Family Vacation 2015 - Day 4 - Finally There!!!

We made it!! Finally!!! 

Today we started our vacation. Yes, we technically started on Wednesday night, but that was all just the journey to get to the vacation. Now we are here and we can start relaxing, as much as young parents can. But first, let's take a quick look at our day...

We woke up and got our free breakfast again and left the hotel. I never know if the breakfast is free or the hotel is free with a really expensive breakfast. Hmm. I guess we'll never know. 

Anyway, we were on our way to Hunting Island Beach. It's a State Park, which basically means it's a park that you have to pay to go in. But, this one did have a beach, so it was worth it. The drive to the beach area was beautiful. I don't know if they planned it to be this way or not, but the road makes you wind around trees and bushes like you're navigating through a dense jungle. 

The beach was pretty nice too. Very wide and flat and you could see how far the water had come up at high tide, and it was almost the whole way to the beach access. Me and Rylynn played in the water while Melody and Denver sweated together in a chair. 

She was having a great time, but Melody and her sweaty sidekick were ready to go. We packed back up and got to the car around lunch time and tried to decide where to go while Melody nursed Denver. 

We ended up at the Smoking Planks in Port Royal. We had tried to go there the night before, but they were closed. We both got pulled pork and Rylynn got some mac and cheese. Mine was actually a pulled pork Reuben, and it was quite good. Especially dipped with their BBQ sauces :) 

Back in the car we went to head to our final destination. We loaded the baby up with milk in hopes that we could tackle the last 3 hr 20 min leg of the course in one fell swoop. HA! The kids must've read all the good things I said about them yesterday and decided that shouldn't happen again. It was a headache for sure. I didn't count, but I'm pretty sure I heard the word "momma" a bazillion times, give or take. We had to stop half way though because we only had "cookies" and not "snacks" so Rylynn wasn't happy, which woke up Denver, who wasn't happy, which made mommy and daddy not happy. 

We exited the highway and found an abandoned gas station to pull into and feed Denver. Melody sat in the back seat to nurse him, and, to give her more room, I took the infant carrier out and put it on the ground outside the car, then grabbed Rylynn and we went for a walk to stretch. We ran around a little bit and then got back in the car because we were boiling to death. Melody wasn't done feeding Denver, so I thought we could just drive to the quick mart right across the road and grab some snacks, and use the bathroom, and change Rylynns diaper. We proceeded across the parking lot, crossed the road, and parked in the next parking lot, all while Melody nursed. No big deal though. I don't think we even went 3 mph. I took Rylynn in and into to the bathroom to change her. 

Grossest. 

Bathroom. 

Ever. 

It was terrible. We walked out and I was just gonna have to change her in the car. But, I was surprised on my walk back to the car by a stranger in a red car who pulled up to me. 

"Excuse me" he said. 

"Yes?" I responded with confusion.

"I think you left your car seat in the parking lot"

Then it hit me... I had never put Denver's car seat back in the car after taking it out for Melody. Somehow, this guy had seen that I had taken it out, left it there, and then tracked me down at the next place to let me know I forgot it. I mean, we would've found out soon enough, but I thought that was pretty awesome that guy took the time. That guy is awesome! And I'm forgetful! 

After that it went okay. Melody stayed in the back with the kids and entertained Rylynn til we finally got to the house. My parents, my sister Mollie and her husband Ryan were already there and my other brother, Matt, and his wife, Erin, and their two girls, Jordyn and Maddie, arrived shortly after. We all got settled in, went swimming while we waited an hour and ten minutes for our pizza to be ready, ate, and then hung out a bit. It's so great to be with family. We are so blessed to be in such a great family that we can all laugh and have a good time together, and our kids just LOVE to play together. It was truly a great time. Although, I did leave out that Denver nursed 3 times in that short amount of time. We call it his evening feeding frenzy. Usually between 7-9 pm he doesn't want to stop eating. Ever. 

