A Doggie Happy Hour Shower

Last Friday night our amazing Doggie Happy Hour (DHH) crew threw us a baby shower. We haven't seen our DHH crew as much lately (doesn't help that half of the original crew moved away and the other half have had babies) so it was great to get everyone together.

Liddy was most excited as she doesn't see her old friends as much anymore. Sadly, Casper and Wasaki were not there, but she had fun catching up with Layla and Zibby. Liddy was also thrilled to see Carlyn and spent much of the night seeking her attention.

The food (as with all DHH gatherings) was great! Fiona went above and beyond (especially considering she's got a baby to deal with) and mde her famous chicken and some awesome mac 'n cheese! Amanda and Logan (who hosted, thanks guys!) grilled up some burgers and Melissa brought her famous Texas Caviar (my fav!). For dessert, Amanda had bought an ice cream cake which is the best kind of cake in my opinion!

Baby boy, yet again, got spoiled with lots of great gifts, including some adorable onsies that Larry made (I realized I haven't taken pictures of those yet, so will do so and post later).

It was a great night and we can't wait for baby boy to meet our DHH friends and become another member of the group--besides, he does have two adorable young ladies (Lilly and Marley) that he can start cozying up to! :)

Road trip. Detour-Blacksburg...

On our drive home from Charlotte, we decided to take a slight detour and have lunch in Blacksburg. While it was a little out of the way, it was still a great break from our drive and a good excuse to check out campus and eat at one of our favorite restaurants.

We drove around campus for a bit and even got some photos on the drill field and in front of Burruss. I feel that baby boy is now officially betrothed to Virginia Tech! :)



Campus looked fantastic--amazing the difference between November (when we were last there) and the middle of summer. Everything was so green and the landscaping looked great! Just another reminder of why it is the best school around! :)





After snapping some photos we headed over to the bookstore and loaded up on some new hokie gear for the upcoming football season (less than a month away folks!) I was also hoping to buy some stuff for baby boy, but it was all so expensive, so we figured we'd save the money and put it towards his Va Tech tuition! :)

We then headed to Macados for lunch and enjoyed every second of it! We had fun reminiscing and of course devoured our sandwiches as well!



After lunch we decided to grab a few things for the car ride home (a soda for Andy and ice cream for me). We settled on "Deets Place" as the stopping point (a coffee shop on campus that we frequented quite often when we were in college and dating) and quickly parked nearby to run in and get our goodies. Sadly, it was closed, and in the three minutes we were away from the car we were given the wonderful (and yet not unexpected) gift of a VT parking ticket. Ah the memories...I think we both received our fair share of tickets during our time at Tech, and we're happy to donate the $30 back to our beloved Alma Mater.



Still laughing about the ticket, we headed to TCBY to indulge my ice cream craving and then it was back to 81 for the drive home.

Looking forward to our next trip when we can actually show baby boy our Alma Mater (and his future school!) :) Go Hokies (old and new) :)

Road trip. Destination-Charlotte...

As I am past the deadline for flying, I enlisted Andy's help in getting me to and from my most recent meeting taking place in Charlotte. It's the same event we traveled to NYC for last year, and one of the nicer meetings I attend each year, so it's a good one for Andy to attend anyhow.

We left on Sunday afternoon (after completing our birth prep class) and while we had quite a bit of traffic, we enjoyed some good music, and of course played the license plate game to entertain ourselves. We also stopped in a random town in North Carolina for dinner and had a great meal at a local dive.

We finally arrived at our destination, The Ballantyne Hotel, around 9:45. We had a great room (an upgrade to a suite) and we even had a bottle of wine waiting for us (a lot of good that did me! ha).






On Monday we had a golf outing with some of my members at the Carolina Lakes golf course in South Carolina (only 9 miles from our hotel). It was very hot and humid, but we kept hydrated and had a good time. The course was very challenging with at least 4 or 5 bunkers on each hole (we spent a lot of time at "the beach!") Despite the sand, we still had a good time and managed to play pretty well.




My events took place Monday evening and all day Tuesday, and while Andy participated in the Monday evening events, he was able to have some time to himself on Tuesday. He took advantage of the pool and the driving range and got some good sun, making those of us who were stuck in a meeting room all day rather jealous.




We then hit the road yesterday morning to head back home. We continued our license plate game and I'm happy to report that we spotted 42 states (including DC). The states alluding us:
*Alaska
*Hawaii
*South Dakota
*North Dakota
*Kansas
*Washington
*Rhode Island
*Louisiana
*Nevada
*Wyoming

I still think this was a record...can't wait until we have a third set of eyes to help us out! :)

Happy Birthday Ommy!!

Andy's mom's birthday was on Monday and to celebrate we all headed to Foster's Grill in Fairfax. It was the perfect venue for our gang to gather as we had plenty of space to spread out, and what could be better than burgers and fries!?

We were a few family members short as Heidi, Shawn and Garrett are up in Toronto and John and Drew were at basketball camp, but getting 11 of us together is still a pretty good victory!





Momma Gribbs got some nice gifts as well, including a new camera from Poppa Gribbs (hence the great pictures we got), some home decor from Amy, the "Chess" soundtrack featuring Josh Groban from Bebe, beautiful flowers from Heidi, and a bottle of Kettle One vodka from us. We figure she might need it after grandson number 7 comes along! :)

The folks at the restaurant even brought her some cake and ice cream and we serenaded her with not one, but two rounds of "Happy Birthday to You."



