a day at the shore

so this summer, we were lucky enough to have my little brother and his sweet wife come live in Philly for 9 weeks for an internship at PwC. unfortunately, we found out the week they got there that we would be moving back to the new york area, but that didn't stop us from enjoying every second of family time we could before we had to leave! it was such a blessing to have them there in our final weeks in philadelphia; they were there to lift our spirits when the stress of moving seemed too much, they helped us pack, and kept bea entertained at all times. they even offered to drive our car to connecticut so i wouldn't have to drive the uhaul by myself! they took miss bea and drove our car while i drove the uhaul with bradley by my side. i NEVER want to do that again, by the way. at least not on I-95. it was such a nightmare. and in case you're wondering, crossing the GWB in a uhaul costs 35 dollars. we had no idea. we offered to pay the toll in change {we had enough in coins!} but were denied. they said they'd send uhaul a bill. and then at one toll stop, some scammers tried to tell us we scratched their car because they thought we'd be like "OH! im so sorry, i didn't even see where my big fat truck is!" except, i'm FROM new jersey! you can't fool me. oldest trick in the book. i didn't hit your car. i know exactly where it is because i ain't no fool. anyway. we made it to CT, if only a little worse for the wear. and our baby was happy as a clam because she got to hang out with uncle pete and aunt cami for 3 hours.

2 days later, my mom came to town to help me unpack, since bradley had to get straight to work, and let me just say. that woman. is amazing. we had the whole place done in like 2 days. AND we were able to consolidate {and get rid of} a ton of stuff so that we didn't even need to get a storage unit like we thought we would have to. we fit everything we have into all of our {many} closets with much room to spare. so we had 2 days to go couch shopping {side-note: bought a couch on sale. love it. half-off and free delivery! only draw is that it'll take 7-10 weeks to get made. blegh. lucky for us we have friends that let us borrow a couch in the meantime}, get pedicures, get some decorating done, and visit with friends. we kept saying how dumb we were not to take before and after pictures, it was like night and day. {pictures of the apartment to come, btw. as soon as i get that couch...} then with a heavy heart, i sent her home. couldn't keep her forever. i guess i'll let her have a life.

we really felt peter and cami's absence our first week here, and since they were set to leave philly this past monday, we decided to make a trip to philly to give them a proper goodbye. so last friday, we headed down the olde turpike. ah, the new jersey turnpike, where litter is in abundance and dreams go to die. we had a nice visit with them friday night and then saturday we took a trip to the SHORE! we planned it so we could meet up with all of our closest philly friends at the beach in ocean city, nj. we'd been to ocean city before so we felt like pros and were all set to have this great beach day and then we got on 95 and it looked like this:

it took us FOREVER to get there! and since we had to grab breakfast on the way, we were there a solid 30 minutes after everyone else, but then we had to park like. really far away. so we walked TEN {loonnnnggggg} BLOCKS {!} to where everyone was set up, tried our best to shake off the grumbles and have a good time. which we did. it was SO nice to see such great friends and enjoy ourselves in such a fun place. i'm just so glad they aren't too far away.

a fresh pedi in the sand. does it get any better? 

bea was happy enough looking at the ocean...and that is about where it stops.

ignore the doofy look on my face.

I LOVE THESE GIRLS! and their babies (:

bea fell asleep on the eternal walk back to the car. it was seriously like 2 miles.

i couldn't bear to leave her asleep fully sitting up so i seized the opportunity for the ever-elusive "dead-weight snuggle".

goodbye kisses for aunt cami

i know we were only in philadelphia for a year, but the friendships we made there will be lifelong, and for that i am so, so grateful. philly is a tough place to live, and i know i wouldn't have made it through without those friendships! i'm also so grateful for the wonderful, if a bit brief, time we got to spend with pete and cami this summer. it was such a blessing to have them around, and not just because we used them shamelessly ;) it is hard to say goodbye, and there've been a lot of goodbyes this summer, but i'm glad to know that goodbyes are only temporary. whenever i have to say goodbye to someone these days, i always think of this quote by one of my faves: 

so grateful for forever families and great friends. life is good.

dante's inferno (or, the winter that lasted forever).

