Part One: Beach With Besties

Last Friday, I headed down to the beach to spend a glorious TEN DAYS.  I was excited! Eddie took Cal to the Masters, Andy had some quality time with Grandma, and my very best friends were in a car on their way down to meet me: all was right with the world!

Me and Bruce reading to head out-- he was SO excited to be going for a ride! 

The five of us heading out for a bit.  Love these sweet peeps so so much-- what would I do without them??

Saturday was gorgeous! We took a walk on the beach and soaked up the sunshine (the boy in the front? That's me....).

 Then we went to Beaufort and had lunch with a view and it was wonderful! Round one....

 And a bottle too.....

We watched a beautiful sunset.  

Weekends like this are good for the soul.  We drank too much (not a bad thing), talked too much (not a bad thing), ate too much (probably a bad thing) and laughed hysterically.  Oh, HOW FUN. I am already ready to do it again. And again.  Anyone up for a trip, say, tomorrow???

(we took a lot more pics that aren't appropriate to post on the ol' blog. sorry....not sorry!)


 

TAR HEELS!

Did you hear? North Carolina Tar Heels are NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

We got back from Colorado Saturday night and after dropping our bags at home, we went straight over to a friend's house to watch the FINAL FOUR game! We were airplane dirty and gross, but we weren't missing this opportunity!

 WE WON WE WON!  WE WON WE WON! WE WON WE WON! WE WON WE WON!

 Living in Chapel Hill is a lot of fun...especially when our team is winning! We had to take advantage and hit up Franklin Street!

Why not, right?! They were jet lagged and sugar-highed!

 Sweet boys were SO excited!

Heading back to the car--smiles all around. 

Here's our Franklin Street crew in front of Top of the Hill.

The cutest!

 The championship game was the next Monday, and we all decided we should be together again-- even though the game was a late one.

These boys didn't seem to be too tired though...

Listening to the National Anthem:

After the GAME! WOOOHOOOOOO!

 yyyyyeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhaaaaaaawwwwwwwww!

 To say we were all excited it putting it mildly-- loads of smiles all around!!!

Tuesday morning at preschool was ROUGH.  I mean ROUGH.  But oh, it was so worth it....

It's a GREAT day to be a TAR HEEL!



 

Spring!

I have a LOT to post about... a lot! The Tar Heels won the national Championship, I had 4 girlfriends at the beach for a weekend of fun, I spent spring break with the boys and some of their buddies at the beach, and on and on and on.  And woah, do I have a lot of pictures to post.  But, I don't have the time to do it today either- ha! It is on my to do list and just as soon as I can sit down long enough, I will post.  Oh, and I have some GREAT books to share too! I am listening to one now that I can't put down. 

So, this is just a checking in, I am still alive post.  I can't wait to catch up in this little world.  Walking in the door yesterday after being gone 10 days overwhelmed me, big time! The laundry....! The mail that had to be sorted....the lists that had to be made...hahahaha

I am planning Cal's class party this week (why oh why do I do this to myself?) and I also will be participating in the Habitat Fashion Show on Friday night again.... I did it last year and it was a lot of fun, so when they asked me this year to do it after they had a cancellation, I agreed, but I wasn't really thinking of all that it added to my week.  Add that to a baseball game, soccer practices and all the other normal stuff....phew!

So now I am rambling when I should be getting busy.  Off to teach popup.... and switch laundry!


And have I mentioned we do not have a refrigerater in our house? We have a very old "drink" fridge in our garage-- so any time we need anything cold, we have to go outside to get it.  That's been a treat!


 

Snowmass: Part Three

Wrapping this trip up!

This is the final post- phew! I am sure you are sick of reading about this!

The last ski day for us was Thursday (we were flying home Friday-- or so we thought).  The boys were not in snowboarding school this day-- we spent the whole day together.  

 And we took this picture-- and I am so glad we did!

 But that was later in the day-- this was the first lift up in the morning.  Riding the chair lift with Andy is pretty much terrifying.  He's just small enough that he could slide right under the rail.  I was hanging on for dear life to him.

