The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month so I have been seeing and reading a lot about this topic and thinking about my own role as both a mother and someone who was severely bullied as a child. First, my own story. In middle school I was bussed from my low to low-middle income community and into a much wealthier school in another part of Reno. The benefit was that it was much closer to my Mom's work and they had good honors classes that I could enroll in immediately due to my having been enrolled in honors classes at my previous schools. The bad news was that I was going to school with only a quarter of the people I had gone to elementary school with (but really, I had only been going to that school for a year and a half, so I guess in hindsight it wasn't that bad); but the really bad news was that I was around a bunch of kids who had already made up their minds about what kind of people came from where I came from. See, I was born in beautiful San Diego, Californ...

Yet again, the weekend went by much too fast; boo! We were in Brooklyn Saturday to Sunday so that I could throw my sis-in-law and her due-date buddy a baby shower, then all of the sudden it was Monday again. How does that keep happening? We had a lot of fun in NY, as we always do when we are there. I really love Brooklyn and walking around, finding places to eat and shop just seem to come so incredibly easy when we are there. The neighborhoods are so kiddo friendly and I never feel like a jerk for wearing my baby into the hip spots, even the bars. The Brooklyn sunset, captured by Matty on our walk around Carroll Gardens trying to get Maddie to nap. We stayed the night at the Fairfield Inn in Brooklyn and it was really, really swanky. It was done up very boutique hotel style, had incredibly comfortable beds (to me and Maddie, at least) and there is a roof deck with views of Brooklyn and Manhattan. I had thought about the prospect of trying to go out with my hubs since we had fa...

Welcome to Hell (Night)!!!  Wednesday night Matty, Kendra, V and another couple friend attended Hell Night at East Coast Grill. I am still sweating. Like, in between my toes. If you aren't privy to the Hell Night situation, it goes a little something like this: East Coast Grill (one of my favorite places to eat in the area) takes a couple of nights with a special menu containing the hottest food one could possible imagine putting near their face. Naturally, we have been dying to go forever but it just never seemed to materialize. Then V, being the total badass foodie friend that he is, got reservations for all of us. And then, we got a sitter. No, for reals, and it wasn't Kendra, because she was with us! Two wonderful, newlywed friends were so wonderful and came over to hang out while Maddie slept snug in our bed so Mama and Dada could shovel hot fire into our faces! First of all, it was so fun to be out with K and V, just like old times drinking beers and being inappropr...

Instead of trying to read through my entire blog list before I write my own post, I thought I would just get down the business. I tried to do it the latter way on Friday and ended up reading blogs until it was time to step away from the computer. Not cool, Stefanie! Philadelphia! I wanted to write a post about all of the things that we did in Philadelphia, but that seems so long ago now, so I will make it short and sweet... She's the Eye of the Tiger. The three of us went to Philly to celebrate two years of marriage and ten months of an awesome baby. We had such a blast! The city is so walkable that after we parked our car in the hotel lot we never used it again; we never even needed a cab or public transit, we just hoofed it everywhere. We had recently purchased a Maclaren for Maddie, so this was the maiden voyage for lots of use and I must say that it handles great and is SO easy to fold up and throw over the shoulder when not in use. We saw some awesome history and vis...