NY.

well what i really want to do it say "see erin's blog" b/c she documents things so well, but alas, i will do my best to recount fin's first vacation. our first family vacation! nanny and papa live in NY and hadn't met their 3rd grandchild yet so we thought we needed to make that happen. she's at a great age, the perfect time of year to visit up north and i just couldn't wait for them to meet. so we spend the 2nd week of october having a blast in cooler weather. early, early, early saturday morning we woke fin up and headed to the airport. checked in, got through security, grabbed breakfast and got to our gate at the perfect time. i was pretty anxious about the plane ride b/c i didn't want to be that mom, but i had to keep reminding myself 1. i'll never see these people again and 2. she's a baby. there's only so much you can do. needless to say, she did amazingly well. everyone around us was so nice and oohing and aahing over her. she had maybe just a few minutes of not being happy, but i don't blame her. i was ready to get off the plane too. she got a bottle going up (on both flights) but didn't need it for landing. her ears didn't seem to bother her at all thank goodness. when we landed mom, erin, grace and andrew were already there with nanny and papa. i was so excited for them to finally see finley in person! it was great. we gathered ALL the luggage (you should have seen how much 4 adults and 3 children need) and packed up 2 cars. one for the luggage and the other for all of us. erin and brandon installed 3 car seats perfectly and we were on our way. all 3 kiddos were angels while we were getting everything in order. of course we had a feast at nanny and papa's that night. wouldn't expect anything less. we spent the week going to parks, climbing mohonk, apple picking, shopping at woodstock, and pigging out (friendly's, dallas hot weiners, chinese food, pizza, and of course nanny's home cooked meals/desserts). it was so weird to take your own daughter (that's weird to say anyways) to the same parks you grew up going to.

chillin at the cleveland airport

love this pic of erin and grace napping

all packed up and ready to go!

by the end of the week we were pros at getting everyone out of the house in a timely manner. it actually wasn't that stressful. it helps that we were all on the same page with the importance of naps and keeping the kiddos happy. erin and i have the babies pretty much on the same schedule so that helped a ton. grace is an amazing little girl so she's the easiest one, just one of the gals. she grabs diapers for you, keeps the babies entertained, sings to them, plays with them, nicely reminds them to be gentle, she's just great. not to mention she's hilarious, polite, beautiful, witty, creative and just perfect. she's a great role model for finley.

we had an amazing week and i'm so thankful finley got to spend all that time with her great grandparents, great aunt and uncle, 2nd cousins, grandmother, aunt, cousins, mommy and daddy. she's one lucky little girl. i've got it pretty good too.