This has been a big year with lots of stuff that should be posted before this, but maybe I'll get to it later.  Right now I'm going to talk about how Andy and I made it all the way to our ALUMINUM Anniversary!!!! 

Wait...

WHAT?

Ten married years and all we get is a La Croix?!

The Kiwi is due 2 days before our actual anniversary in October so we decided to celebrate early this year with a little family trip up to The Shore Lodge in McCall.  Way back in March we had planned to renew our vows down on the beach in Mexico but that got cancelled because of the risk of zika.  This was another opportunity to get fancy on a beach.  The only problem now was that there was no way that Mexico wedding dress was going to fit anymore... 

Alice had decided she was going to be in our McCall Wedding too, and was planning her own vows. "I love curtains and light bulbs." 

Mom sewed a giant stretchy panel in the back of my dress, we bought some gorgeous flowers from a neighbor, procured carrot cake, and jumped in the car.

It turned out to be a really crowded beach though.  And I turned out to be a really emotionally unstable pregnant woman.  After having a meltdown about wearing a white floufy dress in front of too many total strangers (let's be clear--Alice was NOT the one melting down), we decided to forego the vow renewals and just eat the cake.  It should probably just be a general rule to never travel with a pregnant woman anywhere unless you are also bringing cake.

We ended up having a nice getaway and when we returned found a mostly empty frisbee golf course right here in town where we could hold our little ceremony.  As long as we kept an eye out for the occasional stray flying frisbee, all was good. 

And dare I say, I found the whole thing even more meaningful than I did on our actual wedding day.  I guess that's how it's supposed to go.  Photos of the trip and the ceremony below!

Dear Alice,

Just a short followup to our Target Meltdown post from earlier this summer.  Without totally jinxing myself, I think it's only fair to admit that we've since learned of some extenuating circumstances.

Sometime this spring your doctor recommended starting you on Flonase nasal spray to help with your allergies and constant skin rashes.  We did it for about two and a half months before something finally clicked in my brain and I started to suspect just what was going on. 

During that time, you STOPPED eating.  This by itself was HUGE.  You are the world's best eater.  You LOVE food.  We've worked so hard at cultivating good eating habits and then one day, BOOM, it was all gone.  I couldn't believe what was happening.  I tried everything I could think of to get us back on track, to no avail.  And the worst part was that everyone I talked to about it kept telling me that it was typical of a 3 year old. 

Meanwhile some other weird stuff was going on, but again...maybe you are just 3?  Lots of tantrums (for you), and it was taking HOURS for you to fall asleep at night.  Then the nights started to get even worse.  We would go to bed and you'd constantly kick your legs.  I Googled "can toddlers have restless leg syndrome?" and went down a rabbit hole of WEIRD. 

The short of this story is that I discovered Flonase is a steroid with lots of officially undocumented side effects, such as restless leg, behavioral changes in children, and....a sort of soapy sour taste in your mouth!  WHA....???!!!!! 

Within days of quitting, everything started to go back to normal, including your awesome eating habits.  And (knock on wood) you haven't had another tantrum since.  The only drawback is I haven't figured out a better treatment for your allergies, so for now, you suffer.  :(