Meet the Villanuevas

Finally! Cora met Amy and Ray this weekend. We also got the bonus of seeing Amy's brother, Eric, and Ray's brother and brand new sister-in-law, Rex and Alicia.

Nate, Gigi, Cora and I drove down to Bethlehem, PA, on Saturday morning. After a hotel mix-up (there are two Holiday Inn Expresses in Bethlehem, what?), we met the crew for lunch at the Bethlehem Brew Works.

Cora thought Eric was pretty cute.

The town was celebrating Octoberfest, so we enjoyed the street festivities. Which mostly meant eating part of Amy's Fried Dough and watching Cora greet every dog on the street.

Gigi babysat Cora at the hotel that night so Nate and I could hang out with the gang at Alicia and Rex's house, where we lost to Ray at high stakes ($1) poker and learned (1) that Bethlehem (or Allentown?) police are really on the job and (2) that spraypaint does wash off cars if it's really cold out and you spray/wipe it off really quickly.

And here's your reward for reading through this entire post: Although we can't see the bump yet, by next April we'll be welcoming Baby Villanueva to the world!

Before we drove home to Ithaca on Sunday, we had an impromptu baby shower for Ray and Amy. I brought a mix of hand-me-downs and new gifts that we'd found particularly helpful with a newborn. And Amy and Ray gave us some awesome gifts from the Philippines and beyond, like some shoes from Thailand for Cora.

International shoes for an international gal.

  For future reference, the "useful things" for baby needed to be small enough to pack to the Philippines, suitable for hot weather, and useful for a newborn-to-2-month old or nursing mother. These included:

• an anais & aden super light weight muslin swaddle cloth (Alissa introduced us to these)
• cuticle clippers for cutting newborn nails (a hint from Mandy)
• plastic ring clips for hanging toys for baby to see (another helpul suggestion from Mandy)
• animal covers for carseat straps (Mandy taught us nearly everything we know, I guess)
• a nursing tank top (Erin introduced me to these; unfortunately I couldn't get one for Amy in Ithaca so I could only pass on the suggestion, not the physical object)
• a couple toys and books because we couldn't help ourselves

I figured they'll get onesies and furry toys from Baby V's future grannies and pop pops, so I'd stick with (mostly) practical. And there are millions of other things to get, but that's what I came up with so far.

Congrats, Amy & Ray!