By this time I was already pretty worn out from the day, but we still had to get groceries. I went to the store and my parents came too. I got my stuff, took it out to the car and waited for them. While I was waiting, my faith in human kind dropped significantly. I watch a lady load up her car and then take her cart across the parking lot and ram it into a curb directly behind another parked vehicle, causing it to be in the way of that vehicle. The worst part is, if she would've walked that same distance in a different direction, she would have been at the cart parking place!! I don't understand people like this! How can you just push a shopping cart to block a car from pulling out of a parking space and just leave? I don't understand. But, the cart wrangler came around and grabbed it eventually. And then my parents came. Then we went home and I got waaay too out of breath carrying groceries up two flights of steps :/ But, melody had already put the kids to bed, so I gave her a kiss and went to get in bed with this bed hog... 

She makes up for it with her cuteness, so it's all good. 

My thoughts on the day- I'm so tired. Goodnight. 

Family Vacation 2015 - Day 3 - Travel Day

Today was travel day. A long travel day. We got up and had our free breakfast and started packing up to leave. It's amazing how much luggage two adults, a toddler, and and infant can have. It doesn't help that we have to keep hauling a week and half's worth of clothes in and out of the car for just one night in a hotel. Anyway, we got on the road at 10:11and after that... Everything went great. Honestly, it could not have been a better traveling day. I kept waiting for something bad to happen... And it didn't. Well, except for a little issue at lunch. It was a minor issue, but I got to put this in here just for principle. What is up with restaurants NOT having changing tables in the bathroom!? What are we supposed to do? Change them on your filthy floors? Let me know which day of the year you decide to clean your bathroom floor so I can come and have a clean surface to lay my child on! Seriously though! I had to change Rylynn standing up in the stall. It is hard to take pee-soaked clothes off of a crying toddler (again crying because of the loud hand dryers) and then proceed to put a new diaper on and dry clothes, all with the toddler standing. How hard can it possibly be to screw a folding piece of plastic to a wall so that my child doesn't get hepatitis from your floor?!

Anywho... We drove for about two hours and it worked out so that we were able to stop for lunch (again, thanks Wendy's for not investing in a changing table), fuel, and to feed Denver all at the same time, which was amazing. Then we drove another 3 hours and, right when Denver was waking up to eat, we entered South Carolina and we were able to stop at the welcome center and use the bathroom and feed Denver and run around a bit to let off some energy. Then it was back on the road for another 3 hours til we finally met our destination of Beaufort, SC. 

Yes, we ended up in Beaufort instead of Charleston. Since we are last minute planners, and the fact that we did not consider the amount of people that would be in Charleston for the historic event of taking down the Confederate Flag, there were no hotels available. Plus, after much consideration, we decided that it might not be the best time to try and have a leisure and relaxing time in Charleston with all that's currently going on. 

Since we didn't have a whole lot going on at the time, Melody was able to search for another place to stay. We had already been to Savannah, GA and Hilton Head was too expensive. She came across this island town near Hilton Head called Beaufort that actually had hotels we could afford. Plus, that would only leave about a 3 and a half hour trip the next day to finish our journey to St Augustine. 

Now, back to the driving part... Like I said... It couldn't have gone better. We were pretty worried since we didn't have a TV in our car that this much sitting and traveling with a toddler would be horrendous. But we purchased a few new toys right before the trip and slowly introduced her to them throughout the trek. That, and about a billion stickers, kept her pretty content the majority of the ride :) 

It also helped that Denver slept the entire time! We really couldn't believe it. He would wake up to eat, and then right back to sleep. That was truly a blessing from God. Trying to drive that far with these two kids could have been enormously worse, and we are thanking God for that right now. Also, running around and playing hide and seek at the rest stop helps :) 

