More Kings Island!

I swear, we should live there. We're honestly thinking about getting season passes for next year, we've been so many times.

Mom and Lee came up for a few days, so we decided to go Saturday and do both Howl-o-Fest and Halloween Haunt.

This necessitated getting Eliza a Halloween costume early, so we officially scrapped the Super Martian Robot Girl costume in favor of a duck ballerina outfit that is so adorable, it just might break your computer.

Once we got to the park, Janie, Lee and I got in what will be our last ride on Scooby Doo before Cedar Fair rebrands the entire kid section to Planet Snoopy. As is to be expected, I smoked both of them at the shooting game, because I have killer Duck Hunt skills.

After that, Janie and Mom took Eliza off for some kid stuff while Lee and I got in line for Diamondback, which is the seventh-fastest coaster in North America.

That fact, incidentally, was one that I didn't share with Lee until about halfway up the lift hill.

After a nice ride on Diamondback, we somehow convinced Mom to actually get on a coaster, which meant that Janie stayed with Eliza while the rest of us piled onto the artist formerly known as The Italian Job. Mom did surprisingly well, especially for someone with severe motion sickness and a bad back.

After a little walking around and some bumper cars, Janie tended to a now-fussy Eliza while we climbed on the red side of Racer (the blue side was closed.) As I love to do on wooden coasters, I made us go for the very back, and I've now done a 100 percent hands-up ride on both sides of Racer.

Mom swore off any more coasters for the rest of the night, and we decided to grab dinner at what is normally one of the best deals in the park, the Coney Mall Subway.

This time, however, the Subway was apparently staffed by people with no clue, as they asked Janie if she wanted a footlong sub even though you can't actually order one (we had to pay for two 6-inch subs at $6 a piece, which kills the good deal.)

After we ate, Lee and I tried to grab a quick ride on Invertigo, but we ended up in line for close to an hour. Very foggy from a combination of the fog machines that looked like they were spraying for mosquitoes and actual fog.

Then came what was something of a mistake, even though it was something we wanted to do: BEAST.

Riding The Beast at night is an amazing experience. Riding it, as I got to on our last trip, with the brakes pretty much off, is even more amazing, but it was still good Saturday. There's just something about tearing off into the helix in the dark that's thrilling.

What wasn't amazing, though, was the wait. The line was actually backed up to the arcade before you go up the hill to Beast Canyon, and when we finally got to Beast Canyon, the ride clock said 45 minutes. Oh, how wrong it was.

Lee and I managed to wind up onto the ramp to the ride building when the announcement came that The Beast was closing for fireworks. Janie then called to let us know that a park employee told her it was down 30 minutes because of the fireworks.

It ended up being an almost 2.5 hour wait, and by that time Eliza and Janie were freezing to death, so Lee and I hiked back to the front gate to head home.

Despite the wait on Beast (literally the longest ride wait of my life), it was still the best KI trip we've made yet, and we're already thinking about 2010.

A busy week..

I'm sorry you guys haven't heard from us in a bit. I started a new job on Monday, Eliza is staying with my Mom each day and she lives 45 minutes away. Needless to say, we've lost 3 hours of our day with this new schedule, so there's less time for blogging. I promise I'll try to do a better job with keeping you guys up to date.

Eliza is cruising around like a champ, cutting her top two teeth, and babbling up a storm. In fact, she's such a babbler that you almost have to shush her in public.

We're trying to make the switch from bottle to sippy cup and milk from formula all at the same time. She doesn't like either.

In other news, we bought a new car this past weekend. Since we opted out of daycare, we decided to assign those baby care dollars to a car payment. It had to happen. My car was in bad shape and never could have survived the drive to Lexington each day. I was sad to see it go after 9 years of service, but I'm driving Brian's Malibu now and it's serving me well.

I hope everyone out there in blogland is doing well. Pictures soon.

July 4th and Janie's Birthday at Kings Island

We had the most terrific weekend possible. We braved the overcast skies and eventual rain and headed downtown for the annual 4th of July Festival. Great food and drink we had by all. We managed to see a couple of great bands play in Phoenix Park and caught a bit of the annual waiter's race (a Lexington 4th of July tradition). After that, we went to my Mom's for my early birthday dinner, then we went with my Mom and sister downtown for fireworks. It was absolutely pouring, but my birthday begins immediately following fireworks (according to Janie's rules of living.)

