My parents and sister Whitney recently enjoyed a trip to Europe-- visiting Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Italy. On their way back to the good ol' U. S. of A., we convinced Auntie Whitney to ditch her flight back to SLC, and extend her summer vacay by coming to Pinehurst. Not sure North Carolina registered too high up on her bucket list of fun things to do this summer, but we did have Lucy's second swim meet to start things off!
Whitney flew standby from NYC to Charlotte Monday night, so Tuesday we let her catch up on some much needed sleep. She'd been up for over 36 hours when she arrived in the Big Apple, had spent two weeks walking hundreds of miles, and had 6+ hours of jet lag to compensate for. We treated her to a quick (late) lunch at Brixx pizza and then headed over to Lucy's swim meet.
Luckily it had thunder stormed right before, so it was nice and cooled down compared to how hot it had been all afternoon! This is Lucy with her friend Kalena. They swam breaststroke and butterfly, and Lucy won BOTH of her heats! She is a natural in the water!
Zach found a friend from preschool and played Legos while Lucy swam, so all I had to focus on was keeping Leah out of the water! Fortunately Lucy's age group goes second, so we didn't have to wait too long and we were super proud of her!
We decided that instead of dinner we'd celebrate with Rita's before we went home. It tasted great on such a hot day! Yum!
Wednesday morning we packed a picnic and headed over to Rockingham to play at the Kids Museum. It's rarely very busy, and it's only two floors so it's just the right size to get to see and do everything in one visit. My kids (especially Zach) LOVE the play restaurant.
We played for a few hours and then hurried home to cook Jon some dinner. He'd worked in Fayetteville until 10:30 p.m. the night before, so he hadn't really been home since Monday. We got the kids off to bed and the rest of us stayed up to watch movies and play games.
Thursday (June 26th) was Yours Truly's birthday-- and I celebrated turning 31! I woke up to a sweet surprise from Jonathan with flowers, balloons, my favorite gourmet chocolate bars, and some $$$!!
After a quick morning at the gym, Whitney and I took everybody to Moe's for lunch. It's as close as I can get to Cafe Rio here in the South (my heart's true desire), so my pork burrito was a sorry second birthday lunch, but it still hit the spot!
We then headed over to the sand park (our favorite because it is shaded) for a rousing game of tag, where we pretty much sweat to death from the fantastic amounts of humidity, but a nice refreshing Mickey D's diet coke on the way home sure hit the spot!
Since Whitney was in town, I wasn't in charge of making myself a birthday cake. This beautiful monstrosity was calling my name ALL. DAY. Dark chocolate cake with a layer of peanut butter frosting, chocolate ganache and Reeses peanut butter cups. Holy moley! She should win a prize.
In addition to baking the best cake ever, she babysat for Jon and I so we could go out on a hot birthday dinner date to Bonefish Grill, and then catch a movie kids-free!! We went to "Maleficent" at 7 p.m. and were home just in time to eat birthday cake and ice cream before the kids headed off to bed! It was pretty much one of the best birthdays ever, and I felt spoiled!
Jon had Friday off, so we spent the morning hanging out, then headed over to the gym for my Body Pump class, and then swimming at the indoor pool. Zachary has all of a sudden caught on to swimming, and can pretty much stay afloat and doggy paddle his way through the deep end. He was very excited to show off in front of Daddy and Whitney. Later that afternoon the girls (minus Leah) went to get pedicures, and then picked the boys up for dinner at the brand new Buffalo Wild Wings. Awesome day!
Saturday we seriously debated heading to the beach, but there was a 60% chance of thunderstorms all day long so instead we headed up to Cary to let the kids burn off some energy at Monkey Joe's (a bounce house joint). The kids were THRILLED and Jon got to watch World Cup, so it all worked out.
It was packed on a rainy Saturday and the kids worked up a major sweat running wild, especially Leah! She was pretty timid at first, but by the time we were finished she was just as much a daredevil as Lucy and Zach. She loves to be able to keep up with them.
We picked up a late lunch at Mimi's Cafe, swung by Target for some swimsuit shopping, and then trekked back down South to Pinehurst for a night of movie watching and Bohnanza.
Sadly Sunday was Whitney's last day to stay and play with us. Her world tour is continuing on to Alabama, Nashville, SLC, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boise, LA, and the Oregon Coast. We're just thankful we landed a spot on the extremely limited itinerary! She's smart, fun, vivacious, and beautiful. We LOVE Whitney!
Bon Voyage! And come back to visit soon.:)
