NYC in the fall

For some reason these pictures downloaded exactly backwards, so start on the bottom and work your way up:


Maddie's favorite thing: Sponge Bob popsicle while walking around Central park.




Josh, Maddie & Kyle with me in our horse drawn carriage. Still my favorite thing to do in New York City.




My little family in a carriage ride too.




Stan & Linda in their romantic carriage ride around the park.




I had to go back to Tavern on the Green because I knew my mom would love it. Anyway, the restaurant is so fantastical, and the fact that it is in the middle of a city makes it even more amazing.




We wanted to take Maddie ice skating at the Rockefeller Center, but it suddenly starting pouring rain like crazy. So we ate in the restaurant next to the ice rink and ate yummy food and ice cream cones while we watched the powerful lightening and thunderstorm outside.




Josh and I took Maddie to the famous FAO Schwartz toy store, but we told her it was a museum so she could only look at things, but we couldn't take anything. Poor little girl believed her parents and never asked us to buy anything. (We are brilliant/evil parents.) That store is awesome and on Saturdays they have a bunch of free activities for kids.




Maddie and her best friend, Grandma Linda, at Time Square.




Oh my gosh, Maddie LOVED seeing The Little Mermaid on Broadway. We had great seats, so she really felt like she was in the show. She sat with perfect posture and clapped like there was no tomorrow. It was so cute to see how she reacted to the show. When Ariel was singing, "Walking around on those, what's that word again?" Maddie yelled, "Feet!" and luckily everyone around thought it was cute. (They could have easily been annoyed.) And when Ariel and Eric kiss at the end, she was clapping and laughing, she was so happy.




Riding a pedicab around the city.




All dressed up with Uncle Kyle at our fancy dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria.




Maddie and her city pretzel.




At St. Paul's chapel across the street from Ground Zero. (Maddie is the little pink dot.)




Starting off on a city bus tour. Maddie & the Empire State Building.




A tiny girl in a large car. (It was also Grandma Linda's first time in a limo, and Dad Josh's - if you don't count the Beverly of course.)

One last post (for now)

Okay, so I am still leaning toward privatizing my blog, but I'm not sure now. Some of Josh's friends have said they read the blog and I have had a few friends I haven't seen forever say they read the blog, and I don't really want to block them from reading the blog. Just stalkers, crazies, gossipers, kidnappers, and other such people. I will think about it for a little longer before I decide.....

Otherwise, I have been doing great. I am officially total nerd girl because I am LOVING law school. Seriously. I never knew what to say when people asked for my favorite hobbies, but now I know, Law School. I think it is fascinating, and the fact that it is online and part-time, it is the perfect amount of work and flexibility for me.

Also, I had my first hormone pills and shot today (blood test) for the baby making process. So far, if everything goes as planned, I will be full of hormones and doing daily shots pretty much all throughout the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. Don't worry, I don't usually get all mean, just really, really tired with zero energy. (Not much different from normal!) Unfortunately, this will make the due date just about the same week as my first year finals for law school (August-ish), so anyone who wants to congratulate me will have to also volunteer to babysit for me during that time.

And may I just, one more time, say that I am so blessed. My daughter is adorable AND sweet, my husband is kind AND fun, my family is healthy AND happy, and I am loving school. Life is good....(knock on wood.)

P.S. I just watched City of Angels for the first time in about a decade, and would recommend it to anyone else who hasn't watched it for that long. The first five minutes I was sobbing hysterically, and although it made me think of losing my little Evan boy, it was also such a beautiful moment in a movie. It was comforting too.

Traditional Annual Pumpkin Patch

Every year since Maddie was born, we have taken her to the pumpkin patches here in Las Vegas and she has the time of her life!

2005




2006 (she didn't want to stop and pose for a picture with a pumpkin - she wanted to keep running around having fun.)




2007




2008




Here she is enjoying the rides this year:

Boston - My other new favorite city

Josh and I went to Boston for the Red Sox games and watched them lose to Tampa Bay. (Sorry honey.) But I sure enjoyed myself! I barely remembered to take pictures, but here are a few:

Josh at the only place that matters to him:




I think this was game 3 of the series, but it could have been 4. I wore the same coat everyday, so who knows.




