Our life

We started off August about halfway through our move across country- but by the 15th we were moving into our new home in Brigantine NJ! The rest of August was spent playing on the beach and getting to know the area! Here are some pictures- mostly of Aidan of course!

Snoozing on dads lap

Bath Time!

Drove down to Cape May to meet up with Gramie, Uncle Luke and the boy scouts

Dad's happy that it's finally warm enough to take the top off the jeep!

Playing in the ocean!

Beach time with Charlotte & Jessee

Snoozing on the beach

My beach tent!

Ohhh... whose that?

Playing with Poppy

A night stroll on the beach

Figuring out my play-gym

Hanging in the hammock with daddy!

Charlotte came to visit!

My 'O' face!

nap time snuggle

I had these big plans to make a post each day of our cross country drive. Small problem with that though- since we didn't make and hotel reservations in advance each night Alex was on the computer finding us a place to stay for the next night! That and we never managed to get to our destination till dinner time so by the time we settled in at the hotel & put the bambino to bed I was plum tuckered out and went to bed myself!
So instead of detailed posts here's the down & dirty of our trip...
We left Eureka- both cars loaded! Alex had the mutts in his jeep and it was me & Aidan in the other! First night we made it just outside of Crater Lake in Oregon. Good old Humboldt weather gave us a nice foggy goodbye.

Aidan had his first of many hotel sink baths!

After a quick drive around the rim of the lake, much quicker then Alex would have liked, we headed to Bend where we met up with our good friends the Placido's- well 2 of them at least.

After a nice evening with Elaine & Katheryn we headed to Boise where we would be getting Gina in the morning.

Alex had a leak in his tire so while he was getting that fixed Gina & I found a great deli & managed to get a parking ticket! for the past 4 years in Eureka I never needed to park at a meter- you'd think the one who lives in the city would have reminded me! After a lunch stop at a park (and a swim in the lake for the pups-they didn't have air conditioning!) where we witnessed some poor lady get rear-ended, squishing her bike, on her way to drop it at the staging area for some triathlon that was going to be happening the next day- we headed over the mountains to Jackson Hole! We went though some crazy weather- the temperature plummeted & there was a ton of Gina's favorite- lightning! While going over the pass Alex 'claims' he saw a moose... I'm still skeptical! We woke up the next morning to clear sky's & gorgeous views of the mountains!

We made our way into the resort area of Jackson Hole, took a ride up to the top (Aidan's first time summiting a 10K+ mountain), had some lunch & Gina, Alex & Ned took a mountain bike ride wile I snoozed in the grass with Aidan & Hana.

There was some more crazy weather on our way up into The Grand Tetons but thankfully it was all off in the distance- so it made for some great views & pictures! We camped in the Tetons that night (Aidan's first night camping in a tent!!!) and then made our way into Yellowstone.

We did all the standard Yellowstone stuff... saw the sulfur pots, Old Faithful, tons of elk & buffalo (but no moose! I really wanted to see a moose!) Alex's jeep started acting up & Hana pooped in the car!

There is no internet service in Yellowstone, this kind of put a kink in our 'book a place to stay at the last minute'. After a few days in the park we made our way to Cody Wyoming. It is a small cowboy town that apparently is packed all the time! Because it is so close to the park people who can't get a place to stay inside the park stay there. Needless to say that the middle of summer there was nowhere to stay- especially somewhere that had room for 3 adults, a baby & 2 dogs! Gina and I found the last room at a bed and breakfast and Alex took the pups to the KOA! From here we made our way to Mt. Rushmore & the Crazy Horse Monument and intended on driving though The Badlands National Park. If you look at the map- highway 90 runs right through it, but it doesn't show that there's nothing to see from the highway! So on to Chicago where we met up with Heather, Lindsay & Mikael and had some authentic Chicago style pizza (it was OK but I'm not a huge fan).

Our last stop before home was to drop Gina off in Pittsburgh! We stayed with Matt & his family and he cooked up a nice spread for dinner with some of their friends!