ohhhhhhhhhh mexico

thinking about mexico always makes me think of that james taylor song...

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now

well the week of feb 12th started our annual trip to the riviera maya where my parents' have their timeshare. after the winter we've had here in chicago, i can definitely say i was SUPER ready for some sunshine. warm warm sunshine.
this year was a little different in that my brother couldn't come because he had to work. and so for the first time ever, i was able to invite a friend to join me and my parents for part of the week. since kyle is always game to jump on a plane last minute and sit on a beach, she flew in late tuesday night!

on wed, we drove down to akumal which is this great little town with a gorgeous area in which to snorkel. this is me and kyle snorkeling in the blue blue water.

after snorkeling, we love to go to la buena vida which is a really tasty restaurant with a fabulous location right on the beach. here's me and mom and dad.

me and kyle

mom and dad.

the restaurant has all these fun swings!

we spent most of the rest of our time on the beach. lounging. and having the various wait staff bring us our lunch. we were so lazy. occasionally i would go for a swim in the ocean... i also read 3 books down there! and watched the boys play beach volleyball. i won't lie. behind my sunglasses my eyes were definitely watching the shirtless top gun style beach volleyball games that happened every single day! for several nights during our trip, we drove in to playa del carmen for dinner. one night, we ate at this place called season bistro just off 5th ave - it was such a cute restaurant and the food was really good! and then on thursday night (which was also my parents' last night as they had to leave a day early), we went to the really nice restaurant at the resort, los murales. it was delicious!!! and it was decorated so prettily. we'd not eaten there before and i am so glad we did!

this was our dessert - we'd seen other people get the 'fire dessert' and so of course we wanted one too. we were all sitting down and the next thing we know, all these waiters had come over. well, kyle and i decided that we needed to hop right on up and get a picture with all of them!

a family portrait.

dessert on fire! fun fun! it wasn't bananas foster, but it was something similar. and super tasty!

me and kyle at dinner

and that there ends the family time. after hours, kyle and i met up with our new friends from the beach/resort. let me tell you, this resort is rockin'! the bar closes down technically at 11. but last call is always about 10:45pm at the latest. but don't worry, we still found ways to have too much fun!

i wish we'd taken more pictures, but alas we did not. this was our last night there (friday night). we'd eaten dinner at the palapa restaurant with our new friends, andy and mike, and afterward went to the circle bar.

where someone thought it would be a GREAT idea to do tequila and jaeger shots. they were huge!!

a group shot. not the best, but it'll have to do cause it's the only one i have. like i said, unfortunately i didn't take too many pictures. oh well. anyways. on the left is chris aka jersey shore (he lives in philly, but grew up in nj). then kyle and me. then mike (who lives in cincy) and andy who lives in pa. andy's & chris' parents have timeshares the same week as my parents and since it never changes, i'll see those guys over the next however many years. fun!

kyle and i thought we needed a picture in one of the water fountains. that friday night was a lot of fun and a great way to end the vacation. but i was sad to see it be over!! alas, isn't that how every vacay is?!

lil bunny piper.

continuing on that song thing... remember that song 'little bunny foo foo'? you know, hopping through the forest...

anyways, while patrick was out of town leslie came to visit devon (and i like to think me!) and help out with piper. unfortunately i was out of town for most of her visit, but les did me a HUGE favor and i REALLY appreciate it!!!! BIG BIG THANK YOU shout out to les! leslie managed to surprise devon with tara and tara managed to surprise devon and leslie with jen - i'm sure leslie and/or devon will tell you all about that though. anyways, the plan was for leslie and tara (and then jen) to stay at my house so there would be enough room for everyone. as i mentioned, i was gone which meant that my poor poor otis needed someone to feed and love him. instead of having to pay a service to help me out, leslie took excellent care of otis. he told me so himself. in fact, he asked for her to stay longer...