As far as birthday parties go, I'd say this was a pretty successful one--laid back, relaxed, and an opportunity to celebrate Mom, Momma Gribbs, Ommy, M Gribble the First, Momma G, etc. etc :)

The Crib has arrived!

Yesterday was very exciting as we got to pick up the crib which was ordered about two months ago. I picked it up during the work day and was so excited to get home and to get it all set up. Andy had heard at work from some folks that it was going to take FOREVER to put together, and he heard lots of "good lucks."

Well, within about 20 minutes we had the whole thing set up and even had the bedding in it. Thank you Belfort for making quality furniture with VERY organized tools and instructions! Andy even tested it out by laying in it, and alas, it survived, so baby boy should be nice and safe in there!





We still have work to do to finish off the nursery, including hanging things on the walls, buying a few more lamps, etc...but having the crib together definitely made it finally seem like a nursery.




For those worry warts out there, I don't plan on keeping the bumpers in the crib, in fact even if I wanted to, I couldn't because the crib doesn't really work with them, but I figured for a few pictures it would be fun to have it on there (and yes, I realize it is backwards, but you couldn't see the pattern at all from outside the crib).

We even got to test out what a baby will look like in the crib as we've been borrowing "Becky" since we announced we were pregnant. Becky is Andy's mother's doll from growing up and she's given her to all her kids to practice on while they were pregnant---we are happy that Becky finally has an appropriate place to sleep! :)



Liddy is definitely starting to sense that something is going on. She is so curious about the nursery and we often find her in there sniffing around and now we find her in there just staring at the crib. Too cute! We can't wait for her to meet her new best friend and from the looks of it, neither can she!



Thanks Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa) for the crib--we LOVE it and we know baby boy will sleep soundly in it (or so we hope...fingers crossed!)

A surprise office shower!

I've never really had a "surprise" party before, but my awesome co-workers sure did pull off a great one today! Here I thought I was headed into meeting 3 of 4 today to discuss some new policies, when in fact it was a baby shower!! MUCH better than a policy meeting!




We played some games, to include a "guess who I am" baby photo game--fun to see my colleagues as babies--"finish that nursery rhyme"--"guess how many M&M's"--and "Bingo". Very clever and everyone had a great time playing along. It was especially fun hearing 30 people debate about how a nursery rhyme actually goes!





I got some really great gifts, including my Boppy pillow, tons of onsies and bibs, gift cards (yay!), and some adorable outfits, including a fantastic rain jacket from L.L. Bean! Even Liddy got a gift--a yummy bone---so now she won't feel so left out.




I am still in shock and am so thankful to my co-workers for their great support, I know they are going to do a great job while I'm away on maternity leave, which would actually have been present enough!

Thanks AMG (especially Ali, Nicole and Erin!) :)

A friends and family baby shower...

Yesterday, my sister, Ami, and Abby threw me a fantastic baby shower! It was so much fun and I got to catch up with family and friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in quite some time.

They used our sailor theme and played that throughout the shower. They were very clever and even had some of my old teddy bears dressed in little sailor outfits--which both belonged to my brother! Ami's daughters, Rachel and Laura, were in attendance (it was there house after all) and they even dressed the part, both in blue outfits, Rachel even had sail boats on her dress--too cute!







My sister made the great centerpiece of the party, an adorable diaper cake! I was so impressed--she is so talented at that stuff! I haven't had the heart to disassemble it yet, and I'm not sure when I will--I suppose some night when we realize we've used our last diaper...hmmm..




The food was great and I think everyone left with some new recipes to try at their next event. The company was even better--including our dear family friend Rosemary who drove all the way from Myrtle Beach, my aunt Anne who drove from Charlottesville, and my cousin Meghan who came from Baltimore to be there!




We played two games, a baby themed word scramble (Romey blew the competition away with that) and shower gift Bingo (Erica and Jenn tied). Then it was on to opening gifts, which was no small task!

Baby boy got a TON of great gifts! Everything from a stroller to a high chair to a boppy swing and tub and several cute outfits. He also got tons of bath gear, including toys, towels, wash cloths and soap. He also got some treasurers, including a very nice night light from Auntie Bebe which has a Noah's Arc theme, it is so precious, and we also got from cousin Jackie a Swarovski Sweet Dream catcher in sapphire (perhaps baby boy's birth stone!) so thoughtful and original!





Grandma's gift came last and took quite some time to open! She has been a busy bee for sure! She made us a TON of burp cloths--with different fabrics on them to jazz up the boring white (a big thanks to Jenn who also made us some custom burp cloths, including one with a golf theme, so cute!). In true mom fashion, she also knitted not one, not two, but THREE baby blankets for us. All in different colors and different patterns-definitely worth treasuring for a long long time. She was also busy digging up (and cleaning) an assortment of baby clothes that belonged to my brother (yes, they are 34 years old, but they look great!) She also dug up some old baby blankets, one of which my dad's mom, Grammy, crocheted for Mark. She also gave us the Baptismal blanket that all three of us used and we'll be happy to pass the tradition on to baby boy. Phew!! It was tiring even writing about it all :)







After all the gift opening, everyone was treated to a yummy cupcake as a reward for watching all of that! :)




As if the shower wasn't enough, I got to relive it all when I got home and got to show Andy all the great things we got. It was a mini-shower for him and he was also so thankful for all the great support we are getting from everyone.



Now if only baby boy was around to help with all the thank you notes...