We arrived at our hotel in Beaufort at about 6:30. Got settled in and asked the concierge where a good place to eat would be. She suggested a place called Dockside. So we got the kids ready and headed that way as soon as we could, which was 7:45. Fifteen minutes later we were there and the parking lot was packed! It was a gorgeous view across the swampy, marsh area with some large sail boats docked there, and we could smell the water as soon as we got out of the car. We were excited :) We gave the hostess our names and she politely told us it would be about an hour til we were seated. So, quick recap... We ate lunch at 12:00 and now we were gonna wait an hour to order dinner at 9:00. That's not a good plan. We decided not to stay. We were really disappointed we couldn't eat there but we were trying to stay positive. There was a seafood restaurant directly adjacent to our hotel called Gilligans Seafood Restaurant that got mediocre reviews, but since nothing else was open, we headed there. One upside was that on our way to Dockside we went through a quaint little town called Port Royal with shops and restaurants that we decided we definitely wanted to visit the next morning :) 

Pulling into Gilligans we were a little skeptical. It looked a little run-down and outdated, but we were out of options. But, just like He had all day, God provided for us again. We were seated at a booth with an aquarium on the side, which Rylynn was ecstatic about. The restaurant wasn't crowded, which was good because me and Melody had to constantly walk around with Denver to keep him calm. Me and Melody took turns eating our food in shifts while the other held/comforted the infant, and Rylynn just ate and danced and was happy as could be looking at the fish and crabs. This was amazing to us since she had only gotten about an hour nap at around 11:00 in the morning. 

The food was good, it had a great view of the water, and Rylynn actually finished hers with little hassle. We had some issues at the end with slow service and bill issues, but nothing too major. Once again... Could've gone a lot worse. 

Then it was back to the hotel at about 9:45, a little TV, and then sleepy time. Another successful day of keeping our kids alive ;) 

My thoughts on the day - I just could not, and can not, stop thinking about how well everything went. I know that I can't expect this every day or in every situation, but I'm still so thankful. True, we didn't get to do everything we wanted. We didn't get to go to Charleston and we didn't get to eat at Dockside, but I think there are reasons for that. Who knows what Charleston would've been like and I know Rylynn had a waaay better time at Gilligans than she would have at Dockside. And every parent knows... A good experience for your kids is a good experience for you. So, I'm headed to sleep with a thankful heart and ready to see what challenges and joys lay ahead tomorrow :) 

 

Family Vacation 2015 - Day Dos - Plans change, roll with it

The person who first said "things don't always go as planned" must have had kids. It isn't that things always go bad, they just don't go like you thought they would.
Today the plan was to go to Colonial Williamsburg for the day. Probably check things out there and have lunch and come back to the hotel by nap time in the afternoon. 

We had been to Colonial Williamsburg before and had a good time just walking around. This time though, we wanted to see things we hadn't had a chance to see the first time. So, we arrived at Downtown Williamsburg and found a parking spot in the shade, which is essential if you have a black car and a dark colored car seat for your toddler. We got out the Ergo and stroller and snacks and sunglasses and backpack and diapers and juice and we were all set for an all day learning and history adventure through colonial times. We leisurely strolled down the sidewalk and Rylynn was content breaking her sunglasses in her stroller and Denver was sound asleep, sweating on momma. We ooh'd and ahh'd at the people dressed in old clothes and the horse and carriages and heavily debated touring a church which cost $1 per person, but then decided to save our money, hopefully for ice cream. We made our way to the Governors Palace, trying to stay as much in the shade as possible. When we reached the large abode we saw some people going inside the large brick wall and thought "Oh, that would be fun to go through there" so we followed them. But a Colonial Williamsburg employee stopped us at the entrance and asked for our passes, which we didn't have. "Oh yes. You need a pass for everything in Williamsburg" he explained. So he directed us to the ticket house, and we headed back the exact way we had come, towards the ticket house, but not before we snapped a great picture :) 

Once inside the refreshingly cool, air conditioned house we looked at the ticket prices and thought "I wonder where I can sell my kidney around here". The daily admission for an adult is $40.99, but kids are free! Yay! We thanked the gentleman at the ticket booth for explaining to us that there's nothing fun you can do without buying passes and quietly acted like we were discussing whether to buy the tickets, when in actuality we were just enjoying some A/C before heading back into the heat to go elsewhere. 

