After I got back from my girl's trip to New York City, my mom spent the week in Richmond with my brother and his family, as well as Whitney who had been up there nanny-ing all summer. So the kids and I twiddled our thumbs until Friday afternoon when we drove up to the Durham bus station and our absolute favorite sight to see came rolling into view: The Big Blue Mega Bus bearing Grandma Joanie and Whitney from Richmond!
We got one last rendezvous with both before they abandoned us for the West coast. We immediately headed over to "Allen and Sons" in Chapel Hill, a Southern BBQ joint featured in the June issue of Food Network magazine as one of the editor's all-time favs. She said she regularly has it overnighted, so I had super high expectations that unfortunately, fell pretty flat. Not my favorite...
The next day we decided to try a picnic in Southern Pines at a fun sand park the kids really like. Thumbs up from the Picnic Queen herself (or maybe she's just signaling "Don't take the picture while my mouth is full!!").
Zach had a blast pushing his monster trucks through the sand and stopped only for a bite or two of sandwich. He's happiest outside.
Lucy liked showing off her climbing skills to our guests, and attempted the monkey bars as well. She's getting closer!
After our sandwiches, we headed over to the cupcake shop across the street and each tried a fun new flavor. Lucy LOVES the red velvet. She is Southern through and through!
I got Miami Key Lime and Jon tried Raspberry Lemonade; Whitney tried the Cinnamon Banana and my mom the Chocolate Truffle. Perfect ending to a nice picnic.
Zachary got to show off his Spiderman costume he got in the mail a couple of days before, sent for Halloween by his Grandma Cardon. He LOVES this costume and flexing his huge muscles!! My kids are SO excited for Halloween...
That night we got dinner (despite a tornado warning) at the Mellow Mushroom and it was sooooo good! They have GREAT pizza, and even better was that because we had built in babysitters, we ditched the kids and Jon and I headed to "The Dark Knight Rises."
Sunday we all went to church where I had 2 extra helpers to assist me in nursery (I'm the only nursery leader for like 20 kids; can you say "PHILADELPHIA" all over again?? I guess if I did it once, I can do it again...), and then I made Whitney make us a HUGE bowl of this amazing corn salsa she makes. Apparently we bought some potent onions because she was crying up a storm... Well, either that, or she was just really, reeeeally sad to leave us the next day to go teach school in Utah. Teach school and get paid and have a single's night life, OR live in Pinehurst with me?!?! Still don't know how she made that choice the next day, but we sure miss our last visitors of the summer!!
