#carriedaway: week 45

Week 45:

 Day 310: fun running... "what do you mean this isn't a race??"

 Day 311: thankful for good friends and booze. I needed both tonight!

 Day 312: how Cal spends most of NFL Sunday. Reading the bottom of the screen and discussing each and every play with me.  Can't be good for his eyes...

 Day 313: my crew (Andy's face cracks me up)

 Day 314: Go my rear handed to me tonight by Katie and had a ton of fun. Thanks for the pic, EMT!

 Day 315: celebrating our Capt at the start of his birthday week! The original 4 Richards.

 Day 316: let the training for basketball begin

 

Some random-ness

Good Tuesday morning!!!! We are beach-bound later today and I am so excited... it is seriously my happy place.  I crave it!

A whole lot of random today...

We got Cal's school pictures the other week.  I had to order them before seeing them (talk about scary....). I think these are pretty cute!!! That smile....!

Andy has been alllll about a lounging bath lately.  He begs to get in there and then he just chills.  

CalBoy asked me to buy him boxers.  He wants to sleep like daddy sleeps.  And.... looks like he is now!

Andy's buddy, Lee, facetimed him the other morning before school.  They don't really talk so much as crack up constantly... 

We had our family pictures the other week. Amber posted these two sneak peeks on facebook.  

While I like this one with the boys because it shows us having fun....I am terrified to see the rest of the pictures for fear I look massively pregnant... I am not pregnant.  At all.  But I look huge.  The dress maybe wasn't a good choice.... ugh.  

Love my sweet Bru-Pie.... 

One more of boxer boy....

Hank has been sleeping on Andy's bed a lot.  It doesn't keep Andy in his room, sadly, but they sleep like this almost nightly.  

Same bed, different nights!

I have said this a ton... I am not a coffee drinker.  I wish I could drink it, but I just can't.  But I do enjoy tea.  Well.  Eddie got a Keurig and I am now officially obsessed with tea from this little machine.  I am having wayyyyy too many cups a day.  love love love love.  I drink the English Breakfast Tea and I add a splash of skim with a small sprinkle of splenda.  Ummmmm yum. 

There you have some random!!!!

 

Weekend fun

Our weekend was nice and lowkey-- I am really enjoying the slower paced weekends.  I feel like for the past 3 months, each weekend update post started with me writing "another super busy weekend in the books....." haha

Friday morning, I taught popup and then before I knew it, it was time to pick up the boys.  #timeflies When we went to get Cal, both dogs were sitting by the dog crying.  When I opened the door, they both jumped in the car immediately.  I didn't have the heart to leave them so we had a full car at pickup!

Friday night, we went to the club-- they had a party for all the junior tennis players. The boys went to the party while we met some friends and ate. They were excited to play...and it was COLD out!

Sara and I showed up in the exact same vest and a very similar necklace (you can get mine here!) You add in our similar hair and people were calling us twins.

Saturday morning, my parents wanted to take the grandkids to the Raleigh Christmas parade.  I wanted to workout, and Eddie had stuff he wanted to do so it was win/win for all! It was a coooold morning, so I dug out some hats and warm coats.  

 The boys were playing in the driveway while waiting on grandma and grandpa and next thing I knew, their hats were all kinds of crazy and jackets wompy too.  BOYS!

 After my workout, I hung around the club and met some friends to watch a tennis match.  My parents got back and we brought the boys up to the club to play too.  It was a gorgeous day-- the sun was shining and there were kids playing football, and everyone was happy! It was a great time. 

 Grandma and her boys walked home while I drove that way.  I stopped to take a picture-- how cute are they??

We came home and I started cleaning house.  I knew with Thanksgiving at the beach, I wanted to get down all of my Christmas bins so they would be ready to go when we came home.  I had a thought a while ago about decorating the boys' bathroom.  Well, on Saturday, I decided to just go ahead and do it. The excitement they had from these tacky lights was incredible.  It made me SO SO excited for Christmas and for all the fun that comes with the season.  This is a bad picture... I used tiny little command hooks all around the mirror.  I will post more pics later... but this was done on Saturday...

I have been sort of fighting a little bit of a funk-- not really a cold... but achy and just not feeling 100%.  Well I started to feel bad Saturday afternoon and felt worn out.  I carried down 3 or 4 Christmas bins and decided to stop there.