Paul Revere's gravesite was across the street from our hotel. (Remember this place Jamie? It wasn't nearly as cold as when we went seven years ago in January, but the squirrels were just as freaky.)




Walking around Boston Common and checking out the historic sites. This city feels really old with really fascinating history. (It is the city in the U.S. that most feels like Europe.) And did I mention they have REALLY good food? (Especially seafood. Yum. I think I put on a few pounds in just one weekend.)

A Quick Update on the Life and Times of Maddie

Here is Maddie at her school's fall festival party making a craft with her friend Mariah. (Don't you love Maddie's cheeks here!?)




Maddie and Josh's favorite place to eat: Mimi's Cafe.




The Madster got a very large package in the mail and was so excited that she insisted on carrying it all the way back to the house. (Our mailbox isn't just outside, but at the end of the street.) She was so excited for her princess book Grandpa Stucki! Thank you for making her feel so special!)






And no, this is not Maddie's halloween costume. Any parent with a 2 - 5 year old daughter knows that every day is dress up day. I just thought she looked extra cute in this outfit because her favorite children's book is called "Ladybug Girl" and I thought she looked sweet.

San Francisco - My new favorite city

Okay, so I figured out that I just love all big cities. My favorite things about San Francisco is that the weather, although rarely "perfect," is almost never extreme; It is a city that is always "alive;" It is also always random! We were just walking to dinner one night, and suddenly, thousands of bikers were all over the road; Napa Valley is nearby, and incredibly romantic. (Especially when your husband comes out of a drug store with a bag of cheese samples and fruit juice and plastic wine bottles for a picnic. Most vineyards offer non-alcoholic options, although they look at you like a total freak when you ask for it); and there are major league sports to go to. (Which is actually much more important to Josh. Although if I can just get a bag of Cracker Jacks, I can enjoy myself too.) Dude - I love it when I invite myself to Josh's lawyer conventions!

How many jelly beans are in the jar?

You know that game they play at parties and showers where you had to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar and it is practically impossible to tell? Well, we are going to play the game "how many hairstyles did Rachel have during the year 2008?"

I told my sisters that some people may think that your twenties are for finding yourself, but I think that your twenties are for finding yourself the perfect hairstyle. I sorta went through a mid-twenties crisis with my hair, and tried every single extreme hair style you can imagine.

I am now happy to report that my hair is back to being 2 inches long and the texture of shredded wheat. Although I know I looked better with the long, healthy hair, I couldn't handle the headaches, itchiness, and occasional pain that came with it. I am happy to report that I am actually more lazy than vain, which to me, is a good thing. (Lesser of two evils I think?)

Super Good News!

Also, my brother and sister-in-law, Jake & Rocio Harris, had another adorable, super tiny baby girl!

Ruby Nicole Harris, 5 lbs 8 oz, thick black hair and strong arms! We are so grateful for another little cousin!






They had their daughter 2 days before Elena's birthday, so we had to have Elena's 2nd birthday party in Rocio's hospital room. Good thing Elena is too small to know that kinds sucks! At least she still got way cool toys!

I am so very far behind...

I have been in an anti-blogging attitude lately, but I figure I had better catch the heck up because there is so much to say.....

First of all, here are pictures from the super fabulous Tingey Cousin Pink Angels Slumber party I had at my house a few months ago:

Group picture: (We missed the oldest and youngest cousins at the party too!)


Here is Maddie during the "fashion show." Gosh dang, I think my daughter is beautiful.


There is no better way to wake up than a group of gorgeous cousins jumping on your bed. (At least they waited until almost 8:00!)

Going Private

I am going private. I sorta forgot to warn people though. So I will leave this message up for a while, and if you want to be a reader of this super cool, always interesting, fabulously glamorous, ever-exciting blog, please email me or leave a comment with your email address.

And while I am at it, I will recommend this super good book. It is a "body, mind, spirit" book, but the author isn't coo-coo like in most "self-help" books. And I wouldn't describe it as a self-help book, but more of a self-improvement book. It is how to make your "body, mind, spirit" as healthy as you can and to gain more energy in the process. It has actually worked with me, and not to mention I have lost eight pounds as well. Just a recommendation if you are interested. (It gets you thinking.)