i haven't blogged much at all lately, partially because i've hit what some people call a rut but what i love to call "stability." ever since we moved to our new apartment and settled in back in december, aside from holiday travels and such, it's really been more of the same. i like it that way though. some people like to constantly mix it up but i'm happy to have a solid consistent routine. the only downside of the routine we've had the past few months (and it's a big one) has been the whole horrid winter aspect of everything. i can safely say this has been the worst winter of my entire life. before, there was the snowpocalypse of 2011 that held the title but this winter, which we easterners  have affectionately named snowmageddon, takes the cake. it has been the second snowiest winter in the history of philadelphia. i hate snow. words really can't describe how much i hate snow. i hate being cold, i hate being wet, i hate staying inside. so combine that with trying to keep a one year old (who is also stuck inside and stir crazy) happy and you've got a pretty nasty few months. but i think we made the best of it that we could. we got a children's museum pass, mommy got a gym pass, i got out the happy light, and we basically just hunkered down from december until, well, now i guess. except we still can't get out much. for every nice "spring day" we've had so far, we've had 5 or 6 miserably cold or snowy days. we're not out of it yet. i used to look at the crocuses blooming in our yard as a sign of hope but now they just mock me. "see? it's spring!" they say, and then i go outside and it's 20 degrees, and oh look it's starting to snow! it's like a really mean joke. i spent all of february looking forward to march but it was all for naught. it's still horrid outside. i think we're in for one more week of it and then maybe, JUST maybe, it will stay above 40 for good. i don't know exactly why dante's inferno is always associated with fire and burning. the innermost circle of hell according to dante is actually solid ice. and i would totally have to agree with that.

to avoid completely erring on the side of negativity, as i often do in the winter time, i will say that i've made some great friends in philly who have suffered through the winter with me. there's something about the cold (and hatred thereof) that just brings people together. also, the past few months watching my own personal ray of sunshine morph from infant to toddler have been splendid. she started walking in february and now runs pretty much everywhere, which results in a lot of falling and a lot of bruises, but she doesn't seem to mind. she can say several words in sign language and has recently figured out that nodding means "yes!" she loves reading books and still dances to anything from hold music to movie credits to me just tapping my hands on the table. that girl's got the moves. she still can't seem to finish a meal without sticking her foot on the table. can't say why. she does this hilarious little look-over-the-shoulder shrug when she thinks she's being cute. she loves to facetime with grandma. she loves it when daddy comes home. she has this new thing where she grabs your clothes and pulls you in for a kiss. it is A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E. she FINALLY sleeps in a big girl crib (if i ever feel like telling the saga of the crib maybe i will) and loves it. she plays with her toys in her crib every morning for like an hour and if i come in to get her she dodges me and crawls to the corner of the crib and points to the toys she's thrown on the floor so i can pick them up so she can resume whatever game she is playing. i love that her imagination is so elaborate. i can hear her through her monitor every morning jabbering and giving what i thought were her stuffed animals kisses until one day i went in and caught her and she was actually kissing her blanket. i about died laughing. she loves her little swaddle blankets. i like that the blankets we used to wrap her up in are now the blankets she likes to snuggle with. it makes me feel like she is still that teeny baby who loved to be snuggled up like a burrito.

bradley works a lot, and i love that about him. but it makes me feel a little bit lazy. because he also helps out around the house a lot. so most of our evenings, after bea goes to bed, while he is working, our housework is essentially done and, if it's not a gym night, i really have a lot of free time. so i decided to put some of my tv watching to good use and pick up knitting again like i did back in the dorm days for service hours. i forgot how hilariously bad at knitting i am. like terrible. i was imagining myself knitting the cutest ever infinity scarf and making a few for abby when she goes on her mission..... and then it took me like 3 hours to re-master the basic knit stitch, and you can forget any other kind of stitches, and also i somehow keep accidentally adding rows to it so it just grows into this cancerous yarn mass. i bound it up and took it off the needles and bradley and i cracked up. it looks like a tank top for a homeless troll. i told bradley i would give it to a house elf for his freedom and bradley asked me if it really counted as clothes. so there's that. i'm going to keep practicing and see where it takes me. maybe i'll have that scarf by next winter.

we are really. trying. to like philadelphia. i'll be honest, it's a struggle. we absolutely love the people we have met here. we love our duplex/apartment, we love our neighborhood and how we're surrounded by the park. look:

we are in that little pocket of streets in the middle of all that greenery. it really is gorgeous, even in the winter. and that park continues all the way up (and down), the entire length of the river.

