i've been giving this blog some thought. do i keep it up? do i just quit? do i make my professional blog my personal blog as well? do i like this blog? does it serve a purpose? how does this fit into my life?  who is this blog for?

i think this blog has changed over time as to what its purpose is. i started the blog for my parents, friends, and extended family - all who live(d) hundreds of miles away. i was newly pregnant when i started it, so i had a lot of exciting news to share & figured a blog would be the easiest way to keep people updated. and i think that it served that purpose at that time. after rivers came along, it was still fun to share his milestones with everyone who hadn't met him, or see him often. and as he's grown, i've continued to post mostly pictures of him along with little updates.

i have noticed that less family & friends check in these days. part of it i know is because i post less & people get tired of coming to check in only to see the same old post & pictures. and part of the reason i've been posting less is b/c really, the day to day just isn't as exciting. do people really care that its still raining here in eastern north carolina? probably not. when i was expecting rivers, i think the anticipation of pregnancy really gave people (along with myself) this sense of urgency to see & know whats happening each day until delivery. and of course, now that my parents live in the same town (god help us all), they see rivers everyday and they see the changes for themselves, so they no longer need pictures & updates. i was starting to lose interest in the blog, because i felt like no one else was interested. so my posts became fewer & farther between.

after giving it some thought, i've decided that while my reasons for starting the blog were very good, my reasons for stopping it weren't. just because less people check in as often, doesn't mean the interest isn't there. and more importantly, this blog really should be for rivers, myself, and jeremy & i shouldn't be so concerned with anyone checking in. this is our family, our life, and this gives us a little journal to go back to hopefully years from now to see what we were doing back in september of 2010. this by no means is me saying that you're not welcome. this is a public blog - of course, if you're interested in our lives, you're certainly quite welcome to read & comment, if you should choose to, and i welcome you here along with your comments!! all of this to say though, that i am going to try to be more open, more wordy, more honest about our lives & what we're doing - even if i think its boring, sad, stupid, etc. when i get down to the bottom of it all, i want this blog to just be about our life. to be about what we're doing & thinking without worrying what others are thinking about it. i've kept myself at somewhat of a distance on here, pretty guarded, because i've been worried about what others will think. have you ever heard of the quote, "those who know you don't mind, and those who mind, don't matter"? not sure if i got it exactly right, and not sure who said it originally, but well, that's my new moto - for the blog at least.  :) 

so again, if you're here & interested in our lives - hello, and welcome! please feel free to leave me a comment anytime, or send me an email - i'd love to hear from you! my goal is to keep a record of our lives, which will sometimes be boring & will sometimes be exciting. but that's just how it goes, right?! 

i've never uploaded a video on here before, so i'm hoping this works! this is one of my favorite iphone videos of rivers recently. i shared it on facebook, but for anyone who may not have seen it, this is pretty cute!

a summer re-cap in pictures.

the aquarium. we've made about 5 trips to 3 different aquariums this summer. rivers loves it! and i found that having a 2 year old & doing a "beach day" is out of the question, unless you plan to spend some time at the aquarium.

he still loves that blanket. the corners look like they've been eaten... and they have. never took a passy, just the blanket - aka "baga".

i had a birthday!

and rivers still doesn't like the birthday song.

we visited jaime & patrick in virginia beach...

and what did we do while we were there?

we visited the aquarium, of course!

this summer, we attended the winterville watermelon festival & parade. here's rivs waiting for the parade to start!

he can be a pretty serious little guy sometimes. watching that little brain of his process new things, is just amazing!

other noteworthy events this summer...

• jeremy & i celebrated 4 years of marriage on july 1st!
• rivers turned TWO on july 17th!
• jeremy turned 34 on september 10th!
• we had a wonderful beach vacation!

it is a rainy monday here in eastern north carolina. we've had quite the dry spell, so everyone i'm sure, is enjoying the rain here today! i know i am and i know my maple tree is too.  :)  the rain has also brought cooler temperatures (in the 70's), which helps it to feel a bit more fall like. with the temps being in the 90's lately, its been hard to believe its officially fall.

