Buenos Dias!

We just returned from the most relaxing 5-day Caribbean vacation.  That's right - nothing but sun, sand, water, siestas and five-star resort service have left us a little blue to be back home in Memphis.  We stayed at Secrets Maroma resort - outside of Cancun, near Playa del Carmen.  It's one of those all-inclusive resorts.  From the moment you arrive, you can leave your wallet in the suitcase. No tips, no cash needed - food, drinks, alcohol, room service, etc. are all included.  If you haven't tried a vacation like that, you should definitely look into it.

I am terrible about taking pictures.  Seriously, someone needs to come up with an alarm to make me take a picture.  On the last morning, JD took photos around the resort, so this post will have a mix of his photos and photos I ripped from the resort's website.

In addition to the all-inclusive amenities, I selected this locale because it was an adults-only resort.  Why?  Even though we will have a little one of our own in a mere 20 weeks, I don't want to spend my last vacation alone with JD listening to someone else's kids whine at the pool.  I'm sure that will be our kid one day, but not today.

The pool was huge and meandered throughout the property, with a swim-up bar and personal waiters while you lounged:

Same story at the beach - there was a bar with swings for seats and waiters bringing food to your beach umbrella:

The rooms were very comfortable with well-appointed bathrooms and balconies.

We came back to the room one day to find that the concierge had decorated our room with "Happy Birthday" balloons and banner for me:

There were maybe seven restaurants on the property, each with a different cuisine.  They were all delicious:

Another couple took this photo of us at an awkward angle:

 You know you picked a good resort when the staff wakes up before dawn to pick the seaweed off the beaches:

This was the site of the Graffam World Championship of Ping-Pong.  You might not have caught all the action on ESPN in the States, but JD and I played about 15 games of ping-pong trying to determine the winner until he won out by exhausting me.  The table actually sat in water:

Each evening there was some sort of entertainment - either a movie or a show.  Our last night we got to see a really cool breakdance group and witness the world champion of beat-boxing in action.  It was a memorable experience!

Lots of wildlife too:

And creepy photo shoots in the morning:

We did try to book a snorkeling excursion, but a storm right before we arrived damaged the reef, making visibility too low for snorkeling.  They offered scuba diving, but that's another no-no for pregnant women (in addition to hot tubs and drinking - which were in abundance).

Overall, it was a relaxing and fun trip.  We bought a few silly Mexican souvenirs, tried new foods and managed to come home without any stomach bugs or sunburns.

Silly Economist Moments

When you spend every waking moment with your nose in an Econ book or processing data for regression equations, you tend to forget that the rest of America doesn't think like you.  For example, I was walking out of church the other day and spied this bumper sticker on a fellow parishioner's car:

My first thought - I'm not kidding - was that R-squared is a measure for goodness of fit in a regression equation.  And then I wondered, what could be going on with R-squared in 2012, is a new measure coming out?  This is really going to be something to talk about in my Econometrics class.  Oh wait, never mind, that's a campaign sticker...

It Just Got Interesting

In case you missed the social media posting, JD and I are having a baby in early March.  These past  13 weeks have been exciting and overwhelming, with every emotion in between.  We have prayed for a long time to be blessed with children, and it is still hard to believe the time has arrived.  As far as the first trimester went, I count myself fairly lucky in the symptom department.  Besides a little fatigue and food aversions, I never experienced morning sickness or weight gain.  In fact, all this baby wanted to eat was salad and fruit for a very long time, so I am ten pounds lighter thanks to this picky eater.

In the meantime, I am trying not to stress too much about the due date.  Isn't it every PhD student's dream to have a baby in the middle of the semester?  Ideally, I would be able to find a nanny to take care of the baby at our home for the last few weeks of the Spring semester, and then I will have the summer to be home with the baby.  Once the Fall semester hits, we would put the baby in day care.  I have a few leads on nanny possibilities, but it seems like such a big decision.  I don't even know how to take care of a baby myself, how am I supposed to hire someone to do the same?

By the end of the second trimester, I would like to have the nanny selected, nursery decor ordered (at least part of it - we are waiting on the gender!), baby registries completed and a few projects around the house completed or almost completed.  I tend to procrastinate, so I need to stay on top of this list while attending school, working a graduate assistantship and cultivating my research topics.  Here's to checking items off my ever-growing list in the next few months!

Temporary Goodbyes

Our family gathered in Nashville this past weekend to say a temporary goodbye to my brother, 1st Lt. Kevin Abel, as heads off to Afghanistan for nine months.  Thinking about all he is going to miss out with our family can be a sobering thought, but I know that what he is doing for the Army and our country outweighs family holidays and milestones.

