Holy smokes! I had no idea it had been over TWO months since my last post. Life in our household has been crazy to say the least!
In June & July we went on several trips:
Las Vegas

I can not believe that I have a 2 year old that has now been to Vegas THREE times. Insane.

Orlando (for my annual Stella & Dot convention!)



San Francisco

MattyB and I had to take a trip to Long Beach, CA for a business convention this past weekend. We left the humid southeast Friday night & arrived in 2 hours later to LAX :)

Oh that time change.

So here is a wonderful synopsis of our trip as told by Instagram & pictures on my phone.

If you ever make it to Tampa, FL....you must pay a visit to The Columbia. It's a historical landmark & it has some awesome food. It was a pleasant surprise to find that our airport now has a mini version!

admiring my nails & my "special date" :)

So I ate these sinful creations called 'black bean cakes'. Literally like a deviled crab, but without the crab & with black beans. They were served with sour cream AND guacomole. It took every bone in my body to NOT spoon the remainder of the guacomole into my mouth.

temptation at its finest!

Boarded our plane at 7pm EST, landed in California at 9:15pmPST.

Hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream & no cardigan. 
It was chilly.

After a horrendous time at LAX, we finally made it to our hotel. I'm not gonna lie, part of the "horrendous" visit comes from the fact that it was a total buzz kill. I had built up this grand idea in my head that I would have some celebrity sightings & that TMZ would stop us on the way to our car.

Neither happened. Buzz kill.

So anyways, the car took us to our hotel & we hit the hay. Flights from the east coast to west coast & vice versa are so draining.

We had to get up early the next morning to tend to business. Once that nonsense was done, we meandered about the area.

ventured to the marina area

Looked for lunch around 10am PST because we were still on EST.
Ended up at the movies to see The Hangover 3 (a matinee....holy cow).


Once we had our fill of touristy shenanigans, we ventured back to the hotel. I indulged in a fabulous Frap & some people watching.

perhaps i should have opted for tanning....

We had business to do that night, so off to the races it was.


 Followed by an overpriced dinner at a restaurant in the marina area.



The next day was more business. By this point my feet were KILLING me. 



I love my wedges, and rarely have the chance of wearing them. So duh, a weekend away with the hubby, no baby - I was pulling out all the stops.

Pssshhhhhh! My feet were not having it.

We finished out our day with a yummy meal at Yen Sushi on 2nd Street. Delish!

riding the elevator down :) didn't snap a picture of Yen

Our last day - I bugged Sarah to meet up with me for coffee. It was such a refreshing break from work. She's as down to earth in person as she is on her blog.


After coffee it was back to the convention for the last time! I sported flats rather than the wedges. Finally wised up a bit.

Once our business portion of the trip was finally done, we had a few hours to waste. So we ate at the Rock Bottom Brewery across from our hotel. Granted it was 4pm PST, so we arrived in perfect time for their happy hour. I have zero interest in beer, but appetizers I'm ALL about - - -> and they were YUM!

After engorging ourselves we walked again & ended up at this $1 Book Store.....literally everything is $1. I'm too much of an impulsive buyer and felt like I HAD to buy SOMETHING. Seriously, it was a BUCK!

However it was such a stressful situation because nothing was organized. It was like rows of books that were sometimes in alphabetical order by author, but many times just stacked one in front of the other. Rummaging is not my forte.

Needless to say, I grabbed a sub par book by a familiar author.

By this point we scurried back to the hotel to wait for the car.

navigator aka concierge

The hotel had the cutest little lounge area. It was decorated like a boutique hotel. Crystal lamps, zebra print chairs, very modern furniture, and eclectic accents. This was my favorite spot to people watch.

It was time to leave - so back to LAX.

After 4 hours of waiting at LAX we boarded the plane & headed home. Left the west coast at 10:40pm PST and arrived in at 6am EST.

I detest red eyes.

Landed in the good ole Trampa, loaded up, hit Starbucks, stopped in to the office, and then picked up this cute little nugget!

It's been a bit longer than a hot second that I've done this kind of post!

I know not everyone will find this the post helpful....BUT for every 10 of you that hate it, it may help 1. So with that said....here are some tips for travelling with an infant from moi'.

MattyB & I just took a trip to Las Vegas (he for business, me for shoppingbusiness), and we brought along our 2 month old. PTL that my parents also went - my mom was such a HUGE help!

In preparing for this trip, I of course discussed things with BB's pediatrician, but I also googled like crazy trying to find tips & suggestions. Most everything I found was how easy the flight would be & how airlines do not charge for children travelling under 2 (as long as they sit on your lap). No one mentioned (not even the airline website) that you need to bring a copy of your child's birth certificate!

Ummmm, we made it on the plane without it - but noted for future reference!

So airline & flying tips, if that it is your mode of travel.....