Not that $40.99 is an outrageous price, but just not what we were hoping to spend for probably about an hour til the kids got bored, tired or hungry. So, we accelerated our plans and decided to go to the Jamestown settlement as well. Long story short... We drove there... And there's nothing to do without buying $25 passes, but the gift shop was neat. And, actually, the drive was quite enjoyable and relaxing. 

So, by now it's about 11:30 and we had basically done nothing except get the kids in and out of the car for what seemed like a hundred times, but it was time to feed Denver and ourselves. We made our way back towards the hotel and found a nice pull off area in the shade where Melody could nurse Denver and me and Rylynn could go play on a small beach area. Rylynn had a great time playing in the calm water and digging in the sand and watching a dog shake it's wet body right in front of her. It's easy to smile when you see your child having so much fun :) 

But eventually it's time to go. I tried to clean and dry Rylynns soaked and sandy body off with a blanket we had in the trunk, and changed her into dry clothes while she screamed for wanting to stay. That's one thing that's not great; stopping your kids from doing something they are loving. But, we gotta eat. 

Yelp! came to our aid and found us a nice little diner called Five Forks Cafe. The food was good and the staff members were super friendly and couldn't stop complimenting us on our beautiful children :)

Then it was back to the hotel for nap time, and both kids were asleep before we even finished the 15 minute drive. It wasn't at all the morning we had planned, but it was a great morning nonetheless. 

Later on, after naps, we got some pizza and wings from a local Italian place called Sal's and ate in the hotel room. The wings were amazing and Rylynn had a fun time running around the hotel room as we tried to prevent her from getting pizza sauce on stuff. 

After at least 30 minutes after eating, to avoid cramping, we went down to the hotel pool. Indoor hotel pools are normally easy to find, as long as you can smell. We just followed the chlorine odor and we ended up in a loud, hot, eye-burning room with a relatively small body of water, semi-crowded with other very active children seemingly unaware of their surroundings or that anybody else exists on the planet. But, Rylynn loved it and Denever even gave it a try. 

Hoping that it would make Rylynn sleepy, we stayed at the pool for a while. Once we were back in the room, we had some snack and way too much juice and watched TV til bedtime. Denver was already zonked out so it was just the active toddler to try and relax. Obviously we had not stayed at the pool long enough, because she was not even close to tired. Finally after about 45 minutes of struggling, she was asleep, and the day was done. And no ice cream was eaten :( 

My thoughts on the day- Parenting is a roller coaster of emotions. Frustration, joy, impatience, gratitude, etc. You never know when a happy moment is going to immediately change to a moment where you're trying to change a diaper in the public bathroom but someone had to dry their hands and the electric hand dryer is loud and is probably gonna attack and eat everyone so we should probably freak out and scream at the top of our lungs! But at the end of the day, even if your plans got changed or ruined, you look at your sleeping child covered in an Elsa towel used as a blanket, and all you think about is the good stuff. At that moment, you don't care that they cried for 5 minutes because you gave them water instead of orange juice. You think about your day, and how much of a blessing it is to have kids who love you and forgive you for when you mess up. THAT is a nice thing to fall asleep to. 

Family Vacation 2015 - Day 1 - Beginning Our Journey

Everyone loves to go to the beach over summer vacation. We love to escape the heat and humidity of Lancaster PA and travel 3 to 18 hours away for different heat and humidity. The great thing about going to the beach is that the only thing you have to do is... Nothing. You just relax. You can mix things up and read if you want, but even that can be a little stressful for the beach. That's the illusion of the beach anyway. Come, relax, and enjoy life. But some people have kids. And it's not always that simple. We are among the lucky to be blessed with two beautiful, healthy, full-of-life kids, and we are one of the many families attempting a beach vacation this summer. In this installment of Ryan's Ramblings I will be writing the happenings of everyday on our vacation. The good, the bad, and all the joys of parenting in between. 