i consider that park my backyard. there are endless hiking trails and a paved bike trail that leads 7 miles all the way to the art museum in downtown philly. that, i love. and also, philadelphia has great food. but as far as cities go, it is not my favorite. while our friends are great, the people you meet on the street are undeniably grouchy. and this isn't just east-coast briskness. i've lived in new jersey and connecticut and worked in new york. i know east-coasters. and philadelphia has the meanest of the bunch. this also applies to its drivers. man oh man. it is filthy too. i can't understand why the biggest city in the country (my one and only new york. *wistful sigh*) can keep their streets so clean and why the 5th largest can't keep it together enough to get the freaking garbage out of the street. it is a riddle and a mystery. the colonial architecture is lovely and the downtown skyline is pretty but that is about 20% of philly. most of the rest is the eyesore that is urban sprawl, with the exception of several secret pretty neighborhoods like my own. the more i think about it, the more i probably realize that i don't love it simply because it's not new york. i should probably just get over it. i'll be back someday. which brings me to:

bradley is getting geared up to apply for grad schools this fall. there are several contenders, our favorite of which is a new cornell program that is a one year tech-focused MBA program in manhattan, which would be a dream come true. the others in the running are all out west, to bring us closer to family, whom we miss so very terribly. i hate living far away from my mom. i don't know how she did/does it (live far away from her mom, not me). maybe i'm just a baby. but i hate it. one day, once bradley is done with school, maybe we can get a little closer to our parents (who are both in utah now).

anyway. what was going to be a quick update turned out to be way longer than i'd expected. but that seems to be the way of the blog.

home, sweet home

ok you guys. life at the cummings house has been one big ball of nerves these past 2 weeks! let me start at the beginning.
when we first found out we were moving to philly, we had ONE DAY (UNO DIA!) to find a place to live before we moved. we knew nothing about the city, its neighborhoods, its rental seasons (student influxes etc), or its character. we knew nothing!!! so after a long day of looking at ritzy places in terrifying neighborhoods and terrible places in ritzy neighborhoods, we were losing steam and losing hope. and then we met our final appointment and found our adorable little home in the sweet neighborhood of manayunk. aside from being cute to boot, the house's only selling point was that it was the only property we saw that whole day that had a washer and a dryer. it was the best choice we could have made at the time. and we've enjoyed it and made it our own.

however.

we live on a steep, one way street in a very popular part of town. with no parking. with a baby.

this means that when i go grocery shopping, i halt my car in front of my house, turn on my hazards lights, unload everything into the house while my baby fusses in the car, drive around til i find a spot while the baby is still fussing, and carry a grumpy baby several blocks BACK to my house.

it means that if we want to go out and are brave enough to lose our parking space in the evening, we get home at 11, drive around for 20 minutes looking for parking, and walk 6 blocks with a grumpy baby back to the house. (we can't split up because bradley can't parallel park and i can't walk home alone because it's dark and this is philadelphia, people!)

it basically means that unless i want to do either of those things or any variation thereof, i simply can't leave my house after 3:30 pm. i'm already tied down to my house to begin with because my little darling is still taking two naps a day. i was going CRAZY being tied down because of the stress of parking. and the fact that the house has no dishwasher certainly was not helping its case.
we decided to weed out the stress in our lives and start looking for a different place to live. it was a hard decision to make, since we haven't lived here long, and we put so much into this little house, but we've found a great place in a great location with parking AND a dishwasher AND central air (wahoo!) AND the best part...it's less expensive than where we live now!

the only problem was that we had to sell our contract here before we could sign a lease on this new great place. so i worked some craigslist magic and got a pair of tenants (interior designers, no less) interested in the house. but they backed out the night before we were supposed to sign our new lease. so we got our future landlord to reschedule with us while we frantically searched for new tenants. after a fair amount of stress, tears and prayers, we found the perfect couple to come lease this house and can now finally move forward in signing our new lease! it doesn't sound so bad now that i'm reading it but YOU GUYS! it was seriously one of the most stressful weeks of my life! no lie. but it is finally over and i am so so so so grateful. the Big Guy is definitely looking out for our little family.

i figured i'd put up some of the pictures i used for the craigslist ad on here, just so our little family can remember our first house in philly.

i'll definitely miss my colors, but my stress levels are about to plummet, so i'm excited for this move. plus we get to stay in our awesome ward! i'm especially happy about that. 