This is Kevin's second deployment.  His first deployment was days after my wedding, where he was on his way to Iraq.  As happy as weddings can be, knowing I wouldn't see my brother again for well over a year made for a few tears at the reception (and again when he dropped us off at the airport for our honeymoon).  I'm not going to sugarcoat it - deployments don't get any easier over the years.  I don't know how these soldiers with spouses and children handle their sadness.  Kevin is my big brother, whom I only see sporadically due to geographic constraints; after three days, I am already feeling his absence.

Once May rolls around, we will all be ecstatic to drive to Fort Campbell to welcome him back.  In the meantime, please keep him and his unit in your prayers, that they are able to achieve their objective safely and quickly.

Here are a few pics from our family fun weekend:

 Megan, her daughter Emma and me

The Abel clan: front (l-r) Clint, Emma, Mom and JD.  Back (l-r) Megan, Kevin and Katie

Camp Katie!

It's mid-July and I'm still scratching my head, trying to figure out what happened to June.  I suppose that's the problem with having your summers off - a lack of required activities makes this blissful vacation fly by!  Two fun things that I did was visit my brother for a weekend in Nashville, and hang out with my niece for a few days.  Kevin and I wanted to spend a little sibling time together before he deploys to Afghanistan in a few weeks, so I packed up Buddy and we headed to Nashville to hang out.

Kevin and Buddy napping, equitably sharing the couch:

The other fun event was "Camp Katie."  I convinced my sister and her husband to take a mini-vacation and leave their three-year old daughter, Emma, with her favorite aunt.  Megan dubbed it "Camp Katie," and I know Miss Emma had a blast.

Day 1:  I met up with everyone in Nashville.  The girls spent the afternoon shopping while Clint finished up his work, and then Emma and I hopped in the car to head back to Memphis.  She convinced me that she needed an 8-pack of Oreos for the ride home, and then settled down for a long three hour nap.  We took a dip in the pool after dinner, and she slept all night.

Day 2: There's a great splash park in Collierville that neither of us had been to - Emma spent an hour or so running around getting sprayed and screaming, "Aunt Katie, watch me!"

A little blurry, but does it not look like she is having a blast??

We headed over to Target afterwards to buy Dora dishes after she declared that she didn't like my dishes.  She went down for her nap.  That evening, our friend Holly came over with her daughter Lila for dinner.  Lila and Emma hit it off right away and those little girls ran around the house with their purses and animal chairs pretending to run errands.

Emma is ready to meet her new friend, Lila:

Day 3: I had the stupendous idea to have a picnic in the park.  During a heat wave.  After packing the cooler, we arrived at the park to find all the slide and swings ON FIRE from the sun.  A quick assessment of the situation showed that Chuck E. Cheese's was a MUCH better choice.  My mom joined us for a pizza lunch and games.  I made dinner, which Emma declared "gross," then we swam in the pool before bed.

Riding in the princess carriage:

Going on a "roller coaster" with her Mimi:

Slide city, to be repeated a thousand times:

Day 4: Emma rode her bike on the Germantown Greenway with JD and I jogging behind her.  That quickly wore out because it was too hot for her to wear her helmet, so poor JD had to carry her bike while we walked back to the car.  Emma and JD headed to an afternoon matinee of Brave, which gave me a much-needed break.  We met up with our friends Mary and Randy for a hibachi dinner (Emma calls it the "fire place"), and Emma spent the night hamming it up with them, doing Mary's hair and having Randy pull quarters out of her ears.

Proof that nutritious breakfasts are served at Camp Katie:

Day 5: Emma was so excited to wear her "Easter dress" to church and play in the nursery while we went to church and Sunday school.  Emma joined our gang for lunch at Chili's where she charmed the whole table.  She screamed "Uncle Deeedle" so many times to get JD's attention that the whole table started calling him Uncle Deedle.  Her parents drove in and woke her up from her nap, she was so shocked!  I don't think she knew what to make of it all.  She was certainly my precious side kick, and we enjoyed our time together.  Hopefully we can do this again next summer!

Emma insisting on sitting in the middle of the table:

This was a few days later after her parents arrived - Emma thought she would drive the boat down to the dock for us:

Beachin' it - Virginia Style

From time to time, JD is asked to teach conference sessions for web coding in accordance with his published book.  I am so proud of him and all the he has accomplished professionally.  When I have the free time, I like to travel with him to these conferences.  When he mentioned a beach location, I was game.

He only needed to teach one day, so I thought a five-day stay would suffice for a mini Graffam vacation.  We stayed a beautiful hotel, the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront.  Our room had a wonderful balcony overlooking the sandy beaches and ocean waves.