For a little back story... We have two kids; a 2 year old girl, Rylynn, and a 2 month old boy, Denver. Here they are right before were about to leave...  

The plan is to spend a week at a beach house in St. Augustine, FL with the rest of my family. St. Augustine is not real close to Lancaster, Pa; about 14 hours driving. That seems a little far to expect our two lil'ns to be content. So, we decided to break it up. 

We can check into our beach house in Florida at 4 o'clock on Saturday. So here is the plan we came up with to make the journey tolerable for us all...

Wednesday- Pack up and leave by 6 to arrive at the hotel in Williamsburg, Va by midnight

Thursday- Visit Colonial Williamsburg

Friday- Visit Historic Jamestown in the morning and then travel to Charleston, Sc in the afternoon. 

Saturday- Explore Charleston and leave for Florida to arrive at the house around 4-5pm. 

That's the plan... We'll see how it goes. 

It started off great. While I was at work on Wednesday my amazing wife, Melody, got everything ready to go, while managing to take care of two kids (with some help from a neighbor). So, when I got home from work the car was all packed and she was just about finished nursing our son. I changed quickly, we loaded up in our new-to-us Camry and started on our trip... To Wendy's. We grabbed some quick grub and we were officially on our trek by 6:15 pm. 

Williamsburg is only about 4.5 hours from Lancaster so we were hoping to arrive at our hotel before midnight. As we began to travel we, of course, came to an accident on the highway, which delayed us about a half hour. But both kids did pretty fair through that ordeal. Around 8:30 our son needed to be nursed again, so we pulled off the highway and me and Rylynn watched for airplanes while Melody nursed Denver. Thinking that I would be easier to feed him from a bottle in the car, Melody had procured some milk for him during the drive and started feeding him. He wasn't having that. After struggling with the bottle for a while, poor Melody ended up having to nurse frustrated Denver anyway. That was a lesson learned for us.

About a half hour later we were back on the road... With a new seating chart. Denver could not be pacified after feeding so Melody was forced to be squeezed between two car seats in the back to control the situation while I drove. She was able to get Denver calmed down, over and over again, while the constant "momma! momma! momma!" came from her other side. She handled the situation great and with patience only a mother can possess. Because of Melody's skills, the entire back seat was asleep at about 10:30pm and I was trying hard NOT to join them. 

I try to find ways to stay awake while driving such as blowing ice cold a/c right in my face, listening to talk radio, or not listening to the radio at all and just singing to myself. I thought I was doing pretty good, but at about 11:30 the sound of rumble strips woke Melody. She could see I was struggling and engaged me in conversation, and before we knew it we had reached our destination. After quickly unloading all the luggage and children, we found our room, fed the baby, wrangled the newly energized toddler and went to bed. We had made it the first leg of our journey with little hassle. I thanked God for safety and an amazing family, and quickly drifted off to Lalaland. 

Burning Bridge Tavern: worth crossing the river for?

Now that I have been blessed with a second child, my schedule doesn't allow for as many "guy nights" as it once did. If I can somehow convince my lovely wife to leave her at home with an infant and a toddler while I go out and enjoy adult drinks and fine cuisine with some friends, the next question arises... Where do we go? It is difficult to try and find new place and it's a dangerous thing to go to a restaurant where none in the party have previously attended, you really don't know what to expect. But this last Wednesday we decided to live on the edge and try a totally new place: Burning Bridge Tavern in Wrightsville, PA. 

After arriving and being seated we quickly discovered two things: Wednesday's are wing night AND open mic night. I had looked over their menu beforehand and was excited to try their burger topped with pulled pork and their house BBQ sauce, but when I found it was wing night I had to change my plans. 