1. Bring your baby's birth certificate - they will ask for it!
2. Going through security is NEVER the same at any 2 airports....so go ahead & disassemble your car seat from your stroller. Send it through the conveyor scanner - your stroller will be taken from you & walked through the body scanner (UNLESS it's compact enough to fold up & go through the conveyor). You get to carry your bambino through the people scanner.
3. Since you can normally bring on to the plane (depending on airline) 1 carry on, & 1 personal item, I put my purse in my carry on & used BB's diaper bag as my personal item
4. In his diaper bag, I made sure to put a change of clothes for him, plenty of formula, diapers, wipes, etc.
5. Bring changing pads - that closet that they use as a bathroom on planes is hardly big enough for my butt....needless to say another person. Nevertheless, BB decided to dirty up his diaper (4 1/2 hour flight)....so I had to change him. I wanted him laying on something, rather than being tush to counter. 
6. If your smart enough to use a baby carrier (a la Moby Wrap, etc) bring it! It will free up your hands. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to use mine.
7. Bring a baby blanket or swaddle - not only can it get cold, but I also felt like it was an extra barrier against nasty germs
8. Gate check your stroller & infant car seat - unless you bring your baby carrier. Check your luggage, but by gate checking your stroller & car seat you can keep it with you until you board the plane. As soon as you land, it's then unloaded & brought to you - no having to find baggage claim with an infant in your arms.
9. We flew SouthWest - they do not assign seats, but they do have boarding groups (based on when you check in). Luckily, they let families (with children under 4) board after physically disabled, elderly, and group "A". So you still have a shot of a decent seat.

Baby gear I brought.....besides the obvious clothes, diapers, wipes, bibs, etc.

Baby Trend jogging stroller & infant car seat (with built on canopy - I did bring an extra canopy for added protection)

i included a close up of the handle area b.c that hook "the mommy hook" was GREAT for hanging shopping bags!!!

A Petunia Pickle Bottom Boxy Backpack diaper bag. This bag has an outside zippered pocket that unfolds to a changing pad. It can be worn as a backpack, but also has 1 long strap to hang on you or stroller.

Since our guy is on Enfamil formula....I brought 2 cans of formula, formula pouches, and formula ready-to-feed nursettes. The nursettes were PERFECT for travelling & being away from the hotel room all day! The pouches are great, if you remember to bring a bottle of water to prepare the bottle :)

the nursettes are 2fl oz, the pouches make 4fl oz

The Germ-X wipes are great, as are the Pacifier Wipes. I brought disposable changing pads as well - call me a germophobe, but the changing stations in restrooms gross me out. And the green thing is a dispenser for "doggy poop bags". (Literally, I think that's what they are - but I got the Arm & Hammer ones that you can find in the baby section of Target....they smell so good!) Besides being used for disposing dirty diapers, they are also great for storing dirty onesies after a massive explosion.

On a side note, I went into a few restrooms that did NOT have a changing station! Be prepared for the absolute worst.

Other fun facts....

I opted to travel with a crossbody purse - kept my hands free & it was small enough to pack in my carry on.

Rebecca Minkoff from Nordstrom

Looking for elevators can get frustrating when you're not already accustomed to doing so. Waiting for an elevator, only to have 1 person walk off of it is SUPER annoying. Especially when the escalator is close by. Why, why, why????

Always put your napkin in your lap when eating out & holding your infant. Besides being the proper thing to do....it also protects YOU from the massive explosions that sometimes creep out of the diaper.

And last, but certainly not least....if you're able to ship out necessities ahead of time DO IT! We shipped out diapers, formula, & wipes a few days before we scheduled to arrive. It was SO nice to not have the extra weight in our luggage & carry ons. Since we were in Vegas for 6 days, we used most of our supplies, so packing it in our carry ons & luggage was not an issue.

Okay ~ so I may have altered that Dumb & Dumber quote a bit to suit our North Carolina vacation. We landed back in hot FLA a few hours ago.

NC weather: 60 in the morning & never above 70 in the afternoons

My goal was to blog & such up in the mountains, but that was an utter fail. No wifi.

So, expect a few more blog posts about NC. It's a beautiful state if you didn't already know. We did some fun things & I can't wait to share them with you!

To be honest I didn't know how the trip would go since this was all I saw for the first 2 hours of our trip...

"working" = spider solitaire

Matthew had to finish up work things before we jet setted off.

We left Tampa Wednesday afternoon, flew to Hotlanta to catch a puddle jumper up to Asheville.

Here are some fun facts:
#1 TIA has legit free WiFi
#2 Hotlanta has "free WiFi"...said WiFi only lets you go to Atlanta approved sites like the library & museum & university. Not blogger & facebook & Nordstrom. Rude!
#3 if you are catching a connecting flight in Atlanta, chances are good you will land in concourse A or D, and your connecting flight will be 10 minutes after you land in either concourse D or A. At least that's what happened to us. Oh, and the fast people mover tram was SHUT DOWN. Needless to say, I got my run in that day. Atlanta airport ain't got nothing on me.
#4 TSA security checkpoints require you present both your boarding pass AND your ID in order to proceed through....please don't ask the TSA rep if you have to show your ID, since your husband's ID is already out...um?
#5 don't wear an obscene amount of crystals on your top the days you fly....the security body scanners don't respond well to them & it ultimately results in you getting a pat down....not that I learned the hard way or anything.
#6 no matter how many times i've flown over my 27(ish) years of life, 2 things still freak the bejeebers out of me: the opening speech the flight attendants make regarding how to exit if an emergency arises & turbulence. oh & if said flight attendants mess up during their speech & misintruct regarding the exits...but then chuckle & say "oh, don't worry, we'll get this figured out"...it makes it 10 times worse.

Alas though, no matter how many work things Mattpew did, the pat downs, the lack of true FREE WiFi...it was worth it once we reached our destination...