Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Home from VT


It's official! Gabe is now a Master at the Fine Art of Creative Writing! Gabe graduated from Goddard College in Vermont this past weekend, receiving his MFA in Creative Writing. We had a wonderful time. It was great to finally meet the professors and friends Gabe has been talking about for the last two years. Here are some (a lot) of pictures from our time there, along with some explanations:


In the airport, just hanging out:



Ellis is a FANTASTIC traveler! Our doctor told us to bring along Benadryl in case Ellis was bothered by the pressure changes. I bought some but found once I was home that it says not to give it to children under the age of 4. So because I didn't know what the proper dosage would be for her, I left it home and crossed my fingers. She did splendidly traveling all day---without the help of medicine---thank goodness!

Here is Ellis' travel bed (thanks Amanda :) all set up. We
brought along her monitor and she slept great every night.




Our hotel was laughably lackluster, as shown by the "art" hanging in our room. This photograph is exactly what the actual picture looked like-- a faded or overexposed, enlarged picture of a mushroom.


On Saturday we toured the capitol of Montpelier, as well as a
Maple Syrup farm. You'll start to notice a theme developing...







Gabe in his element:


Your first clue to the theme (and we used our sling SOOOO much--thank you, Amy :):


Second clue (also it's us in front of their capitol building):



Have any guesses? Here is a MAJOR clue:





I call this one "Four Steeples" --see them all?:



Ummm...Have you figured it out yet?



Here is Ellis in the car waiting patiently for the rain to stop so we could tour the Maple Syrup farm:


Gabe in a barn during our self-guided "tour" of the Maple Syrup farm (the rain didn't stop):



Maple syrup man...a little creepy...


A barn window full of different syrups:


As part of graduation, Gabe had to do a 10ish minute long
public reading of an excerpt from his book. Here he is just
before or just after, I can't remember which. It was fun to
hear people come up to Gabe on campus later throughout the
weekend and give him great feedback. I was one proud wifey.



WE WENT TO BEN & JERRY'S!!! It was a delicious place to be.
We saw where they make the ice-cream and learned all about the
company's history and such.

Gabe and the peanut:



The theme continues:


Still sleeping...

At least Gabe and I had fun...


Here's our family photo at the entrance to campus, and yes, she's sleeping:


A funny face for her Daddio:


This is Gabe addressing one of his advisors during his graduation speech. Each graduate speaks for 2-3 minutes during the ceremony. It was very personal and fun to listen to. Of course I cried when Gabe was up:


The graduate with his wife and {sleeping} baby:


Heading home:



I took a zillion pictures of the BEAUTIFUL campus, so I'll either post them tomorrow or put them up on Flickr. And despite how much Ellis slept through our sight-seeing, she was awake to experience much of our weekend away. We must have really worn her out because she slept through all three of our flights yesterday, slept on the drive home from the airport, came home and slept until 7pm--ate---slept until 9pm---ate---slept until 5 am---ate---slept until 7am---ate---slept...and she's sleeping again as I write this!

It was a great first family trip!


Monday, June 22, 2009

We WILL NOT let fame change us.


We had a wonderful Father's Day at Wash Park yesterday. Ellis and I couldn't ask for a better father/husband, so spending the day celebrating Gabe was loads of fun! The weather was beautiful, Ellis was in a great mood, and we even got on the news! There is a link to the video at the bottom of this post.






We're famous! (And FYI, I am actually wearing a shirt in the video. However, my skin color is more similar to the shirt color than I'd realized when I got dressed yesterday morning...)


Thursday, June 18, 2009

Striking some new poses :)


Sleeping like a baby...



A neighbor called Ellis chunky today. It was music to my ears :) She is getting pleasantly plumper everyday.

Ellis has been consistently sleeping anywhere from 7 to 9 hours at night. Amen to that.

She is learning that when she frantically wiggles her whole body while lying on her play mat that the animals hanging above her will eventually move (when she bumps them), and that it's pretty funny (for all of us).

She is sooooo close to pushing herself over from her belly to her back, but not quite there yet.

If you kiss her hands over and over she thinks you're about the funniest person alive.

Her hands have found her mouth --and the CRAZY amount of saliva she's producing as of late.

Ellis will have a new cousin any day now. Pray that Kristi has a smooth smooth smooth, easy delivery. We can't wait to meet the newest Knipp!

Here are a fraction of the dozens and dozens of pictures I've taken recently. You can always check out the rest on Flickr if that interests you (MOM).






The "Orange Session"





Little pumpkin:



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

That's not a golf ball...


It's HAIL!!!  Keri and I met out at a nearby Old Navy to buy sun hats for our babies on Sunday. About 20 minutes after we left, a tornado came right through the area and even flipped a car right near where we had been!

When I got home I thought a tornado was going through the reservoir area behind our house---fences were breaking, trees were bending down to the ground--- and I yelled at Gabe to bring Ellis downstairs.  Then the sirens went off and we climbed into our closet and waited to see if we needed to go all the way underground. Thankfully, we didn't.

It would have been awful to have been out in public with Ellis with a Tornado threatening us right outside the front door.  Thank goodness we found our hats when we did! (Pictures to follow soon :)
For our end of things, it really was much less dramatic than it may sound.  Ellis slept the whole time and we just hung out in the closet while Gabe looked out the window.  

Here are some new pictures of the girlie.  She got to meet many of my coworkers today, as it was the last day of SCHOOL!  Tomorrow I'll show you some things that are growing around here...nothing disgusting, good things that are growing around here.








Tuesday, June 2, 2009

June 9th is getting SO close...



Then I'll get to spend my days with Ellis!