i got home late sat from my trip to mexico and on sunday i met leslie, devon and piper for brunch at hot chocolate. YUM! we had a lovely lovely brunch on a rainy rather depressing day. afterwards, dev needed to get some errands done and so i babysat piper for a couple hours. piper now insists on holding her own bottle - so freaking cute! it's amazing to see how strong she is getting! and then her eyes slowly slowly got heavy and she fell asleep. we snuggled a bit and then i put her in her crib and turned on her little heartbeat lamby. and then i checked in on her and freaked out that she was on her tummy and tried to make her lie on her back which of course woke her up. but all i knew (or thought i knew) was that sleepy time on the tummy was bad for babies so i dunno! i'm sorry for waking the baby dev!!! now i know it's ok to just let her sleep however because she's strong enough and able to roll over now and so she's fine. but i wasn't about to let anything bad happen to that baby on my watch! of course miss piper was not going to go back to sleep so we just played and bounced. and then les and dev got back from their run to target and we hung out for awhile...and took a few pictures.

auntie les was holding up the background. i just loved this action shot. aaaaaand face plant!

while at target auntie les and mommy found an adorable bunny hat that miss piper had to have. how cute is this little bunny!?

awwwww, how cute is our devs with her baby piper?!?! dev dev is such a good mommy and i love seeing her with her daughter!!

bunny!!

self portrait!

here momma, you have the paci.

my camera so does not take as good of pictures as devon's does... it may or may not have to do with the person actually taking the photos (me)... ha. but i try! points for trying, right?!

baby baby baby!

so this is an old post... but i recently came across these pics from a day that dev and i spent in the park last summer. and i thought they were just too darn cute not to post! look how little that adorbs lil' baby piper was!!

pretty sure she was napping on my shoulder here. love love love baby naps on shoulders!!

awwwwwww, hiiiiiiiiii baaaaaaaaby!!

stars on ice.

ok, maybe not exactly stars on ice... but a couple weeks ago stefanie and i did go to millenium park and go ice skating! the park offers free ice skating and ice skate rental for ten bucks.

so, we skated around and around on a virtually empty ice rink in the middle of the day and had a great time!

stef did fall... but not me!

the chicago skyline was so pretty! that day was pretty darn cold, but we lasted til the sun started to go down and the wind picked up.

caaaaaaallliforniaaaaa loooooove! part 3

in SM, we got to do all kinds of fun things: a little shopping, a little dessert eating and a lot of good girlie hanging out. and then on friday afternoon, my cousin caitlin came to visit for the afternoon and for dinner with the girls. she'd been in dallas visiting her friends over the new year and had gotten back in to town the day before (so i'd missed her in malibu). in the afternoon, i got a mani, she got a pedi and then we went for coffee and a little window shopping down SM blvd. it was so fun to see miss caitlin since it'd been too long!

that evening, sarah, cath, and i went to get our hair blown out. it was at this new blow dry place on san vicente. caitlin didn't get her hair done - and look how fabulous us cousins look! bet you can't even tell i'm 10 years older than her! :)

here are the c/katherines with our fabulous new do's.

ohhhhh sarah! c'mon!! she didn't want her pic taken, but i took it anyways!

we went for a super yummy dinner at tavern where sarah mac joined us!

i don't get to see caitlin that often - it was so good to see her (she's going to nyu right now)- i can't believe how grown up she is - she turns 22 in may!

lovely ladies if i do say so myself!

sarah sandwich!! and more lovely ladies!

after dinner, i switched homes again and went home with sarah mac for a quick visit to glendale! for some reason i don't have any pictures, but in fairness we only had one full day. we got to have brunch with the dave in the morning and then we got in a $25/50 min massage at this fabulous place in pasadena. omg, heavenly!! later that evening, the three of us went to dinner at a mexican place where we all enjoyed our margaritas and food. and then it was time for me to say goodbye on the 9th of jan (a sunday) and head back to chicago.

a very very very BIG BIG BIG thank you to all my hosts, friends, and drivers for such a wonderful trip!!!!!!

caaaaaaallliforniaaaaa loooooove! part 2

after my short stopover in newport, brendan said he would drive me to malibu with a quick stop in santa monica to pick up my stuff from catherine's house. so super nice of b to drive me all around!! cath got to meet b briefly as they were home from the beach when we stopped by to grab my bag (in the rain). it was a short goodbye as i knew i'd be joining the myman kaplan household again in a few days.

