The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

Tomorrow morning Matt and I are getting on a plane and flying to New Orleans! Not a strange thing to read on this blog because we are always adventuring off somewhere. The next day I am running the Louisiana Marathon. Again, not out of the ordinary, we like to sign up for marathons in other states. But here is the kicker: it is just us. As in, just the two of us (go ahead, sing it right out loud). For the first time EVER. Well, since we became three, and then four. Yup, the last time Matt and I slept in the same room together without a child in the house was six years, one month, and three weeks ago. Also known as the night before Madeleine was born. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? Let me tell you - I am going to go to bed at a ridiculously early hour stark raving sober tomorrow night, get up and attend a 26.2 minute mass presided over by a marathon running priest and then I am going to (hopefully) run the fastest 26.2 miles I have ever run. And then. We party! The marathon is in Baton ...

With just a few days left before 2018, I thought it would be fun to take a look back on the past twelve months of shenanigans and share a bit about what I hope the next twelve hold! Travel One of my most favorite things to do and we did A LOT of it. We started off the year with an amazing trip to Puerto Rico, where we climbed in caves, ate all the delicious things and spent every single day in the pool. This was one of Maddie's favorite trips ever and we have spent a lot of time talking and planning on how to give back to the people there in 2018 as they continue to recover. Over the summer we traveled across the country and back and all around the East Coast hitting up three beautiful weddings as well as a long visit down the Cape with family and friends. In October we watched Matt run the Chicago Marathon and took advantage of all the amazing museums and walking around there is to do. I love traveling with the girls and am glad that we decided from the get-go that this would...

Well, this has been a heck of a year, huh? I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I will be glad to put some of the events behind me, but looking forward to keeping the motivation that those shitty things have given me to keep up the good fight in 2018. So here is what I am up to as we tick down to the final hours of the year. Reading My Goodreads app tells me I am 7 books ahead of my 2017 reading challenge with 24 books read so far this year. Considering that I only get to read when I am commuting to/from/during work on the train or sitting on the beach without the kids needing me (so, 5 minutes each summer), I am pretty pleased! I have read some really good books this year, and am currently on my second biography about North Korean defectors, titled A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea . It was one of the monthly free books available from Amazon Prime that I randomly downloaded onto my Kindle (which I rarely use) while I was awaiting my library ...

I'll just come right out and admit that this is probably one of the longest breaks I have taken from writing down our adventures over here and it was completely unintentional! Life got really busy, mornings got earlier and nights got really tired. But, here I am! I even have my first new laptop that is mine all mine since I was in grad school. Mac Books have come a long way in 10 (ohemgee) years. How are you? How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was pretty lovely - family, chosen family, food and more food. We ran our annual Turkey Trot, which was a bit of a disaster for my own running career, but I was back at it again this morning with 5 really good miles, so I will just have to redeem myself next year. I am training for another marathon - number 5 - which will be in Louisiana in January. This has been my best training yet and I chock it up to a lot more miles and a lot of time spent at the gym on my lunch breaks cross training and doing the exercised I learned in PT. I am hoping to...

After we were on Vashon we decided to take advantage of being so close to Seattle and see some sights and an old Reno friend! It was lovely weather, though maybe a bit hot, but no rain so we got to do a lot of walking and sightseeing as well as some good solo runs down along the water; here are some of the things we did: Eat/Drink Pike Place Market - We had to get our tourist on and stroll around - the girls were especially excited to see fish being thrown around - so we headed for a visit before dinner one evening. We popped into a cheese place that had a big ol' cheese making vat and picked up some cheese and crackers to snack on as we walked around. Although we did not wait in the loooong line, we saw the original Starbucks and this former barista felt a twinge of pride at that cool old sign. The Market is definitely a busy place, but we went later in the afternoon (4/5pm) and were able to get around and pop in and out of shops easily. Japonessa - We made reservations for t...

Back to the O'Shea's whirlwind wedding tour of the country; here was our first stop and now onto the second! Vashon Island I have to break this trip into two because it was really like two different places even though they are just a 30 minute ferry ride a part (Seattle is up next!). We were in town for my best friend since 9th grade's wedding and it was super fun to see all my old punk rock friends with all their kiddos, being adults and stuff. Crazy! Vashon was a dream, the wedding was perfect and I cannot wait to go back. I am a city girl through and through but Vashon was my favorite part of this trip. It is just so gorgeous and easy and relaxing; 10/10 will go back! Here are some things we loved on the island: Eat/Drink Gravy - We had an AirBnB and the wedding one evening, so we did not eat out too much on the island, but this was where we had dinner upon arrival and it was really tasty. Lots of local stuff and a salmon dish that made Matt actually like salmon ...

7,800 miles - that is the final count from June 2nd to July 3rd for the O'Sheas. Phew! It was fun, a lot of fun really, and the girls continue to be such awesome travelers, which adds to the fun part. I thought it would be fun to do a little round up and suggest some places we went and some tips that have been tried and true for us when traveling with little ones. I feel like we are seasoned pros when it comes to travel with kids, but each trip seems to teach us something new (do not, even, lug a pack and play across the country and expect your kid to sleep in it!). As I got to our second stop I realized I should break this up into digestible posts, so you don't feel like this is your uncle's Grand Canyon slide show :) So, here we go....! First Stop: Geneva, New York We drove from Boston, which was a long haul, unfortunately made longer by us going out of our way to visit Ommegang Brewery, only to be turned away when we got there due to a special event that they did n...