a little of this, a little of that!

as you all know, i don't always blog when i say i will. i have dry spells. then i have the spells where i blog every day. that's what i like best. unfortunately, life is a priority, and blogging comes second. this time, though, we can honestly say poop has hit the fan...

baseballcation was an amazing trip, once in a lifetime experience, awesome roadtrip. but holy cow, 8 games in 8 days, almost 2,000 miles and around five hours driving each day can really take a toll on you. i will get caught up with our trip soon, i promise. but i thought i'd offer up my excuse for dropping off the face of the blog world

(for regular updates on what's up with the Gilbuenas, follow me on intsagram! i don't think the button on here works, i will have joseph fix that. meanwhile, we are fromholytoledotoyou.)

so, when we arrived home from our trip, i was dead tired. our house is already in a state of chaos, since we were waiting on a house for nearly months, that then fell through. so, i came back, tried to pack a few more boxes, do a dozen loads of laundry and catch up on life. i was also excitedly planning a baby shower for my toledo and 31 bff, marcy.

meanwhile, our freezer stopped working, and i shuttled most the frozen food into the fridge. but i had a bad feeling about the fridge as well, which was more or less ignored by maintenance. so, we ended up losing all our food, and eventually got a new fridge. 

MEANWHILE, my eye started to bug me just a little. looking back, i was having some trouble focusing while we were on vacation, but i thought i was just tired. but it got progressively worse, although not bad enough for joseph to diagnose pink eye or uveitis. after some ups and downs, it got bad enough he was able to get a clear look at the problem, and diagnose uveitis, which more or less is swelling in the cells or tissue in my eye, in the muscles that allow me to focus. it hurts like snitch. well, my super fabulous dr fixed me up pretty well now, but my left eye is dilated, to help relax the muscles that need to rest to ease the pain. so, i can't focus. the left eye is just a blur. i am typing this with that eye all scrunched up. i am hoping that we are on top of this, and can see great improvement and maybe stop the dilating medication in a few days, and get back to normal. i feel half worthless. 

and in the midst of the eye stuff, hadley got another cold, followed by me. my cough is awful. and i am so bummed that i won't be able to see marcy's sweet 11 pound baby for a few extra days. 

this all sounds pretty terrible, right? i am not being dramatic.

the good news is, we somehow manage to get out once a day, in the evening to go get our precious geocache for the 31 days of geocaching we are doing this month. not only is it so necessary for hadley to have this fun trip out, but it's good for me to, even if i am a hot mess!! today is the 23rd, so today will be our 23rd day in a row of geocaching. yay! i know, we are nerds. 

we are looking forward to hadley's first day of preschool in a week and a half, and also a long overdue trip from my auntie jewel. in just under a month. 

i'll just dump some photos so you know we are still alive and happy, after all that complaining i just did:) 

hadley's invitation to preschool orientation. 

out geocaching

and geocaching

and geocaching...

more geocaching!

geocaching:)

hadley loves to try on glasses.

if my eye hurts, so does bizzle bop's.

we love albuterol, yes we do.

check out hadley's new fishing pole!!
(excuse the ghetto blanket over the window,
i really, REALLY need darkness.)

the dodgers got brian wilson, my least favorite player in major league history.

xoxo, al

home sweet home

so, we got home from baseballcation last evening, and this is the first time i've sat down here at the computer. holy cow! why didn't anyone tell me the blog was all funky?!

well, i just went through and reformatted and resized all the photos. if you tried to view the last four blogs, and experienced difficulties, have no fear, it's all better! I am glad though, that i gave up blogging from the phone a few days ago, and saved the effort for here on the PC. 

we are home and pretty much well. still hanging on to that cough from our week sick before we left. and yes, joseph caught it while we were away, and was a real trooper:) bless his heart!

tomorrow i will take a few minutes to blog the latter part of our trip. we have all kinds of fun things to share with you. thanks for following along!

ps, i got my fall catalogs today! thirty-one is so awesome for fall!

xoxo, al

Baseballcation 2013: Day Four!

Ok let's do this! Tuesday morning we didn't bust it out of the Chicago area terribly early, and there was a stop at mcd's to make the babe happy. That stop ended up being almost an hour. We took our time there and as we were ready to go, Hadley decided she needed changed, and Joseph wanted to grab a geocache.

So, not much to report for the morning. Just corn fields. 

Now comes the good stuff!

The Dodgers were waiting for us in St. Louis, so we were excited to be there. We were in line waiting for gates to open for half an hour:) we were excited to be there so early, and catch batting practice. 

Busch Stadium is so pretty! It's so open and friendly, and child friendly! And beautiful red brick covers it completely. I love brick:) 

As most stadiums, the kid activities are mostly geared towards a little older kids, but Hadley doesn't care. She could have spent all nine innings playing in this adorable baseball themed play area. I was agreeable to a couple innings:)

And then you got a photo dump. We had a great time. The Dodgers lost, but it was a good game, and they are still

On fire. We can't wait for our second game at the Cardinals. That's tonight!