Sunday morning we got up nice and early, picked up Bransen (my smart, funny, completely cool nephew), and headed north for yet another day at Kings Island. I can't say enough about how much we enjoy this place. We got a parent swap pass this time, allowing us both to ride rides while one watches the baby. I didn't ride as many things as I would have liked, but the pass allows you to bring another rider back on with you while the other parent watches the baby. Because of this, Bran got to ride Invertigo twice in a row.

We saw the WORST show in this history of shows (but hilariously so), A "Guess Your Age" booth lady guessed that I'm 44 so I won a stuffed Hippo (I'm 34, for the record, and I'm usually told I look younger), we ate some delicious blue ice cream, rode some rollercoasters, I won a stuff Mickey Mouse playing the crane game and the baby even got to go on the Scooby Doo ride. Brian and Bran rode The Beast at night and we closed the place down and stayed for fireworks. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday!

4th of July pictures






Kings Island 7/05/2009

Because I promised...

...I'm writing about the Kings Island trip as well. (It's hard to stay motivated to write here when I spend all day writing for a living. Gotta work on that.)

Kings Island was probably the best park experience I've ever had, honestly. I've now done: Disney World; Six Flags St. Louis; the late, great Opryland USA; Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom; and Kings Island. Kings Island is the clear No. 1, with SFSTL running second.

The day at the park started with having to park halfway to Akron. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the danger of showing up at a park after lunch.

Once we made the epic trek into the park, we were immediately bombarded with people wielding cameras. I did manage to get the picture of Eliza with Spongebob while they were also documenting it for the low, low price of $14.99 per refrigerator magnet.

Following the First Law of Avoiding Crowds, we went left and ended up at Drop Tower, a ride I would normally pass up. Janie talked me into starting off the day with it, though, so I jumped on the fairly short line.

While I was in line, though, the wet stuff started to come down a bit. By the time I was actually strapped in on the tower, it was becoming noticeable. As we rode to the top of the tower (and let me tell you, that's a long ride) we actually moved through a band of rain and ended up in a dry zone until they dropped us.

About five minutes after I got off Drop Zone, as I headed down the eight miles of queue that leads to Flight Deck, I met a group coming back who said they had just shut the ride down. The rain was still extremely light at this point, but off in the distance was a dark cloud that would be the bane of our existence for the next three hours.

Since most rides were closed, we headed toward Nickelodeon Universe to keep Eliza amused (and because that's where Janie prefers to start her park visits.) The rain had yet to close the carousel, so Eliza and Janie took a twirl while I manned the video camera and guarded the stuff.

After the carousel, we took Eliza to meet her favorite Latino child star, Dora la Exploradora. Then, it was back around the kids' area to look around until... the heavens opened.

We spent the next 90 minutes, at least, huddled inside or near a merch stand, trying to stay dry, eating a $2 bag of pretzels and drinking a $4 bottle of Coke Zero (the pretzels, oddly, were regular price. Strange,) and waiting on the rain to slacken or stop. At one point, Eliza tried to shoplift a stuffed animal by grabbing it when we weren't looking.

Finally, though, the rain let up enough for us to move, so we headed back toward International Street while we debated calling the day a washout. The rain started to pick back up, so we piled into Skyline Chili to wait and see what happened.

The rain did eventually begin to stop, which meant it was time to head back out and wait for the test runs to start going. We happened up on Vortex getting ready to open, so I jumped in line and was one of the first out after it restarted.

Now, it's important to remember that, while I'm strapped into the front car of a very high-speed coaster, this is the first time I've been on a coaster in close to five years. I'm also older, heavier and in generally worse shape (that shape being round.)

I got a little blurry while on Vortex. Nothing major, just a little tunnel vision during a particularly high-G turn, but still, scary for someone who's been on high-speed coasters with no problems in the past.

I blame most of it on trying to compensate for neck muscles that aren't quite as strong as they used to be (witness the tension headache I had all evening as we went home.)

After Vortex and a quick trip through the Backlot Stunt Coaster (ehh), it was off to get in line for what was one of my main attractions: The Beast. I've made it a life goal to ride the 10 fastest wooden coasters in the United States, since I love wooden coasters so much.

As seems to befall me every time I'm in line for a coaster I'm dying to ride, though, the rains returned. Light at first, but enough to shut the ride down and leave everyone in line with a choice: bail and give up your spot or ride it out and move up.

I took a (correct) bet that the rain would move back out, and stayed. That meant that 90 minutes later when they got the all-clear, I was on the second train out after the ride check. As I prefer to do on woodies, I went to the last car and was tail-end Charlie.

