no worries, Nana soon arrived with Ashlee and Avery to pick us up and drive us to the neighboring town of Frisco for kayaking. Withing 10 minutes, Kathy (Nana) dropped us off at the Frisco Bay Marina where we agreed to meet her back in two hours.

The kayak rentals were for 2 or 3 hours, and we figured 2 would be plenty for us. We made it romantic and rented a tandem kayak so I could be the motor and take my wife along the lake while pretending it was a gondola.

Kelley insisted on helping out with the paddling and she did, but I ended up getting soaked with each stroke she took. We eventually found a rhythm, but then lost it again. Meh, we had a good time together and found 2 hours on the water was actually a lot longer than expected!

Our arms were getting a good workout in, and we only paused to take pictures (obviously) which included a great selfie shot by Going Mom.

We passed the time just chatting about random things and enjoying the surrounding views of mountains, eagles, osprey, jumping fish, and some middle school kid running in shorts and a football helmet.

While we were out navigating the torrential mildly choppy waters in our tandem vessel, Avery was living it up on the playground with Nana and Ashlee.

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Okay, so not the most thrilled look on either of their faces, but I heard they had a blast! Nana even took a selfie, something Avery is no stranger to!

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Yeah, still not impressed I guess. She did do something I haven’t been able to get her to do yet which is walk along the equipment that’s raised above the ground.

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Still a little cautious, but Ashlee helped support her, and those Soft Star Shoes provide plenty of confidence in her movement. I think after getting back down to ground level on the speckled turf, Avery was getting over her seriousness.

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Ohhh, and there it is, the swings helped push her to finally crack a smile!

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She just wanted her own swing. Guess we have some work to do about sharing. Back to my wife and I on the lake, we waited for the girls to finish playing and pick us back up by, you guessed it, getting coffee! More cold brew and several trips to pee later, and we were back at Nana and Papa’s home.

Avery was also back to her grump-face, so Kelley tried reading to her. The dog, Olivia, apparently enjoys story time too.

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Everyone read a lot of books to Avery throughout the day to keep her happy. I am confident Cousin Ashlee is still reading the books without even looking at them.

After refueling, Kelley got Avery down for a nap and we were back at it to tackle the 4 mile trail loop we heard of the day before. Not wanting to waste precious nap-time…errr…time, we hurried out the door after quickly getting the O-K from Nana and Papa who would need to be there if Avery woke up.

Once more, we were on the trail taking the opposite way from what we did the prior day. The sights, sounds, and company were pleasing to the senses and we stopped only a few times to take selfies with Kelley’s phone. Then it died.

I didn’t have my phone, so we were slightly concerned that someone would try to contact us and wouldn’t be able to. But that didn’t stop us, we had a loop to conquer! I took the lead and Kelley bravely followed along.

We came across a few signs on our hike which gave us options for different paths. Sometimes, options suck! Either way, I went with a little instinct and little hopefulness for each direction I chose. Eventually, everything turned quiet, and you couldn’t even hear the rushing of the used-to-be-near-us water stream. That’s when Kelley’s nervousness could be felt through the air as she kept asking if I knew where we were.

I just kept saying yes and not to worry. Secretly I was just a tad bit worried myself, but I would never let it show. As we trudged through an unfamiliar, very narrow and muddy path, Kelley raised the question again asking if I knew where we were. Trying to remain confident in my voice, I just reassured her all was good.

Finally, we came across another directional path with a sign that had a familiar name to one of the trails! We took it and eventually started to recognize our surroundings. At the same time, we both noticed the tree I had just climbed the day before and scratched myself up really good.

From there, we carried on until we were back out at the trail head where we started. We hurried the rest of the way home fearful that Avery had been awake for the 2.5 hours we were gone and was a raging terror for the family. Turns out, she was still sleeping!

So much for that worried hike! Despite getting lost, or so my wife says, I had fun taking a long trail hike together and soaking up the thin mountain air. It was a long, non-stop day, but I’d say everyone had a great time.

The rest of the day was spent resting and getting ready for another fun day, including visiting the Breckenridge Distillery!