I'm finally going to try to get this post finished so I can finish one more from our time on vacation.
August 9th, the kids and I drove down to Raleigh, NC to stay in a hotel for 6 days and visit with my in-laws. Our first visitor was Opa, Nick's dad. I LOVED his visit and he is always so kind and generous to myself and the kids. He arrived 3 hours later than expected, so the kids and I ran to Target, grabbed a few things, then over to Tropical Smoothie for lunch. I LOVE tropical smoothie and would have eat there every day if it were up to me...ha! I always get the half sandwich and a smoothie option. It's yum! We finally pick up Opa, and get back to the hotel for him to spend some time with the grandbabies. He loved on them so dearly and soaked up every last minute he had with them. I told Nick that if we ever need a vacation type honeymoon, we could trust his dad with the kids. Opa gave them lots and lots of kisses, hugs, baths, diaper changes and played with them endlessly. Opa came on Friday and left on Sunday, a short trip, but a great trip. On Saturday, we went shopping real quick, he wanted to buy the kids stuff (he bought way more than I ever imagined), then we spent the day at the Garland Farm. I've never heard of Truffles in the form of mushrooms, but the experience was amazing. I didn't take any pictures while we were there because it was a barbeque/picnic and pool party, so I didn't want to be the strange person taking random pictures. It was a rainy day, very heavy downpour, but it finally let up and we were able to enjoy the pool, poolside. Because we were invited the night before, we weren't informed it was a pool party, so we didn't have our bathing suits. Oh well, we still enjoyed our time and the company was great. Betty and Franklin were very nice, down to earth type of people. Which made the atmosphere much easier to relax. After seeing this article in a plaque from fortune small business hanging on the wall, I started wondering "where are we, who are these people?" ha! The only type of truffle I'd heard of was the chocolate truffles, you know, the yummy, melt in your mouth kind. ha! It was a great time!
Sunday came, and was time for grandma and her "sister" to arrive and for Opa to head back home. It was sad to see Opa leave. He's planning to come to Germany in December, so we are already looking forward to that visit.
Nicks mom is like his dad, so the next 3 days were interesting, to say the least. We (mostly the kids) hung out in their room a lot We did attempt to go to the planetarium, but the show they were playing wasn't geared for a 1 year old...so we decided to keep walking. His mom is very frugal. That's okay, I was able to save a bit during those days...lol. She watched the kids for a few hours so I could finish my school work. That was a huge help since last minute changing in school left me alone on an assignment. Not fun! But I accepted the help with the kids and got my work done. I might have had a whole package of wipes gone when I got the kids back, but that's totally fine...ha! At least they were clean, haha! Thanks Mom!
On Wednesday morning the kids and I said our goodbyes and drove over to New Bern to visit with their cousins. We spent only 3 hours there, but we had a great time. We took the kids to Chic-fil-a for lunch and I have to tell you, Xander finally ate chicken nuggets. I've been trying BKs and McD's, but nope...not until Chic-fil-a! YAH! It was like a milestone. Now, he will eat McD's, which I'm thankful for those during car rides. Wednesday evening we drove up to Norfolk, VA to visit Xander's birth family. We spent our time with Nana Shelly, Liz (birthmom LP), Pookie, Jayden and Tyson (Liz's boyfriend). It was great hanging out with them. We went to Nana Shelly's house and just chatted and watched the kids play. It wasn't awkward at all. I knew it wouldn't, and I wasn't even nervous for the occasion. I was excited! We'd made plans to meet again on Thursday, pending a phone call from Liz. Much to our dislike, we didn't receive a phone call before 1, so we headed to a local (near our hotel) splash park in Hampton at the shopping plaza. (I couldn't see sitting in our hotel room doing nothing, hoping for a phone call. If she's anything like replying to emails, we wouldn't get one and our day would have been shot.) Now, that was fun! I've been wanting to take Xander to one of those since he could walk. I'm glad I remembered that was there, because the boy loved it and didn't want to leave. When we returned to our vehicle, I noticed Liz did call. So I called her back, it was 3 now. She decided to go donate plasma to get some money. Because we already had a play date planned for 6 in Hampton, I didn't want to wait until they were done donating (who knows how much longer that would have taken) to drive to Norfolk then chance the tunnels back over. If anyone knows that area, you know the tunnels are backed up all the time. So, we didn't meet up as planned on Thursday, but we had a playdate with another friend and the day was good.
Friday morning, nice and early, we packed up the vehicle and headed back to Nana's in Balitmore. I wanted to beat the Friday traffic in the DC area. We did!
Have a great day!
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