The Beast is an amazing thing. It's long, fast and with three tunnels, has multiple "headchopper" moments. The best part, though, was bursting out of a pitch-black tunnel into an uphill right-hander in brilliant, dazzling sunlight. Almost a religious experience at 65 mph.

After getting off The Beast, I was refreshed just in time for perfect weather, so I hit the almost-vacant Racer to cross another coaster off the top-10 list. Still need to ride the red side for completeness, but I was glad to get this one in. Had to ride the first car instead of the back, but still got it in.

I followed up Racer with a successful visit to the nine acres of railing that is the Flight Deck queue. Honestly, I almost could have stayed on after my ride, it was so empty. Flight Deck, by the way, is about 30 seconds (and a coat of paint) away from being a great coaster. As it is, it's too short.

After Flight Deck was the No. 1 coaster on the list: Son of Beast. 78.3 mph of wooden fury, combined with a neck-stretching "Rose Bowl" double helix. Again, I was tail-end Charlie and loved every bone-rattling second of it.

By this point, it was getting later in the day and the line for Diamondback was getting longer, so we swung by Invertigo, which was the last coaster of the day. Had a scary moment when, on the backwards ascent at the start, my harness needed another click to be tight and I was having to push myself back against the seat until we took off and the G-forces would push me down enough to click it. Got it latched tight, though, and I loved the rest of it.

So, since Janie and I had so much fun, we're going back for her birthday. We're going to spend all day July 4 at the park, from open until fireworks. To make sure we get everything in, we're going on a "coaster diet" to shed a little weight for comfort on some of the tighter seats (I'm looking at you, Vortex) and so we feel better walking all day. We're also going to get a "parent swap pass" at the front gate so we can trade off riding and watching Eliza without having to stand in line twice.

Man, this was long. Here are two videos to make this post even longer on the page:

Eliza visits Daddy's office

Yesterday was a particularly fun day. I've been doing a lot of baking lately and just recently decided to try my hand at baking and decorating cakes. My first attempt was a congratulatory cake for Brian's new editor. I'm told it tasted better than it looks, although, that's not half bad for my first attempt at decorating a cake. Ever.




We took the cake to Brian's office and Eliza had fun typing at his keyboard. Doesn't she look like a little cub reporter?




If you're interested in reading more about my baking exploits, visit my baking blog.
Right here!

Eliza's first video game

I thought Eliza might like to play some Mario, but the old Nintendo isn't hooked up. Brian decided to show her some Sonic instead. You'll see that she's trying to move the analog stick on her own. She's a natural.

Derby Day

After an otherwise horrible week, we found ourselves having a good time in the rain at Keeneland for Derby Day. Here's some video of Brian, Eliza and myself hanging out between races and a few of our misguided picks. For the record, however, my horse in the 9th TIED for 3rd and I won about $5.30. Since I bet $6 total on that race, I lost $.70. But it was still fun!



In other news, I came to get Eliza after a nap the other day and she was sitting up in her crib. So we know she CAN get into a sitting position, we just haven't actually seen her do it.

In other, other news, Foxglove finally changed our locks after three days of begging them to do so. We had two detectives from RPD take over the case at roughly the same time, so we find the timing more than a bit "coincidental". Who cares. We'll take any help we need to feel safer and catch our crook.

Another weekend...

...another trip to the ballpark.

Because of fortuitous weather during our first trip out to Applebee's Park, we had free tickets for Sunday afternoon's game, so we packed up and headed for the game yesterday.

It was hot, I have the strangest sunburn on the planet (one cheek, half my neck, the side of my left knee and the top of my right knee) and Eliza fussed most of the time, but it was still fun.

We left in the eighth to go help Cheryl unload the last of a moving truck and pick up some furniture for us, so we missed the end of the game, but we now have an honest-to-Bob kitchen table to sit at, and a new recliner to sit in.

As for the rest of the weekend, I worked most of the day Saturday while Janie and Eliza hung out at the house.

Next weekend, of course, is Derby Weekend, so we're going to Keeneland to watch the big race on the big screens. Sounds like we may have family to visit that weekend, too, which will be nice.

There should be more videos coming soon.

Crazy Busy

The past week or so has been ridiculously busy. Brian was off last Friday, so we headed out to Keeneland to make use of our season passes. Friday's trip wasn't profitable, but the weather was incredible. Later in the day we decided to head out to Applebees park to partake in baseball festivities. Eliza had a fantastic time. She loved watching all the little kids running around. I can't wait until she's big enough to get out of her stroller and go play with them.

