Our Trip Out West: The Best Chair Ever

During our trip, Papillon discovered a love of antique furniture.

Particularly this chair:

It was pretty much the perfect chair for her. She could sit in it pretty snuggly, and where it was situated was a perfect vantage point for watching the goings ons.
She loved it.

Our Trip Out West: Photo Ops

On our last full day out west, we went to explore a (relatively) nearby city.
It was a lovely place and lended itself to many in interesting photo op.


Windy....

Falling Over...

A family of bears...

It was quite cold that day, so Papillon stayed snuggled in her stroller for most of the photo ops. But we did check out one consignment store and found this excellent reindeer hat.

But no, we did not buy it.

Our Trip Out West: Fun Family

The primary reason for our visit out west was to hang out with these fun people:

My brother and sister-in-law. It seems we forgot to tell them which camera to look at first. Oops.

Papillon thoroughly enjoyed her Aunt and Uncle.

They are clearly tons of fun to play with.

Papillon tried, but could not rival their enthusiasm.

She got lots of loving during our visit.

Our Trip Out West: Not Actually Cousins

On our trip out west, Papillon and I had the pleasure of meeting this sweet baby:

She is my sister-in-law (pictured)'s brother's daughter. Which means that technically she and Papillon are not related at all....but that is ok, cause unofficially, they are cousins; and we like it that way.

A photo op with the "cousins". (And us sisters in law, of course)

Cousin love.

They held hands, which was possibly the sweetest thing in the world. Papillon wasn't sure how she felt about someone grabbing her fingers, but it was cute nonetheless.

After a little lunch at a cute sandwich shop, we all set out to do some shopping at this tiny little town.
Here is Papillon doing some window shopping:



This is the first of two wonderfully honest signs that we encountered on our trip:

Among the "stuff" that we browsed was this fantastically dated dish set...which was oddly nostalgic. :-)

Our Trip Out West: Alpacas

During our stay out west, we stayed at my sister in law's parent's house.

It has a nice view.

And it has an alpaca farm.

They are like lamas.
I thought this one's snarly teeth were funny.

Papillon wasn't sure what to make of these strange creatures.

Our Trip Out West: Crazy Sleeping Schedules

Papillon, who has been a phenomenal sleeper all her life, got quite confused about sleeping while we were three time zones to the west. Despite the fact that we kept her up super late, she still thought that 5am was a great time to start the day.

Crazy sleep schedules combined with a stuffy nose somehow also led to a Papillon who thought that getting up every hour from midnight until 5am was the way to go. Not a whole lot of sleep happened on this vacation.

But, the early mornings with Papillon were actually kind of fun.
Here she is hanging out with her Nannie. (Who was quite helpful at putting Papillon back to bed in the middle of the night)

Happy Face!

Finger Munching

Ferocious finger munching

Falling over. Still a bit sleepy.

Due to the crazy lack of sleeping at night, Papillon was always trying to catch a nap during the day.

Sometimes with her Uncle.
In case you can't tell, he is trying to imitate her face here.

Sometimes with Nannie.

Sometimes with her hat pulled down over her eyes.

Sometimes with her Aunt.

Very rarely with me. But it did happen!

Pretty much wherever she could find to sleep, she slept.

Our Trip Out West: Consignment

Ok, finally blogging about our trip out west. That one where Papillon did so well on the plane. You will have to forgive the flow of these posts, they will be in no way chronologically ordered (or even logically ordered for that matter), but hopefully they will be at least mildly enjoyable.

One of the highlights of our trip (other than just plain spending time with family) was to be able to see my brother's consignment store. Apparently the small business gene runs in my family, because my brother is definitely an entrepreneur through and through.

His enthusiasm is hard to miss.

I have to say, I was hugely impressed with his store. And not just because he is my brother. I was expecting a quaint, homespun kind of store where about a dozen customers wandered through over the course of the day. And I was going to be impressed and excited to see that.

But what I saw was the busiest, most spacious, most organized consignment store I have ever been to. Look at this:

Everything is on wooden hangers, and, believe it or not, if the little number thing on the hanger says its a size 8, it is actually a size 8! I have gotten used to just checking the actual tag because hanger-size-indicators are so often wrong in consignment stores and at places like Goodwill. The remarkably accurate labeling took some getting used to. In a good way.


Check out these awesome dressing rooms:

This place has so much character. There is nothing cookie-cutter or purely functional about it. Each door was salvaged from somewhere, and cut down to fit the dressing rooms, and the floor in that area is made from old barn wood.

Their clothes also have character:

They are very selective about what they take; only the best of the best will do!


We had such fun hanging out at the store, even Papillon got caught up in the entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to try her hand and manning the counter (a custom made counter inspired by an old door, and now weight 800+ lbs).

And as a side note, I did actually do some shopping as part of my wardrobe revamping. Details about my purchases will be posted separately.