this past weekend, jeremy and i enjoyed our first getaway together post baby. can you believe it?! rivers is 2 and this was our first weekend away from him! i'll admit that i was sad leaving him & had horrible guilt leading up to our trip. jeremy was going to miss him, but was more excited than anything. (i guess that's just the difference between men & women!) our getaway was more work than play, but regardless, we were together & only responsible for ourselves, which was nice.  i had a wedding in emerald isle (a beach about 2 hours from us) and jeremy came along as my second shooter. rather than just booking a hotel for saturday night (the night of the wedding), we made reservations for friday night as well. we got in late, but that allowed for us to have saturday morning & afternoon free to beach it up! we only spent 3 hours on the beach after chasing down coffee saturday morning, along with buying beach chairs (we forgot to bring ours) & little gifts for rivers, mom, and dad. turns out, 3 hours was plenty - we were fried b/c i bought spf 15. (we forgot the sunscreen at home as well, and i figured 15 was enough b/c we had "base tans" from our week at the beach - nevermind that was 3 weeks ago!!) anyway, we enjoyed our beach time despite looking like little tomatoes at the wedding that evening. jeremy was a fantastic assistant & second shooter. i have to give him big props b/c he shot in manual mode all night (not an easy task for a beginner) and also put up with a couple drunk guys asking for my photograph with them. (he was happy to oblige & smiled & nodded while taking the picture!) we were at the wedding until 9:30 and then went and had dinner at rucker johns (a local resturant that was luckily still open & serving). that was actually one of my favorite parts of our weekend. we had worked together as a team all night, then enjoyed some down time - just the 2 of us, with a warm meal and adult beverages. it was lovely! sunday morning we got up, checked out of the hotel, and headed home to our boogie! we were so glad to hear that he had a wonderful time with gigi & papa. he has really warmed up to the pool & was busy swimming all weekend! we all enjoyed some pool time yesterday afternoon before returning home. it was a great weekend! here's me & jerm enjoying our beach time without having a little guy to watch!  ;)  and i should mention, we saw a lot of dolphin again!! no big jumps, but its always exciting to see their fins and tails in the ocean!

this friday will be the 1st of october. october is going to be an exciting month. our good friend, patrick, has his paintings on display in a gallery here in town. this is exciting for obvious reasons, but also b/c he & his wife jaime, will be in town for the opening of the show! they live in virginia beach now, so we don't get to see them like we use to. if you're a long time blog follower, than you know jaime & patrick from past posts. if you're new here, and so inclined, you can check out this post with pictures of them. :) and if you're local here in greenville, please come out to support patrick & check out his beautiful work! it will be at "the art room" - 403 evans street, this friday from 6-9pm.

my dear friend courtney is expecting her 2nd baby this month & i can hardly wait to get my hands & my camera lens on him! i also have 2 weddings that i'm really looking forward to (both at the beach) along with an engagement session. i have to say, i'm feeling pretty excited for fall this year. i'm also looking forward to making some hearty meals for the family & crock pot cooking (assuming i can get my act together)! i've started some fall decorating, so i think i'll try to get a decor post up here on that. recently i did a post over on my photo blog about decorating my mantle. maybe i'll do an updated pic here as well...

tonight i was thinking about how our week at the beach flew by. then i realized, these past 2 weeks (post-beach) have also flown by! so then i realized if i didn't hurry up and do a blog post about it soon, i just may forget how wonderful it was!

rivers pondering his thoughts... hmmm, let me think.

feeding the sea gulls.

of course, anytime that i'm off of work & free of any responsibilities (other than caring for myself and son) is a wonderful time! even if i had just spent the week at home. we had an absolutely gorgeous week of weather - did you know that september is a fantastic time in the outer banks? all of the children are back in school (including the high schoolers, college kids, etc.) and the beach was full of young families (such as ourselves) and older, retired grandparents (such as my parents)! no offense mom & dad in calling you "older" and "retired" because i know you both are young at heart and work your tails off!!

rivers made a friend named tommy from new jersey. (i tried not to hold that against him or his parents, but new jersey drivers are horrible, which makes me less partial to people from new jersey! i know this for a fact b/c a new jersey driver side swiped my car in the food lion parking lot.)  anyway, tommy won the award for "most outgoing" on the beach.  he made friends up and down the beach - didn't want to be away from his new friends - and continued to disobey his parents to go play with his new friends.  it was interesting to watch!  tommy was 2.5 years old & while you could tell him & rivers were in the same age range, tommy certainly was faster, sneakier, and more rambunctious than rivers.  could just be a personality thing (which i'm hoping is the case), or it could just be that's what i have to look forward to in the next 6 months or so.  rivers was only half way interested in his new friend.  if tommy came over to our blanket/umbrella/little-piece-of-beach, rivers was happy to share his toys & play.  otherwise, rivers didn't care.  he certainly didn't care to go to tommy's blanket/umbrella/little-piece-of-beach even after being invited.  (he did finally give in on our last day to the invite, only b/c tommy asked to take one of his trucks over.)  so while rivers may not get the most popular award, he did get the award for "cutest toddler" and "best eyes" and "best behaved" on the beach.  :)  really, gold medals were given at the end of our week! ;)  (ok no, not really! but that would have been fun if they did!)

here are some other noteworthy things from our beach vacation...