Saturday we went shopping and cleaned out the Carter's store. They were having an incredible sale, so Eliza is fully outfitted for summer. We also squeezed in dinner at Saul Good. I know people rave about this place all the time, but it really is incredible. Reasonably priced food in an upscale chic atmosphere. I had bacon and eggs for dinner and Brian had chicken and waffles. I also ordered up some of the most amazing beer cheese I've ever tasted. When we left, they packaged up my remaining beer cheese and even refilled my dippers. As Brian said when we left, they're going into "rotation" now.

After shopping and dinner, we played laser tag with my nephew and his friend at the new Champs complex. There were a ton of shady charaters hanging out in the parking lot. You couldn't pay me to drop my tween off alone at that place. Laser tag was good fun (and exercise). I think we'll have to do that again soon.

We attempted to do absolutely nothing on Sunday, but things picked up again yesterday. Brian was busy with a big story at work and me and Eliza headed to Lexington so I could have my CT scan. I'm hoping to have those results back soon. As usual, Eliza made friends with the receptionist at the scanning place and a random old man when we stopped for lunch at McDonalds. Quite the charmer.

Since I've been taking Eliza in my car a lot more, I decided yesterday that we need two car seats or we needed to get another base for our current car seat. In researching new ones, I found out that Eliza has just about outgrown her current car seat. It only supports babies up to 22 lbs. and Eliza weighs 21.3. We went to Target last night and got a brand new car seat for Brian's car and we put the old one in my car for now. As soon as she's up to 22 lbs, we'll ditch that one and I guess we'll just have to switch the new car seat back and forth. That thing is HUGE, so that'll be a chore.

While we were at Babiesaurus (the official new nickname of Babies r Us), we saw an adorable pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars in Eliza size. Now she has her first pair of chucks! As for me, I got a pair of One Stars at Target and Brian is probably getting a new pair of New Balance today. Now we're a beshoed, becarseated, and bemedicaltested family.

As for Eliza, she grows more and more hilarious. She loves baths. We taken to calling her rubber duckie tub by his full name. Squeakin' Bill Quackers. She's also developed this throaty growl that sounds like one of Marge's sisters from the Simpsons. She's just trying out her vocal range. And on that front, she's also discovered a very high pitched squeal. Luckily, only dogs in Arizona can hear it, so we're good there. She still attempts to crawl, but she fell over and banged her head. Now she seems less adventurous. When she does try to crawl she screams her head off the entire time. She's working on trying to pull herself into a sitting position on her own, but I suspect that's going to be a few weeks away yet. She simply HATES being on her stomach.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. The batteries in my camera have been dead for a week and I've been too busy to remember to change them. Pictures soon, I promise.

Baseball!

Last night we took Eliza to the Lexington Legends home opener. Once she got over an early crying spell, she seemed to really enjoy herself. A storm moved through right before the game, so the ground was a little damp (and we had lawn seats), but all in all it was a grand time. She gets a little startled when people cheer (see our trip to Keeneland), but hopefully she'll grow out of that with time. Brian taught Eliza about the game while I snapped a couple of pictures. Who am I kidding? The scene of daddy and daughter enjoying and evening at the ballpark almost brought me to tears. They're so adorable together.

Speaking of adorable, check out Brian's new glasses.

Mimi Visit

We hadn't seen Brian's Mom since the ice storm, so it was nice to see her for dinner last night.We're lucky to see her regularly when she's in town for work. Since we hadn't seen her in a month and a half, Eliza had her second bout of stranger anxiety in the beginning. I felt terrible, but once she calmed down, she really warmed up to her Mimi. After she attempted to take off Mimi's glasses, I knew she'd be okay.

Oscar picks!

It's Oscar night, and in Rockitude family tradition, we made our Oscar picks.

This year, Eliza joined in:


She made her own picks:


She studied her ballot pretty closely:


Edit: Please excuse our space. We're about to move to our new townhouse and we've had company all weekend, so it's MESSY! Speaking of our company, we have more pictures to post later.

A couple of snapshots

First of all, Eliza has some new pals. Cheryl found a couple of stuffed friends for Eliza that had been put up and forgotten. Eliza loves her soft new pals.




Secondly, we attended my friend Heather's party on Valentine's Day. Someone else who attended took this picture of the two of us. I think it's probably the best picture ever taken of Brian and myself as a couple. Just wanted to share.



Today I begin getting our things together to head to our new townhouse in Richmond. We couldn't be more excited to get back in our own space.