 Watching the boys learn this new sport, I realized how tough they really are.  They fell....a lot.... and hard.  And they kept on getting back up again and again and again.  I also realized how much better it is to learn this when you are young and you are low to the ground and can pop back up again--

Cal was really getting it and was good at going down the hill quickly, with minimum falls.  Andy, on the other hand, had it and wanted to do tricks....while going fast. I watched him go down the hill, squat down low and drag his hands and make a snow ball-- all while going down the hill....and then throw the snowball at Cal while Cal was down.  It was unreal.  He started jumping while going down hill too.  Eddie and I must have said "stay in control!!!" 900 times.  But the crazy thing was, he was always in control-- he could stop at any point.  

 My three boarders about to take off.  It was really cute to watch the three of them learn this new sport together. 

We took the mega chair lift up to the very top of the mountain-- and we went with the little boy who was in the group with Cal and Andy (Moose, if you've been following along), and his parents.  His mom skis a lot like me (ahem) and his dad was on a snowboard- so it was a really fun group to cruise down the mountain with.

After making a few runs, we had lunch outside and the boys played on these rocks-- they were super content to build little bridges and stacks-- it was really cute to watch them.   Great way to end our trip!

 Our final night, we had a dinner to go to.  There was a photobooth which the whole family enjoyed! The props were hysterical!

 We were dying laughing-

 I mean..... tell me this isn't hilarious.....

 We woke up Friday and had to have our bags ready to go by 11.  They pulled our bags and we were about to check out of the room when Eddie got a text that our flight had been canceled- ugh. 

 The Aspen airport is super small and in between two mountains- they will cancel a flight out of there at the drop of a hat.  Andy and I sat by the window watching the snow fall-- look closely at the picture...can you see Eddie on the phone trying to figure out how the hell we were going to get home?? They booked us out Saturday at 4.... which meant two things: 1. chances of getting out in the afternoon were slim to none, and 2. we would be in air for Carolina game.  No no and no. 

 We found a flight out of Denver the next morning and we scheduled a rental car to get us there.  Then when Eddie went to get the car, me and the boys went off exploring-

 Andy was a fan of surfing the gondola (below).  I am not sure what's happening above....

A big ol bear.... might as well take a picture.  

We ate at Venga Venga and got some yummy Mexican food.  Nug was thrilled with the guac.  

 The next morning we were up and out EARLY-- pulled out of the hotel just before 6am to make our way to Denver. 

 They were smiling above, but the trip wasn't all smiles.  We struggled to find a place for breakfast and Cal got a little car sick....
But we made it and made it ON TIME for our flight!

We had zero issues with flights getting home, thankfully.  No one slept, but everyone was super happy!

 It was a great trip! Not a really relaxing trip, because getting everyone up and dressed and out the door is not easy! But it was a lot of fun family bonding.  Love these boys so so much. 


 

Snowmass: Part Two

I was hoping to wrap it up in this post, but I am afraid I will have to do a third post. So many pictures!

 So when we left off yesterday, the kids had done snowboard school, I hadn't killed myself getting down a hill, and Andy made a snowball in his pants. 

The next day was Monday and Eddie and I had a few meetings Monday morning.  I took the boys to ski school drop off and then went to meet Eddie. 

 They were so confident walking up for their second day- I was worried they might have been discouraged from falling so much the previous day, but they couldn't be more excited to get with Allen and "Moose"!

But before drop off..... we had to have a little UNO in bed. 

 Drop off with Allen, Moose, CJ and AntMan (I asked Allen if Andy was getting frustrated with falling, since he told me at tuck in it was harder than he thought.... Allen replied "I have no idea who Andy is.... I only know Moose, CJ and AntMan" hahahahahahha)

So, we had four days of lift tickets and didn't want to waste a day when we had meetings all morning, so we planning on not skiing on Monday.  Well, Ed got the itch to try snow boarding.  So he got a half day lift ticket and got himself a snowboard.  He was anxious to try, but decided to have a beer with me first.  Thus began a day full of drinking for me.........

I sat on the patio of our hotel, right by the ski valet and watched skiers go by.  There goes Eddie on the lift over my head!