1. we saw a HUGE family of dolphin one day when the water was so still & peaceful. it was almost erie how calm the water was. but it made the dolphin so easy to see! they were fairly close to shore & they swam from south to north. we saw soooo many and then finally before they were all gone, one dolphin jumped clear out of the water - we saw its whole body jump up - just like we were at sea world! it was awesome!
2. we saw a cat fight (and i don't mean the stray cats that live there)! from what we could gather, it was probably 2 sisters. but these were grown women - probably somewhere between mine & jeremy's age. they seriously went at it - fists were going & everything! and right on the beach!! how do you get into a fist fight with someone on a beautiful, peaceful beach?! apparently, one of them didn't like the others "attitude".
3. we saw red fox. this is nothing new - they were there last year as well. they are native to the area & have made a home for themselves under the condos. luckily, they don't bother anyone & scurry away as soon as they see you.
4. we saw a lifeguard rescue. this was actually pretty entertaining. let me start by saying - there were huge sandbars in the ocean all week & since i am a land lover this was perfect for me. i was able to go in the ocean, but stay mostly dry, and stay away from any potential predators (ie- sharks!). so one afternoon, jeremy, dad, alex, and myself were just standing out on a sandbar, enjoying the day & chatting. (rivers and mom were back at the condo napping!) we had been watching a guy out on a huge raft all morning (i'm talking this thing looked like an air mattress!) and at one point we saw him give all his "empties" to his girlfriend/wife/sister whoever she was. anyway, it was many cans of empty beer! so we knew he'd been drinking most of the day. at this point he's chatting with a friend, all the while his raft is floating away. in between the sand bars were strong rip currents. the lifeguards kept the areas well marked so people knew not to swim there. his raft made its ways to a rip current & pretty quick was taken out to sea. it wasn't until this point that his "friend" mentions his raft has floated away. the men say their good-byes & the friend goes back to the beach, collects his stuff, and leaves (what a great friend!). so then the man starts swimming out to catch his raft. at first we were all in disbelief - no way is he going to go get that thing. then we were in disbelief b/c he actually was going for it! it was soooo far out - i couldn't believe how fast that current took it! first of all, it would take an excellent swimmer, someone in amazing shape, who has trained for long distance swimming to swim that far out & make it back alive. second, anyone who had been drinking as much as this guy has a 0% success rate. if it hadn't been for the lifeguards who were out in the water already with their jet skies doing practice runs, we would have witnessed a drowning. luckily, a lifeguard saw this idiot (i'm sorry but i have no sympathy for drunk ignorance) and rescued both the man, as well as his raft. as a side note, the woman he was with was still out on the beach, but had her back to the ocean the whole time & missed all of this!
5. we saw a WHALE!!! did you know it has been my dream forever to witness a whale out in the wild?! sure i've seen them at sea world, but that's not the same. i barely saw it, but i did catch a glimpse & i feel so honored that i did! jeremy actually spotted it first. i was in the shower & came running outside with just a towel around me. it would bob up to the surface, blow out a huge gush of water, and then continue on. i was able to see some black & white coloring. at first we thought it was an orca, but then thought what would an orca be doing in NC? after we returned home, jeremy looked it up & found that it was most likely a minke whale. they are mostly black, with some white coloring & are native to this area. they are of course, pretty rarely seen so close to shore. just as quick as he came, he went back out to sea. one really neat thing was all the pelicans & seagulls that were following it! there was a huge flock of birds flying above the whale. it was remarkable!! we spotted it on our last day at the beach. what a way to end our vacation!

of course, our vacation was also full of yummy food, the aquarium, visiting bodie island lighthouse (under construction), and one of my favorite past times - shopping!

and i can't forget to mention - we also celebrated jeremy's 34th birthday while at the beach! i told him he's officially old in my eyes! :)  (i just like giving him a hard time b/c we're 6 years apart!)

if you'd like to see more pictures from our vacation, you can click here!  enjoy!!

rivers sat in the tub happily playing with his water toys - little balls, ocean animals (sharks, seahorse, whales, etc.), his little foam numbers, and then randomly looks up at me and says...

elephant.

e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t

elephant.

and i literally sat there for a second in disbelief, wondering where the heck that came from?!  there were no elephants in the tub & we hadn't been talking about them.  his little brain is amazing to watch.  and how he learned to spell elephant is totally beyond me.  i'm telling ya, he's amazing!