my aunt and uncle moved to malibu from dallas last summer. they live in the point dume neighborhood and can easily walk to the beach. check out these paddleboarders! there were several of them - it was not the warmest of days either - can't imagine how cold that water was!

my aunt ellen, uncle jim, and one of their two dogs, milly. every day we took a walk down to the beach and back. we also went to see a movie - the fighter - that was excellent as well! i didn't think i'd enjoy it since i am not a fan of boxing, but i was really surprised at how much i liked it.

twhile there, ellen and jim graciously allowed me to stay in their guesthouse! this was my living room.

and here are the stairs up to my bed/bathroom. i forgot to take a picture upstairs. oh well.

did you know there are parrots in malibu that just are wild and roam around?! yep, there are. and here are a few of them.

this is a view of the sun setting over the ocean - and the view from my window in the bedroom. so when can i move in?!?!

we ate a couple of dinners at home that jim cooked (YUM! home cooked food?! yes, please!!!) and then we'd eat the amazing cookies that sarah mac had made all of us. omg, the three of us couldn't stop talking about how good all the different kinds of cookies were. i think she'd made like 5 or 6 different kinds. so good. mmmmmmmm.... we also went to dinner one night at a greek restaurant in malibu where we dined on delicious food while kid rock and some girl ate dinner at the table right behind us in the direction i was facing. and yes, he was wearing his hat.

and then after about 3 days with ellen and jim, ellen drove me back down to santa monica where i was staying with catherine again!

caaaaaaallliforniaaaaa loooooove!

gosh, all these songs keep popping in to my head for titles... and then they stick for awhile. in any case, for NYE i decided a trip to ca was in the cards and so i decided to take 10 days and visit a bunch of friends.

i started my visit off at catherine's house where we had a great time! we got to go out to dinner and go see the king's speech which is an amazing movie. loved it!

and then ms lyman picked me up and we went to san clemente to ring in the new year. catherine and her family went to the beach with her family to celebrate.

how cute is this picture of courtney's two boys?!

until devon figured out why my camera was turning everything orange and blurry, i got quite a few crappy pictures, but here is lil piper meeting her auntie sarah.

and here piper is meeting both her auntie sarahs!

sarah and dave brought alex his christmas present: some construction set with thousands of little parts! awesomeness!! here is everyone playing before courtney's other guests arrive for the evening.

a cougar in training?! here piper is with her scripps aunts

i just loved all the action in this pic!

what's so funny girls?!

here are all the scrippsies in attendance. it makes me so so excited for reunion!!!

kisses!

more kisses! apparently i didn't get the memo though...

we also played pool. until i was looking through my pics i'd forgotten about the ones on courtney's phone - she has all the funny pool playing pictures. ahem, c, where are they?!

eventually we all tuckered out and went to sleep. a VERY BIG thank you to courtney, peter, alex and sidonia for hosting such a wonderful NYE and letting us all stay over.

and then it was time to say goodbye to everyone (big sad face!!). even alex was sad to see 'baby hyper' as he called her go. could this be a potential match in the future?!?! here's alex saying bye to the baby hyper who looks like maybe she could care less.

from san clemente, i made a trip up to newport to visit brendan for the day/night. since devon, patrick and the pipes were headed to irvine, they said they'd give me a ride to newport. another BIG thank you for the ride! btw, where are all the guys in the above pics... ehhh, they were there... anyways, me and brendan spent the afternoon hanging out and watching bowl games over a few drinks and then that evening we met courtney and simon and their little girl, sammie, for a few drinks and apps at the rusty pelican.

courtney, sam, and simon (mom and dad are former nnn'ers)

we forgot to get a picture of all of us at the rusty p so we set up the self timer on simon's trunk (he'd given us a lift to/from the restaurant) and took this far off picture. in any case, that's brendan, courtney, simon and me.

simon and me: we were former partners in the east coast territory all those years ago. gosh, it seems like a million years ago... it was more like 7...

me and b being goofy