Xoxo, al

Baseballcation 2013: day three

We didn't plan anything non baseball for this trip because its purpose was to get us four more MLB stadiums checked off our list. 

Well, ok, there was this one exciting stop we wanted to make while we were in the Chicago area. 

Madame Zuzu's Tea House!

If you know Joseph, you probably know his favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins, and he is a huge Billy Corgan fan. So it is only fitting that while we are on this hardcore baseball trip, (where we even get to see the Dodgers play three times) we stop to visit Billy Corgan's very own tea house, located in the suburb of Highland Park. 

---

 If you know much about Billy Corgan, Madame Zuzu's just screams him. The decor is amazing, and the tea and treats are to die for. The loose leaf tea is pulled from canisters and brewed by the tiny pot, just for you. The cookies, muffins, and other pastries are all organic, and many are also gluten free.

Check this out! Even the restrooms are amazing! Best potties on our trip, according to Hadley. She walked in, sniffed, and stated "this bathroom smells so clean!" But there was this creepy photo over the toilet.

This was such a great stop, a break from the hustle of our trip. If you are ever in Chicago, check it out. You will love it. 

Anyway, on to baseball. 

Monday was our white sox night. 

I honestly don't even feel like writing about it. Partially, because it's 2am, but mostly because U.S. Cellular field was stupid. We purchased upper level seats not realizing  we would not be able to go down to field level. Only ticket holders for field level are allowed to roam down there, so we were stuck with just about nothing but basic food stands. We did, however, make it in as part of the first 10,000 and get a white sox garden gnome. 

 And that's a wrap. Update again soon!

Xoxo,

Al

Baseballcation 2013 Day 2!

I know this is a little late, but I'm still trying to keep up with a daily blog about our trip. So. I will catch up. Today we are beginning day four. I will blog say two now, and hopefully day three tonight, and day four tomorrow morning!

We are having a blast, but I think that goes without saying:)

Sunday morning we woke up in our hotel in Kenosha. We were thankful wed chosen to stay half way between Milwaukee and Chicago, making our drive to Miller Stadium only 40 minutes. That also later meant it was just that far back, and we got to stay two nights in the same place, which doesn't happen again on this trip. 

Anyway. 

What I am about to describe may not be of surprise to many of you, but it's not a part of MLB I have experienced before. So keep that in mind if I seem silly:)

TAILGATING!

 I am pretty sure I've never actually been a tailgater before, but I've never been out there in the trenches, and I've never known tailgating to be anything other than college football, in my little world. So, I was surprised to park In a lot at miller stadium, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, and find thousands of fans grilling, eating, drinking and having a jolly time before leaving the parking lot. Oh man, it's smelled so good. I was plotting internally how to make friends and grab a burger. 

But then I moved on and we grabbed our daily geocache, keeping up with the daily geocache in August challenge. 

Now to get to the good stuff! Miller Stadium was great. This stadium may top the list of favorite stadium experiences. We'll see. We've got a couple more to go still:)

Of course, one of the most important things for our family is Hadley friendly anything. Hadley really scored here! 

As we walked through the gate, Hadley got a ticket for a free kids ice cream. Score! She was also given socks so she could play at the play land, since she'd worn flip flops and they heavily enforce their mandatory sock policy. (Thank you, BTW!!) There were clowns, balloons, face painting, and slides. Hadley was in heaven. She even got to take her picture with Mickey Mouse!

Going back to the moment we entered the gates, we received bobble heads of a brewer player that I have already forgotten. But even if you aren't a Brewers fan, these are always fun, and we will forever remember these came from our Baseballcation 2013:) We also each received a $10 voucher to spend inside the park, and actually they gave us four accidentally. So, we used those to buy a $20 helmet full of some pretty amazing nachos! Who wouldn't love nachos in a helmet?!

We also got a souvenir soda as we have been at every other stadium we've been to, ever:) but the sweetest find was a Brewers Camaro to add to Joseph's hot wheels collection! (Not pictured yet.)

 The afternoon was perfect. We were all happy and feeling well enough (pesky colds we are still trying to shake) and so much was aimed to please the three year old. The sky was blue with picture perfect puffy clouds. I'm in love. I'd even revisit this place someday:) 

I am an Oregon girl, and seriously miss the coast now that we are living in Ohio. But as a friend told me when I first moved to Toledo, Lake Erie and Lake Michigan can be just as amazing. I have found this to be almost true. The time we spent playing at the beach on Lake Michigan, north of Chicago amazing. Hadley loved the sand and the water. And I loved having a happy family playing together. 

Ok, more later. Yesterday was pretty amazing too. Here's to catching up! 

Xoxo, al