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Our travels / Vietnam

Vietnam: Hanoi

December 8, 2017

Written by ashleyrespecki

Further Reading...

Cappadocia (Turkey Part II)

April 18, 2014

The Grandparents Meet NYC

October 12, 2013

Pacific Northwest

October 8, 2014

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Our first house: The "before"

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How we kicked off our summer ☀️🕶🌊🍓🏐🌾
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We survived our realllly long road trip with a baby for Memorial Day weekend! (Next time, I’m taking ginger candy so the backseat ride isn’t so rough! 🤢) Quinn got to meet so many family and friends for the first time, went for her first swim, and tasted so many new foods (including an orange and a lime! no sour faces! 😵‍💫)⁣
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I’m so grateful for this trip and a summer where we can finally travel with our pandemic babe. And even though I def cried in the dark on the road trip when Quinn wouldn’t stop crying, and had to bed-share with her basically every night because pack-n-plays are not her jam, it was worth it!! I got to spend time with my parents and sister and extended family, celebrate my cousins’ graduations, eat all the Midwestern comfort food, drink coffee on my parent’s pool deck, catch up with my best friends, and soak up some sun. Filled me right up, and I’m still riding that high almost two weeks later. (And just one regret: not getting a big family photo at the graduation party! 😩)

We officially have an 8 month old in the Respecki

We officially have an 8 month old in the Respecki house! Haven’t snapped that milestone pic just yet so here’s a photo + vid series of what life is like with our sweet 8 month old right now.🥰⁣
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👶🏻 Quinn and her baby⁣
🤱🏼Mom and her baby⁣
🍽 Quinn’s first restaurant high chair experience ⁣
🍌 Enjoying one of her fav foods⁣
🐶 Quinn under the supervision of big bro ⁣
👏🏻 New party trick⁣
🤗 BABY GIGGLES⁣
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We’ve got a long road trip in store for the holiday weekend—Quinn gets to meet lots of family and friends for the first time!—so if anyone has road trip tips for this age, I’m all ears!

In 2017, for my 30th birthday, @nicholasrespecki a

In 2017, for my 30th birthday, @nicholasrespecki and I did a little tour of Southeast Asia. It was really our last “trip”—you know, the travel where you explore and site-see and eat your way through a city until your feet nearly bleed and you usually don’t actually relax??—before we bought a house and had a baby! Ha! We love that kind of travel and can’t wait for those kinds of adventures again, but age 👵🏻 and a baby 👶🏻 tell me the beach is calling our names ☀️ ⁣
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I cannot stop dreaming about our next vacay and when I was perusing pics from our Asia trip, I came across this pic from Hanoi and thought, those baskets are an instagrammer’s dream!! 😆 Then I thought maybe someone could use some inspo for their next “trip”, so I threw in some more Vietnam pics from our 2017 adventure.
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Where is everyone excited to go now that the world is beginning to open up?? ✈️

Me. In your feed. In my city. In skinny jeans bc I

Becoming a mom has taught me so much about extreme

Becoming a mom has taught me so much about extremes and opposites. About how grief can live alongside joy—and intensify it. 🌈 👶🏻 How you can spend an entire day with someone in your arms, on your lap, at your breast, and still feel alone. How utterly exhausted you can be and still manage to tackle your to-do list with insane energy. How you can appreciate and honor your body for all it’s done, but still loathe how it’s changed. How confused and fearful you can be, yet instinctual and beautifully decisive in the care you give. How miserable days are always countered with magical ones. And it’s not just me, it’s my baby too: every day I’m amazed at how tiny she is, yet wonder at how big she’s getting. She can look like her dad’s twin, and then all of a sudden I see myself in her expressions. She can be in complete hysterics and bust into giggles with the smallest tickle or look. Just months ago, her days were about survival, and now they’re filled with so much discovery and learning. One moment she was sharing space with me, the next, she was 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦—whole and independent in this big, wild world. ⁣
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But... 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦. Love is always the constant. Love got us here. Love fills the highs and lows and the in-between. Love makes it all worth it. ❤️⁣
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Holding space for so many women today. I see you, showing up every day, at your best and your worst, with laughter and tears. I see your multitudes and all the love you offer this world. Grateful for this journey alongside you. Happy Mother’s Day.

Seven whole months 🤯⁣ //⁣ Let me tell you,

Seven whole months 🤯⁣
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Let me tell you, this adorable, tiny human is somehow large and in charge. I don’t know why I’m surprised: Nick and I are both bullheaded, bossy, and intense 😆...it only makes sense our child would already have a ‘tude. This age is so fun, watching Quinn’s personality start to really shine. She loves solid foods, her puppy, telling us stories (the squeal started recently 😳), and chewing on everything soft. She gets bored and lets you know, hence the teething toy that had to be part of this photo shoot. She’s scooting backwards across the house and also has some acrobatics down so we’re bracing for the crawling. ⁣
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(She turned 7 months on Monday so by the time she turns a year, I’ll probably be posting 4 weeks late 😒 Momming, mannnn.)

BEFORE & AFTER—swipe for the before! //⁣ These

BEFORE & AFTER—swipe for the before!
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These pics were taken exactly three years apart. The before pic was taken the weekend we moved in. We closed on our house in March 2018 and spent all our evenings and weekends tackling work inside so we could move in at the end of April: wallpaper removal, drywall patching (read: SO MUCH SANDING), painting, new trim, weird things like removing the whole-house fan that didn’t work and the interior shutters I loathed. All we had done outside by move-in day was remove the ugly wrought iron bench the owners left, and pull out the silk flowers 🤨 they’d stuck in the landscaping.⁣
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We’ve done every ounce of exterior work to get here, except pour that new sidewalk! We have the body ailments to show for all of it, but I’m pretty proud...and yes, Nick is soaking in Epsom salts nightly. 😆

Quinn is soaking up spring with extra family time!

Quinn is soaking up spring with extra family time!⁣
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Nothing is worse than rain when you have visitors during a pandemic, so I was freaking out with the weather forecast this week. But turns out, my parents and sister brought sunshine with them. ☀️ Grateful for beautiful weather, vaccines, walks, puppies, and most importantly, this family. ⁣
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📷 : Quinn + cherry blossoms, girls selfie, Wilson fam (@austin_j_wilson Quinn tagged in for you on this one—miss you!), The Respeckis, Quinn & her grandpa, 3 best friends, Quinn & Auntie Abby @heyabbywilson 😎, and bonus content: sassy Auntie

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