London

No, not the city. My new nephew!

After I got the call that Lindsay was going into labor, we literally got off the plane from Chicago when we landed in Louisville at 4:30, went straight to the Southwest ticket counter, and booked a flight for me right then for Baltimore (using skymiles!). I said goodbye to Ben, kept the bag I already had packed from Chicago, and barely made it on the 5:15 flight to Baltimore.

Meghan, a friend of Lindsay's, picked me up from the airport and took me to their house. Lindsay was beyond ready to leave, so after a sweet prayer from Reagan and getting the kids to bed, it was off to the hospital.

Cue the anxiety.

I sat in the backseat as Carl raced to the hospital and Lindsay gripped the seat tightly with each contraction. I felt so helpless, nothing I could do to help, so nervous for her, wondering how I would respond to the sight of blood since I'm usually easily queasy over that stuff, super excited at the experience I was about to have, eagerly awaiting meeting my new niece or nephew...

Once in the hospital room, I felt a little more relieved, but still anxious and wishing I could somehow help or encourage Lindsay or make it better...but for fear of being annoying or in the way or saying the wrong thing, for the most part I just sat quietly, prayed, and texted the family to keep them in the loop.

After a couple more hours of labor, trying but unable to get the epidural and so facing a natural childbirth, Lindsay was ready to have this baby! Her sister, mom, and close friend all arrived just in time to be there as well.

The next 15 minutes were so intense - excitement, anxiousness, joy - and finally, we met London Keller Kuhl, 9 lbs., 10 oz, 21.5 inches long! Brown hair; so much like mommy but so much like daddy too; absolutely perfect and adorable. I can't even describe how amazing Lindsay was, how brave, how strong...I was in total awe. I am so thankful that she asked me to be part of this experience - it was something I will never forget!

Chicago Trip

Ben and I went to Chicago last weekend with Jenn and Scott to visit our cousin Alison and her husband Dan. They have a 2.5-year-old daughter, Katelyn, and a 5-month-old son, Brayden, who we had yet to meet and were anxious to do so!

We flew there after work Friday, where we started with some Chicago style pizza.

The kids were so cute and Katelyn had gotten so big since last time I saw her! Ben got some good "baby time" in of course.

Saturday, Ben, Jenn, Scott and I drove into the city since Ben and I had never been there. There's the skyline!

A little closer:

Lake Michigan:

We started at Millennium Park, where the sculptures were so interesting! There was this huge rounded silver sculpture that reflected everything in it, so if you look closely you can see me holding my pink phone up taking this photo, standing between Scott and Ben:

The face image on this building moves and blinks and changes:

From there we walked until we came to the Chicago river, which I'm sure you remember from "My Best Friend's Wedding".

We stopped for lunch at The Purple Pig.

The food was tapas style, or small plates, so we each order 2 or 3 dishes and shared them. The food was the most delicious thing I'd eaten in a long time, ranging from fried brussel sprouts to chicken kebabs to meatball sliders.

What better to do after eating than shop? We walked the Magnificent Mall and did some shopping- H&M (bought a shirt because I can't go in there and not buy something, right?), Crate & Barrel, Ghirardelli (free chocolate samples of pumpkin spice caramel chocolates - go buy these immediately, trust me), American Girl, Lego...lots of fun places! We passed the Water Tower (one of the only buildings that didn't burn down in the Chicago fire) and went into the Hancock building (but alas, long was too long to go to the top). But where had the day gone? Already time to head back to the car and get to dinner.

On our way, we passed this neat cathedral that had pieces of other cathedrals on the outside, such as stones from Notre Dame, or the prominent black piece you see in this picture is from the Dom Cathedral in Cologne, where we went several times when we lived in Germany - pretty neat to see it here!

Dinner was at a place called The Girl and the Goat. It was like the lunch place in that we ordered a bunch of small plates and shared...oh - my - goodness. And I thought lunch was the best thing...this was even better, if that's possible!! We rated all the food 10 out of 10. The pretzel bread was soft and salty, the chickpea fritters melted in your mouth, the goat liver mousse was - well, delectable from what I hear, but I didn't try it...plus about 6 other dishes! So fabulous. The only picture I managed out of all that food was this one, which has the sugo (beef, pork, lamb and goat spaghetti), beef short ribs, and green beans. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Or, as my mother would say, not too ba-a-a-a-a-d! :)

Our cousin Missy (Alison's sister) and boyfriend Eric had come in town to see us, so when we got home, we spent the night laughing and talking and playing Pictionary until about 3AM Chicago time. It's so great to have family that you can be close with even when you don't see each other often!

After a huge breakfast by Alison of egg casserole, hashbrowns, fruit and turkey bacon, we left to head back home. In the airport waiting for the flight back to Louisville, I got a text from my sister-in-law Lindsay that she was having contractions and that if I wanted to fly to Baltimore to be there for the delivery, now would be the time...(rest of this story to be continued on my next post!)

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Anyone who has been around me this week knows that Ben got me an early birthday present because I've been talking about it a lot. What is it, you ask? A banjo!!!!!!!!!!! I love it!!!!!!!!!!

Foggy Mountain Breakdown is a classic banjo song, so I found a youtube tutorial on how to play it...I pretty much just dove right in :) I still don't have it well enough to play it as fast as a pro banjo player would...but hey, it's only day #6 with my banjo - I'll get there eventually!

4th Annual Ft. Walton Trip

Last week, we went to the beach for our 4th annual family vacation with Ben's family to Ft. Walton Beach. All 13 of us were able to be there, so it was perfect...well, except the weather the first 3 days. Tropical Storm Lee was blowing through so the wind and rain were terrible and we were cooped up inside except for a shopping trip to the outlets, pedicures for the ladies, eating out, and church. We got some good quality time together playing The Game of Things and the guys playing Risk.

Luckily, the sun came out and the weather was beautiful the last half of the trip so the board games were saved for nighttime back at the condos. The Costco Relaxation Station was totally worth the money; everyone loved it! It made a great boat on the water and a great bounce house for the kids on the beach. We all laughed at Ben when he wanted to attach an anchor to it, but turns out the lifeguards wouldn't let us use it with the "high winds" unless it was anchored...who knew!

Without further ado, a bunch of pictures.

Can't wait to go back next year!

Senz Umbrella

I bought an umbrella off woot.com quite a while back for $15. It is supposed to be wind resistant, but I hadn't really used it anywhere windy before. Finally, last week at the Ft. Walton Beach during Tropical Storm Lee, I had a chance to truly test it out. I know you can't really hear me in this video, but what I'm trying to tell the camera is that there are hurricane-like winds, double red flags at the beach, and basically, look how awesome my umbrella is after I get it open.

Photo enhancer

Playing around with a photo enhancer app.  The two pictures in the middle are altered (can't get this blogger app to arrange the pictures in the order I want).

Blogger app

Finally google has an app for blogging on a droid! This is just a test to see how it works and if I like it. I think I do! This gives me something to do for the next 7 hours in the car on the way home from Ft. Walton!