My last What's Up Wednesday post was right before Beau was born.. so crazy! I missed these posts this summer, they're hard to write in advance and we were out of town at the end of June & July.

What we're eating this week... 
The weekend was filled with several unhealthy eating days. It was Ben's birthday, and we celebrated our annual back to school dinner with family at a steakhouse. Sunday we helped some friends move and really just had one big Mexican meal, haha. Not a good way to live at all, so this week we're back onto veggies, lean proteins.. boring food. :) But I'm really happy about it!


What I'm reminiscing about...
Our big trip at the beginning of the month. I wouldn't trade these moments traveling with our boy for anything. I've recapped here, and shared my travel with baby trips here.

What I'm loving... 
On Saturday, Beau & I got to spend time with one of my best friends, Megan! Megan was my little in Theta in college and is one of the most important people in my life. She's truly like a sister to me and our relationship has blessed me so much over the years. It's been so great having someone who's always in my corner like she is! Megan met Beau when he was in the NICU, but it was a hard day when she came... this visit was much better because we got to joyfully celebrate Beau's life. She had lots of snuggles with him and it was just so great to see my bestie love my boy so much!

I got several questions about this dress.. It's last season Free People and I went on their website to try and find something similar for y'all... and fell in love with a million dollar sweater dress. Womp Womp!! :(

What we've been up to... 
What haven't we been up to is a better question! It's been a crazy few weeks. We got home from Europe, had a broken air conditioner, adjusted Beau to American time, he got his first cold, I then caught the same cold, ANNND well, I'll leave the next update for now but it's big!

What I'm working on...
There's a lot going on for us in this season and learning to balance it all while being present with Beau is just plain hard sometimes.

What I'm watching/reading...
I read the first few chapters of a few different books and have yet to be hooked. Ugh! I get in weird reading moods like that sometimes.

What I'm listening to... I never have an answer to this question, haha! This is so weird to people, but I rarely listen to music! I have been playing some bible story songs for Beau, and he's been loving it! My sweet and smiley boy!

What I'm wearing...
You're about to see a bunch of photos of clothes I've been wearing down below, so let's leave it at that. :)

What I'm doing this weekend...
We have a friend's daughter's birthday party and church, and hopefully some relaxing.. we need a little bit after a busy few weeks!

What I'm looking forward to next month... 

Among other things, I'm excited for cooler weather and more walks with my sweet little family!

What else is new... lots of updates coming soon!

What is your favorite summer to fall transitional piece in your closet?

I feel like fall transitional in Texas is all about being cool while being in a fall color palette. I kind of got to try this out while in London earlier in the month, because of the cooler temperatures. It was the opposite as in Texas now. Haha!

This was one of my favorite transitional outfits. The perfect tunic for all seasons, my favorite white jeans, everyday cami, Burberry jacket (I got mine on eBay in college!) and my old faithful Tory Burch flip flops.

I also love dresses for transitional wear.. this photo is a favorite from September of last year, at my friend Kristen's bridal luncheon. I was 6 weeks pregnant with Beau and so, so, so sick at that luncheon. I had a jar of peanut butter in my purse. :)

Other dresses I love for early fall: Red Plaid Swing Dress,  Colorblock dress, Solid Swing Dress, Ruffle Sleeve Dress (may have to get this one!), Cocoon Dress, navy print dress.

This tee is perfect for transitional Texas!

Little boy is rocking some transitional wear, too! :) 

Outfit 

Shoes

Also while we're on the topic of early fall.. my favorite early fall candle before we hit the hard stuff (pumpkin) later on in the season: Bath & Body Works Honeycrisp Apple!

Ps I need to know what my fellow Bachelor watchers think about Nick being The Bachelor!? I'm actually really excited. I think he's nice and normal and I'm glad Kaitlyn ended up with Shawn but really want Nick to find someone! :)

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Brighton with Family

My dad's side of the family lives in Brighton, England. So that was our next stop of our trip. My brother moved to England at the beginning of the summer, just after Beau was born, and my dad had stayed over there with him up until that point, so we were eager to see them! Beau was getting to meet my cousins, aunt, and grandmother, Nan. It's funny because our whole lives we've called my grandmother "Nanny" but my cousins who see her all the time call her "Nan" so recently we've both just deferred to them. :) This was by far the sweetest part of our trip. So much quality time with family that lives so far away. We love them so much and it made us so sad to think that it will be awhile before we see them all again!

Also during this leg of the trip, Beau must have known he was in a safe place, because he reached two big baby milestones. He started holding his head up, and had his first giggle. :)

On our first day, we did a whole lot of chilling. I watched the Bachelorette finale when I could finally get it on iTunes.. priorities, right? And then we walked down the seafront to eat dinner with my dad and Nan. 

It was a really sweet dinner! Beau was unusually fussy which ended up being really great because Nanny got to rock him and soothe him for about an hour. I feel like this is going to be such a precious memory for us moving forward. 

The next morning we walked along the windy seafront to meet my dad for a fish and chips lunch. Ben skipped fish and chips and got a seafood risotto and it was one of those moments where you wish you ordered what the other person had. :) He was nice and shared! We stopped by the iconic Brighton bandstand, and it was beautiful! 

After lunch we walked through the streets to a pastry shop that my dad wanted to show me. We got a few pastries and my brother got there soon after so we had a little cousin chat session with my cousin Phoebe over some pastries. 