in other news, some of you might have noticed i have a very adorable 9 month old baby. she can crawl, cruise, point, wave, and say dada all day long. she loves going on long walks and eating remote controls. she loves cheerios, yogurt, and puppies (real or fake) {she doesn't eat puppies she just likes them}. she is terrified of anyone with a beard, except her own daddy of course. {this does not exclude her grandpa, however.} she does that thing dogs do where they crawl around in circles before finding the perfect place and position to plop down and sleep, only, she plops down face first and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it. she loves sleeping on all fours, face planted in the sheets. it cracks us up. she pulls herself to stand on just about anything she can reach. she loves to gasp in air and make that sound that comes out when you're breathing in between really hard laughs. she has 3 teeth. she has brown eyes now. she is growing more hair, slowly but surely. she is happier than any baby i have ever seen in my entire life. she is smiling about 98% of the time. she is terrified of the doctor, as any healthy child should be (men with needles=scary). she has the most sensitive gag reflex in the world; breathe on her wrong, and she'll throw up on you. she hates swimming but loves baths. she loves her daddy. she loves music and dancing. she loves books. she can't hold still for more than 5 seconds. she loves kisses, whether she's getting them or giving her special slobbery ones.

i never would have thought it possible, but i wake up every morning loving her more than i did the day before. i am so lucky to be able to be her mom. 

she never holds still long enough to rest her head on anyone. this moment is a sweet but rare one.

so that's what we're up to these days! i was long overdue for a personal update, my conscience is clear now (:

what we're up to and things of that nature

has it SERIOUSLY been a month since i blogged last? well that's just nuts. prrrrrrobably because interesting things have ceased to happen around here. as i mentioned in this post, we are all settled into our new place and getting used to life in a city very different from what we are used to. but, on the whole, things are goin' allllright. i found a yoga studio around the corner who just so happened to be doing a living social deal (24 classes for 24 bucks! wahoo!) so i jumped on it in a moment of panic and am now committed. luckily, i really enjoy it. and turns out i'm pretty good at it too...! who knew, right? and my walks to and from yoga are always interesting. like that time when that woman (who i'm pretty sure was a hooker) asked me if i knew a guy named swordfish who was supposed to meet her on that corner. ah, philadelphia, such vibrant culture you display.

i've also noticed that i keep posting statuses of funny quotes bradley says, so instead of losing them all to the facebookerverse, never to be found again, i've been cataloguing them all on a tumblr called : StuffBradleySays. it continues to be a hit with people who know and understand our humor....
in other news, i was thinking today about how my days have changed since bea has turned 5 months old. as i mentioned here, one of my concerns before Bea was born was that i wouldn't know how to fill my days with her. when bea was a newborn-2 months, i wrote here about how we typically spent our days together. but schedules change as behbehs grow and naps dissappear. so i figured i'd jot down our typical day again, for future reference, once my babynesia kicks in and i'm clueless about numero dos.

so. here.
4:30/5:30a - bea wakes up for a quick feeding, which bradley takes care of, then she promptly goes back to sleep

7:30/8a - bea wakes up for the day. this is earlier than she used to but i'm cool with it. it's nice that she wakes up before bradley leaves for work so we can have some family time in the morning.
we play for a little while and then she has a bottle so she can have her.....

9:00a - morning nap. i used to do naps on demand (put her down whenever she seemed tired) which is GREAT for young babies and worked really well for me. but, 3 weeks ago, when i was agonizing about bea not napping as well anymore, i re-skimmed my favorite baby sleep book, healthy sleep habits, happy child. it was saying how around 4-5 months, it's time to get on a nap schedule. made sense, BUT at the same time, this was a moment i dreaded, mostly because i liked running errands with bea on my own time and terms and didn't want to be confined to my house several times a day. but bear with me. things work out. and now she naps so it's a win win.

10/10:30a - about now, bea wakes up from her nap. i play with her for a few minutes so she is nice and awake, then we go for our morning walk in the park. which is freaking gorgeous, might i add. here's a peek:

12:00p - we come back, i put bea down for her early afternoon nap while i shower, get a couple things done (throw in a load of laundry, make my bed, etc)

1/2:00p -bea wakes up. depending on the previous night's sleep, she naps anywhere between 1 to 3 hours for this nap. when she gets up, we run our errands. (target, trader joes, home depot and the like). i try to be home by....

3:30-4:30p - since our neighborhood is a hot nightlife spot, people start coming in as early as 5 pm! and since we only have street parking and are only a block from the main strip of restaurants and bars, i need to get home in time to ensure i have a place to park that is not in siberia.
if bea's early afternoon nap was short, i put her down for another nap now. if we get home after 4:30 i cut my losses and skip the last nap and just play for a while.

5:30p - if bea is asleep still, i start on dinner. if she's up, i put her in her swing or her exersaucer while i start on dinner.

6:00p - daddy comes home!!! bradley plays with bea while i finish up dinner, she swings while we eat and do the dishes

6:45ish pm - bath time! it's so hot and sticky here, we are doing a lot more baths. she loves cooling off and splashing, and she doesn't even cry when we get her hair wet now! (or at least what's left of it....)

