Our Week "Back Home", Part 1

Weekend before last we began what for us was a pretty elaborate, though not very far, road trip, which included visits with both sets of grandparents, a trip to our college town to visit my aunt and uncle and go to a wedding, a ballet event, and then the kids and me staying 4 more days to do various fun things while T came back to work. Thankfully all the driving and logistics went well, and apart from a certain little someone who seems to have grown up enough to know when he's not in his crib and decided to let us hear about it a few times each night, it was a really good time!

During our visit with Uncle Mike and Aunt Cherri our girls made great strides in their comfort around dogs...a big deal since AG and LL especially have always been pretty fearful around them up til now. With 3 sweet full-grown Weimies (I don't know if I spelled that right but I won't even try to spell the full name!), 5 new Weimie puppies, a shy poodle, a friendly terrier, and a passle of super-excited bird dogs around, the girls had plenty of exposure and were soon convinced that they didn't need to go into panic mode as soon as a dog looked or moved their direction! Aunt Cherri and Uncle Mike were great hosts and made us all feel right at home! Here's Cherri introducing the girls to Barney Fife, the poodle who definitely won them over.



Uncle Mike showing the girls one of the quail he raises...a neat thing for them to get to see. I definitely don't consider us a "city family" who are starved for nature encounters, but I have been thinking more that I'd like to be more active in getting the kids out and doing and seeing more new things. It is such fun to see how they respond uniquely to interesting new situations and how much they learn.


T and I went to the wedding of a friend of his from college that night, and the next morning we were back on the road...RL was set with his favorite puppy dog, Ralph. Ear in mouth, ready to roll.


After a quick trip to Nana and Grandpa's to have lunch and recharge for a few minutes, the kids and I met Gran and PopPop to go to the first round of the International Ballet Competition. The girls especially enjoyed this...it was really neat to see dancers from around the world!


More to come!