The first night, we went to dinner with a few of the hosts for the conference.  On Saturday, I shopped and strolled around while JD was teaching.  At 5 p.m., we were officially on vacation.  Saturday night, we ate at Mahi Mah's, a seafood restaurant on the boardwalk.  The food was fantastic.

Here's JD opinion of the oysters:

On Sunday, we decided to cram as much as possible into one day.  Not really sure why, but this seemed like a good idea at the time.  After a run along the boardwalk, we headed over to Norfolk to see the Battleship Wisconsin.  Not only can you explore this hulking ship which sits in the harbor, there is a really neat museum adjacent to the ship that explains the history of this boat.  Here we are on the ship:

I'm pretty sure I could be a Navy captain, right?

JD paid $2 to get the "hurricane wind" experience in this booth.  He thought it would at least dry his hair from standing out in the rain, but he was disappointed:

And here is what I am pretty sure I would look like as a mermaid:

After the tour, we headed over to the Botanical Gardens because I am a nerd who loves flowers.  Seeing as how it was actively raining at the time, we had the grounds to ourselves.  I don't get to travel to Virginia often, so we made the best of it:

Monday was spent at the aquarium in the morning, and on the beach that afternoon.  The aquarium had all sorts of sea life, with exhibits for all ages:

It was fairly chilly most of the time we were at Virginia Beach, but the temps approached 80 on Monday and the skies cleared up.  We had a blast jumping in the waves and walking along the beach.  I was surprised how sandy the beaches were - I thought they would be rocky or hard surfaces.  After a full day at the beach, we ate at one of the best restaurants on the boardwalk - in our very own hotel:

On Tuesday, we explored Colonial Williamsburg and hit up an outlet mall.  Colonial Williamsburg was really quaint and very historical.  However, I have very little patience for "guided tours."  After the first incredibly slow and poorly executed reenactment of the Virginia governor vacating his post, I was ready to go crazy.  We broke off from the group and explored the town.  Hence, no pictures.

We had a wonderful time.  As far as beaches go, this is definitely a top destination for a family getaway.  I hope to visit again soon!

Snapshot Update

It’s been a few weeks since I blogged, so here’s a quick snapshot of the happenings in the Graffam household:

1. Running, running, running

 JD and I have been diligently working on improving our running times and endurance.  I don’t run with JD because he is much faster than me (if you’re his Facebook friend, you can see how much his time has improved), but I’ve met several of my own goals through the Couch to 5K program and beyond.  I finally broke through my goal of running a 5K in less than 30 minutes a month ago.  I used to run this hackneyed course through my neighborhood, but after being used for target practice by too many minivan-driving Riverdale parents, I took to the Germantown Greenway.  I seem to run a little faster on the Greenway, probably because I am not constantly looking over my shoulder to see whose hood ornament I am about to become.  I even upgraded my route to a 4-mile track, so I hope to see more improvements in my time soon.

2. A little yard work

A few weeks ago, JD borrowed my car to drive his Simple Focus team to South Carolina, leaving me his truck.  What’s a Germantown housewife to do with a free weekend and a monster truck?  Besides taking three attempts to park in the garage at school, I decided to head to Lowe’s to pick up flowers and 1200 pounds of mulch.  Yup, that’s right, I personally spread 1200 pounds of mulch in our flowerbeds.  I don’t think JD has ever been that excited to get out of this chore.

3. Pool’s open!

Speaking of a little yard work, no summer season is ready without the backyard pool - bring your towel!

4. Traveling the summer season away

Fingers crossed, there are a few fun trips planned this summer.  Next week, we are headed to Virginia Beach.  Then, I get to visit with my brother in Nashville for a weekend.  A few weeks later, I will be relaxing on the beaches of Charleston with my old college roommates for what is sure to be a great trip.  On the way back, I am cruising through Atlanta to pick up my niece for a fun-filled five days with her favorite aunt back in Germantown.  After hosting the usual 4^th of July activities at our house, the family is headed to the lake.  JD and I are discussing the possibility of ending the summer on a resort vacation somewhere like the Dominican Republic, we will see.  Not to mention all the weekends at Pickwick – this is shaping up to be quite a memorable summer!

5. Researching…how to extend deadlines

After a semester wrap-up meeting with my PhD advisor, I have a few things to accomplish this summer.  I need to take a comprehensive exam in the beginning of June, conclude one of my research projects by mid-June and develop two or three Economic Development topics for research in the Fall (apparently I’ve been dabbling in the Health Econ field too much)!