 While he worked his way down, I went ahead and had some champagne. 

 And..... more champagne.....

 It was the most lovely day out there-- not too cold at all! I even took my jacket off for a bit, it was that warm. 

Before we knew it, it was time to pick up the boys.  Andy was hot and stripped down his jacket- and I swear, I am not sure there is anything cuter than long underwear and snow bibs. 

 We picked them up at the bottom of the mountain and they were eager to show us all they learned that day. 

 And they were super excited once they saw daddy had a snowboard too!

We headed back to the hill by our hotel, and I resumed my position on the patio.  My boys, all riding on up!

 That evening, we had a dinner up on the middle of the mountain, where I said earlier was my favorite place from the trip.  We rode the gondola up there and my sweeties each sat next to me.  Sweet boys. 

They had strider bikes, with skies on them, for the kids to ride  down the bunny slope...! It was too funny to watch! They FLEW down the hill!

 Up the hill a ways, there was a tubing park, which was so much fun-- I didn't go tubing because I was nervous of hurting my back (which didn't hurt at all while skiing, thankfully! It hurt while traveling, but whatever). 

 Looking back at the mountain-- how gorgeous is this view?!

 Andy could have stayed tubing all night long. 

The next morning we woke up and we got SNOW over night!

 The boys were quick to want to write in their journals about the night before and the snow we woke up to. 

 Day three in ski school for the boys, and another day on the slopes for us!

 I discovered this little trail on the way down this huge mountain and I was in love with it! It was so quiet and peaceful-- and private!

We stopped around lunch time for a little break (it really looks like we did nothing but drink....and really, I did drink a lot....)

 and then all of a sudden, it started dumping snow- hahahaha didn't seem to stop me though. 

 That afternoon we hit the slopes again until it was time to pick up the kids.  Eddie would go do the big big runs while I did the medium ones and stuck to my private little trails. 

We were super excited to have the kids ride with us after this day of ski school.  The amount they improved was UNREAL.  

Cal was liking it; Andy was LOVING it.  Watching Andy zoom down the mountain was exciting, hilarious and terrifying all at once. 

That night, we went to a Japanese restaurant in the village.  The waiter sold both boys on Japanese soda-- and they loved it! There is a marble in the jar, which they thought was amazing.

 Another morning, another ski school drop off! They were anxious to go once again-- they really loved it, which was so cool. 

Eddie tried to board again (at our rental, you could switch back and forth as often as you wanted to).  And he was really getting the hang of it-- although he joked that the boys were better at it than he was....

 Riding the gondola up!

We were skiing down and happened to look up and see the boys' group riding up the hill.  Their instructor, Allen, could only do two days with them because he had a previously scheduled private lesson for the following five days.... come to find out, it was with LeBron James's son! ha!

So the boys got a new teacher, Felipe, who was also loads of fun.  

It was the most gorgeous day ever this day! The bluest skies and warm sunshine.   And champagne. 

He knows the way to my heart.  

 

 After our drink break, Eddie headed to the top of the mountain to ski some hard runs.  We decided to meet at the bottom of the hill in a bit.  As I as taking off, I saw the boys starting up too-- there's Nug on his way....

I heard the teacher tell them which way they were going and it was the way I normally go-- I didn't want them to think I was following them to watch the lesson (!!) so I decided to go down a different way.  A really really really big hill.  Thanks to some liquid courage, I thought I could make it down this hill:

 And, I actually did! It was NOT pretty.  At all.  But I didn't fall and I made it down! SO there!

 I sent the above picture to Eddie telling him which run I just survived.  Pretty sure he was shocked too. 

The new teacher sent us pictures too (they are so smart!)- and I love them:

 well....maybe I don't love these....

At the end of the day, we hit up the pool again-- Andy took a running dive in.  

 That night we went up to the top of this cute area and ate at a great BBQ place.  it was super casual and barlike, but my family loved it! We had a foozeball game that Cal and I won.

 After waking up in the middle of the night to the boys fighting on the pull out couch, we put Andy on the floor in his own little bed.  It worked wonders-

Okay, more coming tomorrow!!!