And if you end up reading it, call me or email me. I would love to know your thoughts and discuss it.

San Diego - My New Favorite City

First of all, I made my mom take a picture of me looking like a serious artist too:




At the pool, we rented a family bicycle thingy (I need to learn the real name of it) and rode all over the beach/marina park. It was my favorite time of the whole weekend and Maddie loved that she got to sit in front of us and "tell" us where to go.



For some reason Maddie does this "rockstar" hand gesture to flag down the trolley. (She claims she learned it from cousin Emma?)



This is Maddie at the top of the world! Isn't this a gorgeous view?



Of course, Josh had to go to the baseball game. The weather is just gorgeous, and they have a very cool "park in the park" area that is all grass with a sandpit for kids to play around and families to sit comfortably.



This is how much fun the Madster had at the San Diego zoo.



One of my favorite things at the zoo was the insect area. They are disgusting (like my face in this picture) and fascinating.



Maddie loved the butterfly ride in Balboa Park.



Josh, the geography nerd, planned out our whole zoo experience with the map.



This is why I like the San Diego zoo so much! They actually have a huge, two story bus that you can ride around on and they take you to see all the animals and you don't even have to walk. It is perfect for lazy parents, and the kids get to see all of the animals still! Yeah!



My favorite animal I saw: "grizzly bear playing in his pond." Josh's favorite animal: "the pig playing in the mud." Maddie's favorite animal: "kitty cats." (Uh, does she mean the lions and tigers and cougars?)



And to finish it off, they have those cool rides that take you over the whole, gorgeous, green park with amazing views.


We had a wonderful time. And the coolest part is that this city is close enough to drive, and I don't have to change time zones, and the weather is perfect, and there is still so much to do in that city!

2 Big Announcements (with a long explanation)

So.....I always wanted to go to law school (long before I met Josh). But then we had a (happy) surprise with our little Evan, and I decided I would have a bunch of babies first and then in about five years, I would go to law school.

Well, after Evan died, the doctors told me that every baby I had would have a 25% chance of having SMA like Evan did unless I did an expensive and grueling in-vitro process every time I got pregnant. Well, at the time we were living off Josh's student loans and we couldn't afford it. So instead, I went to law school. After a semester of crying every single day on my drive to and from school, my mom (generously) offered to loan us some money to try to get pregnant. THANK THE HEAVENS ABOVE that it worked and we were blessed with our little Miracle Maddie after a very difficult pregnancy and delivery. So then I thought, okay, I'll just pop out one or two more kids and go back to law school once the last one was in preschool, right?

Well, Maddie is almost four years old now and we haven't been able to get pregnant again. Rrrrr.....

So, I have been sitting around, twittling my thumbs and biting at the bit to get back to law school. But I still want to have more babies! What the heck do I do? Well, I did some research and found an online Law School (Concord). I know it sounds ghetto, but I was really impressed with the program. Well, today was my very first official day. We have online "classes" and video lectures with our professors, and the textbooks are the regular thousand page legal books that I remember from before. I am beyond excited that I get to "go back" to law school.




But the best part about it is that I can still go through the hellish trying-to-get-pregnant procedures, and if I get stuck on bedrest for six months again, it won't even matter! I can still do my classes straight from my bed! Plus, I will have control over my schedule, so it (should) work with newborns, toddlers, and all of the other fun mommy stages. SO, we are once again going to try to get pregnant. Even though we are starting this oh-so-fun procedure now, it will be months before the actual implantation and when I know if it worked or not because of all of the oh-so-fun testing and pre-implantation procedures.




I just wanted to explain WHY I have to do the in-vitro procedure because a lot of people don't understand that I do not have an infertility problem. You would be amazed at the very weird (and personal) things that women have told me to try to get pregnant. (For example, this old, weird lady told me to try a white vinegar douche, because she swears that is how she conceived her daughter 23 years ago.)

Anyway, wish me luck on my two huge endeavors starting this week!