Sand & Sea - Part 1

Matt and I recently stole away for a few days to catch a few rays and a few zzzz’s. Oh yeah, and to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. With an anniversary in the midst of hurricane season, not to mention football season, budget season (at work) and Will’s birthday “season”, we thought it would be better to go on a tropical vacation a few months early. Plus it means we can just celebrate again come September!!

Grace Bay

Our view every morning

One of the places I have always wanted to go was the Turks & Caicos and lucky for us, a new all-inclusive resort opened last year. After cashing in lots of credit card points we had been accumulating since our last trip (May 2005 I think), we were booked!! With the kids and the dogs tucked safely away in the care of the wonderful grandparents, away we went!

Toes in the Sand

Thankfully we had pretty uneventful travels down to the Caribbean. We arrived mid-afternoon to sunny skies and quickly settled in to vacation mode. The resort was absolutely gorgeous and practically brand-new. We were upgraded to a one-bedroom suite (whoever knew I would be so excited to be able to do not one but TWO loads of laundry while on vacation!!!), just steps away from the action but yet tucked on a quiet side of a building, facing the kiddie pool. If you have to be facing a pool, this is the one to face since all the youngsters go to bed early, leaving a quiet pool just for you to enjoy if the 30 second walk to the beach is too much. I can’t believe that I forgot to take a picture of our suite!!! We always take a pic of the outside of our room!!!

Snoozing on the sofa...getting some well deserved zzzzz's

The first full day we just hung out on the beach, completely relaxing. We did a little snorkeling and kayaking and started enjoying the delicious food. The Turks & Caicos is known for its food selection and the meals at our resort were no exception. We had planned on dining “off campus” one night to experience one of the other awesome restaurants on the island but were so impressed with our resort’s offerings, we never ventured out. 

Kayaking

The 2^nd night we enjoyed a DELICIOUS meal at the rooftop restaurant, The Skye Lounge, and we enjoyed it so much we had to eat there one more time before we left.

Rooftop restaurant where we had dinner

The sun, just as it was starting its descent

Rainbow

That night we also met a fellow NCSU grad (met another one before the end of the trip) who was there on his honeymoon as well as another couple with NC ties. It was hard to believe that we were celebrating our 10^th anniversary when these couples, who were our age, give or take a year, were on their honeymoons!

To be continued….

Strawberry Fields

It’s the time of year again…..time for our annual trek to the strawberry fields. We even made Avery pick her share when she was 2 weeks old a few years ago! Ok, well she may have not picked any, but she went along for the ride.

 

We usually go to this small farm in Rolesville called The Collard Patch. It is never crowded and the strawberries are always plentiful. And we always get too many!

Strawberry Shortcake

 

The kids have a ton of fun when we go and somehow this year we managed to stay fairly clean. Well, I am pretty sure Will picked up a few germs in one of the 200 times he went to the porta potty (it was hot at soccer and someone had a lot to drink!).  We even had some momentary flashing of the field, but I am trying to block that whole porta potty part of the experience from my memory. 

Hard at work

Will is an excellent picker and this year truly understood which ones were the good berries to get and which ones were not.  Avery did a pretty good job too. Neither of them ate very many….I think they forgot they could and I certainly didn’t remind them. I’ve dealt with the wrath of strawberry juice stains before. 

Big Berry!

Here's a good one!

 

Avery is so like me though……Unless I am on a ball field or at the beach, I really don’t care to be outside all that much. I am always “ready to go” way before Matt is. Avery was worn out, just like me. She kept sitting on the ground, saying “Can we go home?” Ha….I finally told her to go tell her dad. Guess what, we went home.  

Asking Daddy to go home

Just to round out our 2011 strawberry experience.....a few nights later we were enjoying some strawberry shortcake for dessert. With the gentle flick of a wrist, Avery's shortcake accidentally landed cream side down, right smack on top of Lindy's head. Just like a little hat of sugar. It was HILARIOUS. If I had only had the camera within reach! Poor Lindy, this hasn't been her week. This was the night after we locked her outside in the front yard no less, for almost 2 hours one night.

Museum of Life and Science

Will's class recently went on a field trip to the NC Museum of Life and Science in Durham and Matt, Avery and I tagged along. I haven't been to this museum in like 25 years...I think I went sometime in elementary or middle school. I think. We had SO MUCH FUN with Will's class. Thankfully it was overcast because it was hot and humid enough already. I can't imagine how hot it could have been.

We did lots of fun things....played on lots of play structures, visited the farm animals, walked the Dinosaur Trail, dug for fossils, raced some sailboats, saw the butterflies and a ton of other fun things.

The Dinosaur Trail was not quite what I expected it to be....I was underwhelmed to say the least. And no, I wasn't expecting real dinosaurs or anything. Maybe just more dinosaurs. The fossil dig made me ill to because everyone got so dirty!!

