anniversary number seven

on anniversary eve jack spent a few hours with grandma while we used donald's beloved amc film fanatic card to see just mercy and indulge in some sweet treats from hurts donuts.

on our actual anniversary we were heading to st. louis, so to keep with tradition we scouted a location for some road trippin' fried chicken. we ended up at lee's famous recipe chicken in columbia and were pleasantly surprised to find that their recipe is famous for good reason. we made it to my mom's house and after putting jack to bed we settled in for an evening of fighting the villains in harry potter hogwarts battle.

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dyer [not so] diy: kitchen edition

after five years of dreaming, planning, and also procrastinating, we officially said goodbye to the original 78th street kitchen on august 12th. and a very, very, very long four months later, we finally have a working kitchen again!

as someone who is not great at making decisions and loves to overanalyze everything, a kitchen remodel that we plan to enjoy long term was quite a daunting task. throw in the fact that i'm kind of a perfectionist with impossibly high standards and it's borderline impossible. after the literal years we spent designing the layout and choosing the finishes, the final hurdle was finding a contractor to do the actual work. this was another lengthy step in the process, but in the end we found robert and he was delightful.

it was interesting timing to be without a kitchen when jack was starting solid foods. we did have a refrigerator and microwave, but no running water on the main level of the house. generally our eating habits weren't stellar to begin with, but the no kitchen situation brought them to a new low. thankfully i discovered microwaveable pot stickers, which became a staple of my diet, and a friend lent us her kitchen for some crock pot meal prep, so we muddled through.

the transformation is pretty stunning in both appearance and function. it's very surreal, but we're thrilled with the final result.

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jack's first flight

the original plan was to take jack's first flight as a family for our mostly annual trip with the pullens to visit the taltons in north carolina. unfortunately ku had other plans and scheduled the opening of their new freestanding psych unit on the same weekend. so long story short, donald had to stay home. never one to pass up an adventure, i decided i was up for tackling the flight with jack solo.

we arrived at kci as prepared as we could be and hoping for the best. i was already slightly concerned about getting through the dallas airport and making our connecting flight with a pretty short layover, then our flight out of kc was delayed due to a bird strike. that was a new one for me. it ultimately ended up that everything was delayed out of dfw as well, so it all worked out in the end. on our first flight we unexpectedly ran into the parents of some college friends, which was a fun surprise. and we also completed our first in-flight airplane bathroom diaper change, so i imagine my merit badge should be arriving soon.

jack was a great little traveler and made a lot of new friends [i haven't interacted with this many strangers in an airport since i flew with the harry potter books]. our long weekend in nc was delightful as usual. lots of good conversation, london broil, low country boil, and of course more than a few games of wizard. jacob and i also kicked it old school with an impromptu audio adrenaline sing-a-long, which is now officially one of the highlights of our friendship.

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