We're moving... AGAIN!

But only to Richmond this time.

Because things are getting a little cramped in our current abode, we've decided to decamp to a townhouse in Richmond.

It's a nice place with a GIANT laundry room/half-bath, an eat-in kitchen and most importantly, Eliza gets her own room again!

We should be completely moved by a week from Sunday. Pictures once we're settled.

Happy Birthday, Brian!

This is my warm, dedicated, funny, precise, idiosyncratic, and genuinely kind husband. He turns 25 today.

When we met, I knew he was special. I noted that we were quirky in similar ways and shared an affinity for pop culture. However, it wasn't until I discovered his giant heart that I realized I'd struck gold. Over the past few months, watching him come into his own as a father has been absolutely wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better Dad for my kid. I couldn't ask for a more dedicated husband for myself.

We love you, Brian. Happy birthday.

Less than two days...

...until we're in Lexington to stay.

It's kind of sad, in a way. The house was and is a great little place to live, and I hate that we can't just take it with us.

However, it came down to choosing between our house and making sure that Janie and Eliza can go to the doctor when they need to, and I think we made the right decision. I would feel awful if Janie needed to go to the hospital for something and couldn't because we couldn't afford it, so getting her coverage is a big load off my mind.

Sure, we'd be better off if we didn't have the house on the market right now, but I'm optimistic that we can do something with it fairly quickly so we can get settled more permanently up there. Eliza needs a good place of her own to grow up in, and I want us to give that to her as quickly as we can.

Tonight, we dine with family. Tomorrow, we do the hardcore packing, then dine with more family. Saturday, we pile what we can in the car and set out on a new adventure with the wind at our backs and our future ahead of us.

Goodbye, house. Maybe we'll meet again some day.

Thanksgiving recap and Eliza's portraits

Eliza's portrait sitting went really well. She didn't want to smile, but we got some cute poses in an adorable outfit. As promised, we had a much better experience with Sears. While we got great personal attention, there were lots of people there and they all seemed to have an 11AM appointment. I'm beginning to think double/triple booking is standard in the portrait industry. They were finishing up people who were there before, trying to deal with the people who were waiting, and trying to troubleshoot package delivery problems for someone who showed up at the last minute. I can tell you that if we weren't being so exclusively catered to, we would have had quite a wait. We were interrupted pretty much constantly while trying to pick out our pictures, so ultimately, that probably cut down on our order. All in all, though, it was a really great experience and we got really great first pictures of Eliza.

Thanksgiving, of course, didn't go according to plan at all. We didn't even get some Tofurkey. I'll pass up the details, but I will tell you that we plan to do holidays in Mayfield from now on.

Also, we have other news to share later. I'll let Brian deliver that himself. I hope you guys had a great holiday!

Two posts in one day! Amish Paradise.

Brian had a picture published in the Louisville Courier-Journal today. The local Amish refuse to place orange triangles on the backs of their buggies, so Brian covered the trial of a few of accused. I ran out early this morning to grab a paper so we could check it out. Eliza and Brian seemed to have a grand time hanging out in bed and reading the paper.

Really bad at updating.

I've been really bad with the updates lately. Eliza is 11 weeks old now and she's learning to laugh. The other day, she laughed out loud in her sleep. We haven't heard a chuckle like that during waking hours yet, but we're hopeful that it isn't far off.

I took some video the other night, but it always encodes much darker than it looks on tape. Here's some video of Brian and Eliza playing.

Special Bonus Features: The Outtakes

Eliza will be two months old on Tuesday. As of tonight, our camera is entirely full. I dumped all the pictures off the camera off onto the computer, so I decided to make a special photo post with some of the outtakes from the past two months of Miss Eliza Jane Smith. For the record, we seem to be making some progress with the reflux and Eliza has seemed a bit more happy and comfortable for the past few days. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this continues. Now for some pictures.

Brian being a goofball at Culver's.

Me at our last doctor's appointment before Eliza arrived.

Me in labor.

Brian enjoying labor much more than I was.

Me and Eliza on one of our first nights home.

Eliza kicked back and enjoying the pack n play.

Eliza being adorable and wearing bunny and bear.

Brian and baby being adorable.

Being cute in the Boppy.

Yours truly reading the paper.

Eliza getting burped.

Eliza trying to smile.

Grandmommy and baby.

Eliza sleeping in her chair.

In her Bumbo chair.

Brian consoling himself after yesterday's big loss.

Eliza asleep in Daddy's lap tonight.