A little bit of a scary sight when you turn the bend

 

 

 

obligatory poses by the dinos

You can tell everyone is thrilled to have their pic taken

 

Digging for fossils...in Lilly Pulitzer

We spent an hour or so inside, but definitely didn't get to see everything. We will spend more time inside when we go back, for sure!

Making the earth move (I think)

Play time

You're Two!!!

Dear Avery-
Some things to remember about you as you turned TWO:

-You wear 3T clothes and a size 7 shoe
-You weigh 29lbs, 9oz.
-You are 36 inches tall
-Your favorite person in the world is Bubba
-You still sleep with your paci (2 years and 1 week update....now you do not!!)
-You are working on potty training and doing really well!
-You talk all the time and love to sing and dance
-You have to sleep with Lolly the Dolly, Tiger the Tomcat and the little baby Lindy and Stella gave you for your birthday. You named it Riley.
-You are very opinionated about your clothing and your hair bows
-You are a big helper. You like to help with the dogs and you like to help clean up (most of the time).
-You still love to ride in your stroller. We think you like being carted around.
-Your favorite store is Target
-You think all jewelry is a diamond.

We all just love you so much. You can light up a room with your goofy jokes and tricks and then throw a terrible two's tantrum in the next breath!

0 years

1 Year

2 Years

Birthday Bash

Our sweet Avery turned two on Friday!  We had a circus themed celebration!  Family and friends from near and far joined us for the celebration. I believe the birthday girl (and her brother) had a grand time!

Happy Birthday, Avery!!

Circus, Circus

My popcorn poppers!

College roomies!

Cake Time

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you!

She had the sweetest little "puff"!

She got REALLY mad when I took her cake away to cut it

Pin the Nose on the Clown

Me and one of my girls

Avery and her godmother

Family Pic

Gifts Time

Opening her mudpie maker

Avery, Will and Micah makin' mudpies

First mudpie cake

Our Toothless Wonder

What was supposed to be a fabulous weekend celebrating Avery's 2nd birthday started out with a bang. Literally. Thursday night about 11:30PM I was upstairs folding laundry and Matt was downstairs working when all of a sudden we heard a big bang, followed by screaming. Will had fallen out of bed in his sleep. I reached him in about 2 seconds flat and turned on the light and there he was sitting in his floor, covered and surrounded in blood. And with a tooth in his hand. I still get sick to my stomach thinking about it, so this will probably be a short "memory".

Long story short, we aren't sure what he hit...the floor, the nightstand, the bedframe....but whatever it was did a number on him. He has a busted chin, lip and it knocked out his top right front tooth. He also tore that little piece of skin/gum between the tooth top front teeth. We called his dentist, whose answering service put us through to the on call dentist, who was of course asleep. He was a really nice guy and gave us a few pointers on getting through the night and he wanted us to come see him in the morning so they could X-ray Will's mouth and make sure the entire tooth/root had come out and that there wasn't any other damage.

Friday night before bath time

I was so upset for a multitude of reasons. Reason #1 because I was just plain exhausted after a busy few weeks. And upset a gap-toothed smile meant he was growing up. And then upset because I hadn't been able to protect him. We all managed to get some sleep, although I did go check on him several times. When I noticed he was still able to suck his thumb, I figured all was good. Never have I been so happy to see him suck his thumb!!

Friday was supposed to be party prep day but after dropping Avery off at school, Will and I drove across the county to obviously the only pediatric dentist working on Fridays and had xrays and after a long wait (because of other emergencies) finally saw the poor dentist we had awoken the night before. He got a good report; basically it all happened in the best way it good. No root fragment left and no other serious damage. The dentist did find a hairline crack in the neighboring tooth, but we really don't know if the fall caused that because evidently that is common in small children.

It was around 1PM before I finally made it home and could start baking. Will has been surprisingly good over the whole thing. For the boy who doesn't like change, he has handled this somewhat big "change" (in his appearance at least) fairly well. In fact, after the initial shock and crying Thursday night, he just kept apologizing over and over for falling out the bed and then getting blood all over the bathroom and my shirt, and then asking to go back to bed.  Bless his heart.

Showing off

We didn't do the Tooth Fairy until Friday night because we saved the tooth for the dentist to examine in his effort to determine if all the root was gone. My good friend Lisa had made Will a tooth fairy pillow several years ago so I had to find that in the back of the closet.  We polled some friends for the appropriate amount and settled on $5.

Prepping for the Tooth Fairy

Tucked in tight under his pillow

Well, little did we know that $5 wouldn't be satisfactory...but not in the way you are thinking. A direct quote from Saturday morning, before he threw the $5 on the bed in disgust: "I wanted a dime or a quarter. Or even some gold doubloons."   Hahaha...so now we know.

I am getting a little more used to the toothless grin. I'm trying not to be the nervous ninny mother but I must admit my tolerance for rough housing has tanked since Thursday!!!