They had a good variety of wing flavors:  BBQ, spicy barbecue, spicy ranch, garlic Parmesan, garlic and butter, Old Bay, Burning Bridge and then several HOT  choices: 1 alarm, 2 alarm, 3 alarm, and ALL CALL (which is made with ghost peppers). So we put in our order of pub fries while we decided which wings to get. My choices were the Burning Bridge dry rub and a saucy Spicy Barbecue, and they were both excellent. Normally I don't care for dry rub wings, but the Burning Bridge wings were quite exceptional. 

One thing that turned out to be quite a turn off was Open Mic night. It wasn't the general mediocrity of talent that bothered me; I have respect for anyone who gets up and sings in front of people. The problem was the shear volume of music. We were located at a table on the complete opposite side of the restaurant and we had to yell at each other to talk, which wasn't really the atmosphere I was hoping for. It's not fun to have to tell the same story three times just so everyone in the group can hear it. 

Other than the unnecessarily loud music, I quite enjoyed the Burning Bridge Tavern. The service was friendly and quick and the atmosphere reminded me of a small southern tavern, but that part could have just been the heat. I would happily go back and enjoy some more of what Burning Bridge has to offer, but probably not on open mic night :)

My Ratings (out of 10)

Atmosphere: 🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔

Food:🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔

Service:🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔

Overall: 🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔

Thanks for taking the time to read my review and I hope that you will take the time to cross the river and enjoy the Burning Bridge Tavern. 

Be safe. Be courteous. 

-Ryan

The Pebble Smartwatch: A waste or worth it?

Smartwatches have been on the scene for the last couple years and they're picking up speed fast. Now that Apple has joined the bandwagon it is not just a geeky or nerdy thing to wear a smartwatch, it's fashion. Other big names have been pushing out smart watches like Samsung, Sony, Motorola, and LG. But there's a lesser known name that's been there since the beginning: Pebble. 

Pebble started as a Kickstarter project back in 2012 and were immensely successful with their first smartwatch: The Pebble. 

It was a simple companion for your smart phone that didn't try too hard to do too much. They had so much success with the Pebble that they were able to create a next generation called the Pebble Steel.

 I was able to acquire a Steel at a great value and spent the last 10 days trying it out. Here's my thoughts:

Hardware

The new design of the Pebble Steel allows it to look more refined than the original Pebble without drawing too much attention to itself. With its metal frame and its leather band, the Steel feels both sturdy and premium at the same time. 

The watch does come with two bands; a genuine leather band and a metal link band. The metal band feels a little cheap and tends to pull my arm hairs while wearing it. I prefer the leather band because it is light and very comfortable. I did get another band with my Pebble that is a heavier, more premium feeling band that looks very nice, but I still prefer the leather. 

The Pebble has a total of four buttons. It is not touch screen, so the buttons serve as navigation tools. The button on the left is a Home/Back button, the middle button on the right is the Menu/Select button, and the up and down buttons on the right are... well... up and down buttons. 

The watch is water proof up to 5 meters. Although, if you plan to leave your watch on while you shower, I'd advise to switch out the leather band for a metal one. 

There is also a place on the left side for magnetic charging cable to snap on. Conveniently, the cable uses a USB connection to plug into any charger you already have or a computer or laptop. 

Software

Here's the basics of the Pebble: the watch can store up to 8 "slots". These slots can be filled with extra watch faces or apps. You use the Pebble app on your device to download and install these apps and faces and when your 8 slots are full they are saved to your "locker", which allows the apps or faces to be switched out with ease using the app. 

Because Pebble has been around for a while and it is open source there are tons of watch faces and apps available. Some apps include RunKeeper, Evernote, Foursquare, Yelp and a lot more. There's also games similar to Tetris, Flappy Bird, and Snake and there are endless pages of watch faces; anybody can find one to suit their personality. 

One of the best features of the Pebble is that, unlike many other smart watches, it works with Android and iOS! I was able to test my Pebble on both of these platforms and was happy with each one. 

