Soccer Star!

Now this is a post Uncle Taylor would truly be proud of! Last spring I got it in my head that I should put Lucy in soccer this fall, in an effort to give her the full gamut of childhood experiences. We'd done ballet and tap in Vegas, so I figured it was time to try out her sportier side.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!? Our first big meltdown was over the fact that the jersey was orange, not pink or purple. The second big meltdown was over the fact that she absolutely did NOT want to get sweaty and stinky!! That would be disgusting.

We finally convinced her to check it out and just see if maybe she could like soccer. We arrived and there were TONS of kids. I thought she'd be assigned a team with just a couple of kids, but I guess the way they do it now is they have all 50 kids show up, they have the parents coach them to do drills for 30 min., then they split them into smaller groups and have them scrimmage for 30 min. That's what I paid $90 for?!?

It was kind of a joke. Lucy wanted nothing to do with it. I knew I should have just stuck her in gymnastics!!

She actually did really well when it was time to scrimmage. She was fairly aggressive and went after the ball and seemed to have fun.

But she was NOT happy (despite the happy smile in the picture) to be hot and sweaty afterwards. She's quite a character.

Her jersey number is in honor of Uncle Taylor since he always wore that number during basketball season-- so she felt pretty cool about that.

Maybe we'll try this little guy next in soccer and let Luce stick to dance!

Labor Day Love

I love Labor Day. Well, let me be more specific: I love any government holiday that allows my husband to be home for a four day weekend (he also gets the Friday before off). Super!! This Labor Day we decided to take a couple of day trips to some cool surrounding areas, so instead of spending money on a hotel, we got to see two different places instead of just one.

We left first thing Saturday morning and drove the 2 hours to Myrtle Beach. We have totally fallen in love with Myrtle Beach-- it isn't stinky like the New Jersey shore, it's FREE to use and FREE to park, and the surrounding area is just one big vacation mecca with tons of shopping, restaurants, and mini golf.

It pretty much rocks. I was worried about it being crowded since it was Labor Day weekend, but we basically had it to ourselves. The water was warm, the weather was perfect, and it was overall just a great day at the beach.

After playing for a couple of hours we got dinner at Five Guys, and then headed to hit up the outlet malls with all of their Labor Day sales. We had a blast shopping! We get so deprived in Pinehurst with only Walmart and Kohl's to choose from.:)

Monday morning we decided to head to Charlotte, since we hadn't been there yet. It's only about 90 miles away, but because there aren't really any freeways that go East/West in the South, it takes almost 2 1/2 hours to get there because you have to putter along various country highways. Not crazy about that! But we made it just in time for lunch at "Cabo Fish Taco" which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

I got the special salmon burrito with chipotle sauce, and Jon got the honey wasabi burrito. It was pretty good!

Charlotte is famous for its local plantations, which I was SO excited to tour, but naturally they were all closed on Labor Day. So instead we swung by the downtown area, coincidentally where the Democratic National Party would be camped out later that week.

Then we headed to IKEA-- which is the only one for miles and miles, so it was a good time to get my IKEA-fix before the bambino comes. Plus the kids LOVE playing in the "Smaland" playplace which is fine by me to get to shop solo for once. We finally coaxed Zach out of the ball pit with the promise of chocolate cake up in the IKEA restaurant. Yum! All in all, we had some great day trips and will definitely be going back to both sometime soon!