7-7:30p - bed time! if i have yoga that night, bradley takes care of bedtime. but i like it best when i get to do it....i should let him do some things though, right???

see? not hard to fill the days as a new mom. and we even get exercise in!

i love that baby. life is good.

our first week in philly

so. we're all moved in. and by that i mean all of our stuff is in our house. that does not by any means mean that it is unpacked or organized in any fashion. but! my stuff is here! somewhere....
here are some quick snapshots of home so far...

dining room and snippet of my kitchen 

living room

as you can see, it's definitely a work in progress....but considering i've only been working since monday and all those rooms were completely filled with boxes before, i'd say i'm clipping along at an okay pace.

to give you guys an idea about where we are, we are in a neighborhood of philadelphia called "manayunk". i didn't know anything about philadelphia before except for that the liberty bell is here so knowing anything about neighborhoods took a bit of research. {it's strange, philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the US, you'd think i would know at least something about it! nope.} manayunk is located in the northwest part of the city, right against the schuylkill river. here's a map:

so we live up there, and bradley works in the middle (what the lokes {locals. abbreevs.} call "center city"). on the map, it's that tiny yellow square in the middle called "rittenhouse". it's about a 15 minute train ride. so that's nice for him.

another thing i knew about philadelphia before is that it was so dangerous that this clown had to leave it and live in bellaire.

so. not the pinnacle of safety. i did a lot of research and found that the more north-westerly you get, the safer it tends to be. so we're good on that front. i also didn't know of any parts of it that were particularly..ahem..how you say...cool? cool. yes. philadelphia just did not seem cool to me. and i'll be honest. i am still trying to make it seem cooler than i had previously thought. you see, i always pictured myself living in new york. and i thought most cities of comparable size would be somewhat similar.
wrong.
wrong wrong wrong wrong.
philadelphia covers a wide area, so there was no need to build "up" really, so much as build "out". so there aren't a ton of really tall buildings except for several office buildings in center city. the rest of the  area looks a lot like queens. just kind of arm-pit, eyesore kind of stuff. it's also strange in that it is very "block by block". in new york, there are neighborhoods that are safe, and neighborhoods that are not. in philly, there are blocks where you can walk down any time of day and then the next street over people get shot once a week. or there will be a super cute street right next to a street where literally every single building is bombed out and abandoned. weird stuff. of course, there are a handful of small neighborhoods closer to center city that are GORGEOUS and packed with history, like this:

most of philadelphia does not look like this. i know, sad.

but they are also like a bajillion dollars for anything more than one bedroom. (not as expensive as the new york area of course but still out of our budget).

so, back to manayunk. it's a safe area. and it's actually cool! the main street of our neighborhood is apparently notorious throughout the city for having some of the best restaurants, boutiques, and bars (like we care? lol) in the city. and our house is only 2 blocks from main street! main street looks like...well... if park city, the west village, austin, and any small town in europe had a baby, you'd get our town. it's very funky and unique. the only issue with our town being such a lively spot is that parking is a beast (it's on-street parking.) because literally every night of the week, people flood in from all over to partake of our town's nightlife. and, since philadelphia has more higher education facilities than any other city in the US (who knew?!), there's a lot of college student partying going on. we technically live in a college-town. but there are always police around and people always card at restaurants, so things normally stay pretty much under control. here are some pictures i've snapped of our neighborhood so far:

that bridge is so much bigger and more epic in real life. it marks the entrance to our neighborhood. a lot of the buildings around here are made of that sort of stone. 

main street and some pretty stairs

our street! and the church around the corner that has really pretty bells that ring each hour.

but the BEST thing about our location, besides being right in town and close to main street, is that we are RIGHT on the border of the city, so i am literally 5 minutes from a real live suburban target! and 15 minutes from costco! 10 minutes from IKEA! and 15 minutes from one of the biggest malls ever! i didn't even have that in new canaan! i was 25 minutes from a target there, and an hour from ikea...and even then, it was a city target with no parking. so this is an upgrade in the convenience department. i am even only 25 minutes from the airport. the only thing that is less convenient is that our church is 11 minutes away instead of 3. *wah*

we are also still reasonably close to new york. it's about a 90 minute drive, so if we wanted to take a quick weekend jaunt there, we totally could.

ok enough about all that! i'll give you what you came for! a video of some of bea's first giggles! she has recently begun to giggle from time to time, and it is ADORABLE! ignore my singing. it's a song i made up about her farts. she thinks it's very funny, apparently.

that's all for now!