Overall, the Pebble feels great on iOS or Android. But, typical of Apple, it feels like the Pebble doesn't use its full capabilities when connected to the iPhone. Setting up the connection is simple and using the iOS or Android Pebble app makes it very easy to add or remove watch faces or apps. But the watch feels held back when it comes to notifications on the iPhone. When you receive a text the watch vibrates and you see who sent the text and the message itself. The only option then is to dismiss the message.

When using an android device you are given the option to open the message on the phone, dismiss, or reply.

You can reply with an emoji, or a preselected answer(I.e. Yes, no, ok, thanks, on my way etc.) OR you can create 5 custom responses and reply with a genuine response without even having to use your phone at all.

I found these quick responses very useful. One other neat feature that is only available on the Android app is that ability to choose which apps send notifications to the Pebble. On iPhone, all notifications that would show up in the Notification Center come to the Pebble. Basically, that means that if you want it to be notified on your phone, you're going to be notified on your watch. Whereas with Android, your phone can still create notifications without sending them to your watch. For example... I like to see, on my phone, who all liked my Instagram posts, but I don't want my watch buzzing every 30 seconds letting me know someone liked my picture. 

Battery Life

I don't think people really want one more thing they have to charge all the time. And that's what makes the Pebble great. A lot of smart watches will drain the battery in the course of a single day, but the Pebble can go multiple days without dying. I was able to get 5 full days use out of the watch with my iPhone. I did have a different result when using my LG G2. I don't know if it was because I was responding to texts through the watch a lot or what, but I was only able to get about 2 full days from the watch. But, that is still better than charging every night! And the charging time is very short on the watch because the battery is so small. There's a pretty good reason why the battery last so long, and it leads me to my next topic...

Display

The Pebble uses something called an e-paper display. It is very similar to the screen used on the Kindles called e-ink, just with a faster refresh rate for better animations. The watch face is always on, unlike other smart watches where the screen only turns on when you turn your wrist to look at it (and sometimes not even then). The face does have a back light that is used depending on if it's bright or dark out. I found that it's nice to have the screen on all the time so that you can glance at the watch if you need, and you don't have to perform a certain motion to see the time. Obviously this display does have drawbacks. It's not color, it doesn't make the face look like a "real" watch, and you can't view or take photos with it. And that thought leads me to my conclusion....

Conclusion

What is the purpose of a smartwatch? Is it supposed to replace your phone? Is it any better to look at a screen on your wrist than take the screen out of your pocket? I think the Pebble does a great job at finding the right balance for a smartwatch. It's there to alert you to what is happening on your phone; it's not there to replace your phone. If you want to text, and take pictures, and send emails from your wrist then this watch is not for you. 

So then you may ask... "Ryan, why did you get a smartwatch?" I got it because I couldn't even count the number of times a day I would get my phone out of my pocket for no reason, just in case I missed a text or a facebook notification or a super important tweet from a famous celeb. Now, I don't have an excuse to distract myself with my phone. I actually turned sound and vibration off on my iPhone. So, if I don't have anything come to my Pebble, I have no reason to get my phone out, which means I can focus on what's in front of me rather than what's in my pocket. 

So, I think Pebble absolutely nailed it with this smartwatch. It does exactly what it should, and doesn't try to replace your phone. Is it necessary? No. Not by any means. But, when I'm driving on a back road, in my manual car, drinking a milkshake, and I feel my pocket start to vibrate, it's nice to know whether or not it's a call worth taking, before I wreck my car because I was digging in my pocket for my phone, just so a robot woman could tell me how many break-ins the FBI report every half hour. 

Final thought: The Pebble Steel is a smart, fun, stylish and simple watch that I would highly recommend to any iPhone or Android user wanting to enter the smartwatch space. Also, keep an eye out for the soon-to-be-coming-out Pebble Time with color display and other great features :) 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you learned something and buy a Pebble :) 

Be safe. Be courteous. 

Ryan