Florida Fun

The Regan family just got back from a great week and a half in Naples, Florida, where we stayed with my mom and dad at their condo.  We had a great time - it's a beautiful place to be, and the weather was near perfect (high in the upper 70s/lower 80s) most of the time we were there, so we couldn't complain!   We went swimming, bike riding, boating and even went to the Collier County Fair, which was a trip - no pun intended.  Emily seemed to enjoy the whole vacation, and we loved being able to take her outdoors without a hundred layers of clothing.   The experience with Emily was very different this year - last year she was just starting to roll over, so we basically watched her roll around or sit in her bouncy seat, then toted her everywhere.  This year?  Different story!  The active 17-month-old toddler that she is, she hit the pool and the beach with us (you should see her back dive), went to a Gymboree class, danced at Tommy Bahama's restaurant:

...marveled at the pigs, cows and sheep at the County Fair:

...and spent seemingly endless hours playing hide and seek with us, her new favorite thing to do.   She was also really great on the airplane.  We had fears of three hours holed up with a climbing, crabby toddler on the plane, but she was a trooper, even while fighting a bad cold on the way there.

During our trip, we met up with Pat's cousin Andy, a professor at a relatively new college called Ave Maria University.  The college is part of a very interesting concept - a brand new Catholic community called Ave Maria, built around a massive, beautiful cathedral and the college. which started with 50 students and now, we're told, has around 600.   Take a look at the cathedral - it's gigantic! 

Andy and his family live in the community, which is still really new - they're just now building a gas station and the grocery store isn't yet open - about an hour east of Naples.  It was really nice to meet them, and I know Pat had a nice time reconnecting with his cousin whom he hadn't seen in quite some time.  When your mom comes from a huge family, as Pat's does, and you have nearly 50 first cousins, you'd think it'd be hard to keep up, but their family does an impressive job of keeping in touch.  Here's a photo of all of us:

We can't thank my mom and dad enough for having us for the fifth year in a row.  And a big thanks to my aunt and uncle for taking us out on their boat. So much fun!

We're not ready for this

Kelley and I finally baby-proofed several of the cabinet drawers in our kitchen last night, including the area where we store some bottles of alcohol. This is significant for two reasons:

1. I had been blowing it off for way too long.

2. Because we don't want this story to happen again ...

(I did not witness this, and unfortunately there's no photo, but this is the way Kelley described it to me)

Kelley is sitting on our couch while Emily wanders into the kitchen. A few minutes later, Kelley hears clanging of glass and pots and pans. Too tired to inspect what's going on, Kelley waits on the couch. A few seconds later, a smiling Emily stumbles into living room holding an unopened bottle of rum in one hand and a giant shot glass that has not seen the light of day since the '90s in the other.

If she's already figured out that shot glasses go with bottles of alcohol, then we're in trouble. I'm hoping it was beginner's luck.

An update from the Regans

We haven't updated our blog in quite a while (ahem, a couple months!) so we figured it was time.  In all seriousness, lots has been going on in our household, and we've probably talked about updating our blog at least once a week for the past few weeks and then we haven't done it.  So now we're finally taking the plunge once again.  

So what's been happening with the Regans?  Well, most of you probably know that I'm pregnant, so that's big news in our household.  I'm due on July 4 and am finally starting to feel like myself after months of feeling sick, awful and completely exhausted 24/7.  We're obviously excited and are looking forward to the ultrasound at the end of February.  And I'm enjoying being able to eat food without feeling ill, and being able to stay up past 9:30 p.m.!  It's the little things.

Christmas and my birthday were wonderful - we saw both families (Regans on Christmas Eve, McKeons on Christmas Day) and being the only grandchild, Emily of course got lots of fun X-mas gifts.  She's still a little young to know what was going on, but we had fun watching her. Johnny was in town from Tennessee,  Sean and Amy were in town from L.A., and we all got to spend quality time together, which was great.   We did miss Carrie, but knew she was having a great time touring South America.  Here's a photo of Emily on Christmas morning, riding her new "horsey:"

Although she looks a little mortified in this photo, she really was excited about her horse!

And here's a photo of the women in the McKeon family at my mom and dad's - looking festive, or slightly goofy, whatever your pick:

Emily's doing great.  She's growing like a weed (I'm sure I've said that before on here - she just continues to be REALLY tall), and now exploring everything she can, including drawers, doors, toilets, and all sorts of things that incite us to say "NO" every time she touches them.  Poor thing - lately she must think that's the only word we know.  Luckily she hasn't figured out how to say it back to us!  And as we discovered the other day, when we found her nearly running down the hall of our condo building without our knowledge, she can also open the front door by herself.  We've learned to lock it - thank goodness she hasn't figured our lock out yet, but I have a feeling it won't be long at the rate she's going.  She seems to be more active and curious each day, which is fun to watch, but tiring at times! 

She's fighting her first cold right now, too, which is a bummer - Pat's sick too and I think I may be getting the same plague that they have.  I'm trying to will it away. 

Lastly, we thought the below photo was cute.  Emily is wanting to "wear" any clothes that we do, and she apparently wanted to wear my mom's pajama top.  So my mom put it on her and she was very happy to be wearing it, as you can see!  She's also been doing this sort of silly giant smile for the camera now, every time we try to take her photo.  We think it's pretty hilarious. 

So there's the update.  We've vowed to update this much more frequently, and will post more photos - and hopefully video - very soon.