The next morning Ben let me sleep in and he went to eat breakfast with my dad and Uncle Bobby. Uncle Bobby isn't actually my uncle, just a close family friend that I've known my whole life. It makes me so happy to think about our close friends now being in Beau's life just like he is in ours. :) Bob lives in New Jersey, and I had already been strategizing how he could meet Beau, so it was perfect that he came to England to watch Henry golf. He's one of my favorite people!

I was dying to get a sweet beach photo of Beau in his cute swimsuit from Janie and Jack. Have you ever seen something so cute? Usually little girl swimsuits are loads cuter than boys.. but these little shorts! Adorable!

We went down to my aunt's beach hut, and i chose one a few down from her as my own! The huts are so interesting. My aunt got hers with her house when she bought it, but she said they are worth about thirty thousand pounds! Also notable is that Adele has a house in this area. 

This was about as good as we were gonna get. :) 

A fun thing about traveling was that I held my sleeping babe a lot more. He LOVES sleeping in his crib, but I seized the moment for lots of cuddles. :) 

More beautiful English flowers!

I then met up with my dad and Uncle Bobby to run an errand in the Brighton Lanes. We stopped here to get some cookies, for obvious reasons. :) 

Our plans for the night were a family dinner! My cousin Josh and his girlfriend Hannah came in, and my dad's cousin and his wife. We were just missing my cousin Phoebe's boyfriend and were sad to not get to miss him! This night was just so, so, so good. We have family dinners with our Texas family all the time, but doing the exact same thing in England filled me to the brim. The weather was beautiful, so we ate outside. It was perfectly moderate and then I wore my favorite sweater as the evening went on. It was the kind of alfresco dining that people do on tv, perfect!

Beau LOVES his British family!!! 

Nan had only seen all of her grandchildren together one other time, at our wedding! It was so fun to make this happen a second time!

What I wore: 

Anthropologie top (on sale!)

Sweater

The grillmasters! Another fun thing about our week in Brighton was that Ben fixed my aunt's grill, and coffee machine. He mowed the lawn too, but that was less exciting. We kept joking that he was now hired help and wasn't allowed to leave!

This is honestly one of my favorite photos from the whole trip! My cousin Josh was such a natural with Beau. He loved those cousin cuddles. And Josh's gorgeous girlfriend Hannah! We were not shy about telling him multiple times that he needs to marry her asap and not let her leave the family because she's so lovely. :) Next year they are planning a trip around the world, including a US road trip.. I'm so excited for them and love that we'll get to see them and show them our turf if all goes well! Beau went to sleep at his normal bedtime but Ben and I stayed up till almost two chatting with Josh and Hannah. It was so much fun and felt like such a luxury with them so far away. We got so little sleep that night before leaving for London in the morning, but we wouldn't have traded it for anything! It was such a great middle portion of our trip.. filling up on some great time with family!!!

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Milan

By the time we reached Milan, we were ready for a chill day! We had two nights there, and so our first halfway we relaxed, ate near the hotel, and just hung out in our room. We let Beau get some quality naps in, at his scheduled times, and it was AWESOME. We saved a TON of money by staying in a hotel out by the soccer stadium, San Siro. Like, it was less than $200 in our biggest hotel room of the trip with really fast wifi kind of saving. It only took us about 30 minutes from our hotel room to get to the center of Milan, so it wasn't a big deal at all. 

We took the metro when we wanted to get anywhere. 

What I Wore:

J. Crew Dress  

Backpack

The sun was really bright for the little bear, hence the sunshade on his bassinet being out. We retreated to a large department store around the corner from the duomo to browse the Italian fashion and eat in the luxury food court. 

I loved the styling of this corner of the food court. We almost stopped there, but I saved my lobster roll for London. :) 

We chose Italian food, for obvious reasons, and split a pesto ravioli and eggplant gnocchi. YUM. The eggplant gnocchi was my favorite. After lunch Beau was having a hard time, and we hadn't done enough research on Milan to keep us out and about until dinner time. We went back to the hotel so he could nap in the cool air conditioning. Having a summertime baby is just plain hard. Back here in Texas, getting him in and out of the car even in the morning feels so mean. It's just so hot!

In the evening we went to the Galleria, and ate dinner. But first, we stopped for a few more photos at the duomo, and a gelato appetizer. :)

I got Nutella and wild berry, SO yummy!

The spot we chose for dinner was perfect. The whole area feels fancy but the restaurant we stopped at had lots of families so we felt comfortable with Beau. They also seated us on the outside so the stroller could fit. Really everywhere we went everyone was really accommodating with the stroller and really eager to help. It was kind of the opposite of what I expected. Everyone was nicer to us because we had Beau with us. 

The next morning we headed to London! 

By far the hardest part of the trip was our experience in the Milan airport. We dropped off our rental car and needed to get on the shuttle bus to the other terminal. We had a baby and all of our luggage, stroller put away. We paid a random guy two euro for his cart just to get to the shuttle. It was already too full so we waited for the next one. I was wearing Beau and holding one tote, and the plan was for me to stand with the luggage pile while Ben quickly loaded our things on, and then we'd all get on. We met a sweet family from Charleston who had been traveling for a few months with their one year old and three year old. They helped us and they were such an encouragement. When I got on the crowded bus with Beau held tight to me while Ben handled the luggage the husband of the family was proclaiming EVERYONE LOOK OUT SHE HAS A BABY! so that no one would push me or anything. So, so nice. Once the shuttle experience was over we were fine. Ben killed it with all the luggage, as pictured. :) 

We were SO ready to see our family, which you'll hear about in my next travel post! :) 

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