The Razorbacks were playing and the boys like to wear authentic jerseys for game days.  Andy is big on brushing his own hair after showers.  He is so proud. 

 The Razorback game was such a great one to watch...until the end.  SUCH a heart breaker to end like that.  ugh. 

Sunday morning, I was on a mission.  I carried down all the bins and stripped sheets and got.to.work.  Sheets were changed, mattresses flipped and then I decided to just go ahead and start decorating.  I told myself I would just do the snow globes... and then I would just put out a few carolers... and then I would just do a few more things... and next thing I knew, I was done! We don't have our tree yet, so I still have that bin down, but other than that, I finished everything else and carried all the bins back up to the attic.  phew!

We did break for lunch-- firehouse, of course.  If you are local (or maybe this is everywhere?), kids eat free all day on Sunday (with purchase of adult combo meal).  And also- not to show love to just there... JERSEY MIKES IS AMAZING AND WE LOVE IT.  Andy wanted me to take a picture to send to daddy...then he asked me to get in it too.  uhhhh, momma is looking ROUGH, kiddo. 

Eddie left around 10:30 for the beach so we were on our own for the rest of the day.  The boys played and I worked around the house.  Snow globes were done...

Stairway done....

And then I went back and cleaned everything.  Eddie took Bruce with him to the beach so I went on a cleaning mission-- the dog sheds so much.

The weekend ended with the AMAs.  And me sitting down.  Because, phew. 

Can't wait to give thanks this week-- and I am thankful to do it at the beach!

 

New York, New York!

My sweet mom and I take a trip each year together.  Last year (2014), we went to MIAMI for a little fun in the sun.  The year before that (2013), we were in NYC, and the year before that (2012), we were also in NYC! Here are our girl trips: 2014 2013 2012 (break in 2011 for a baby, so two trips in 2012) 2012 2010

This year, we flew out Sunday morning, suuuuper early.  My mother in law came to town to help out with the boys and we were so so so so so soooo excited for our little getaway!

Our flight was early, but it was delayed.  By the time we landed and got to our room, it was close to noon.  We headed to Macy's, just because it's what we always do first- haha.  We are creatures of habit...big time.  We always go there first and head to the basement to The Cellar, a restaurant that we love.  Well they have flipped around everything in the store and there is no longer the Cellar! We ended up grabbing lunch at a SUPER cute restaurant up on a higher floor with HUGE windows and gorgeous views-- much different than our view from the basement....!
 

Had had a yummy lunch and some yummy drinks and got ready to shop shop shop.  

Since we are creatures of habit, we had to find the holiday floor next.  The first person we asked for directions said they didn't think they had a holiday floor... uhhh... and then we rode up the elevator and saw this.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

I sent the below picture to my dad.  He knows, and for whatever reason, totally gets our love of Holiday Lane-- he appreciates it!

We headed down to the workout department.  I tried on these sweatpants and was in love-- but they were too big....! They did not have the size smaller and two sizes smaller made them lose some of their comfort factor.  I will be stalking to try to find them again.  They made me happy.  I did buy the blue shirt! 

One year, mom and I got lost in the men's section of Macy's.  I realize this sounds super stupid.  But we got in there and could.not.get.out.  One whole half of 3 floors is devoted to mens.  I think the store was under construction because everything turn we took lead us further into men stuff.  We almost did it again this time-- but we stopped when we saw this man.  We learned.  

Mom had some booties in mind that she wanted to try and I had some brown boots I was eyeing so we hit up boots next.  While we waited for our shoes to magically appear, we snapped a selfie.  Pretty sure we sent this to dad too.  

We did not buy any boots, but we felt like we earned some champagne... right on the shoe floor, there is a little coffee bar that sells bubbly too.... we enjoyed these tall pours!

We left after a while and walked toward Lord and Taylor-- their outside decorations were amazing! It felt like we were in another world! 

We spent some time inside and then took another picture as we were leaving.  It was seriously gorgeous!

We headed back to the hotel and talked to my brother who let us know his youngest daughter was sick.  They were taking her to the ER.  Mom and I felt totally helpless and super far from home. We had reservations that night at Beauty and Essex.  We got there and ordered some food, which came....

 ..but we were unable to enjoy it.  We were worried sick about Margaret.  Chris texted us while we were there that they were thinking she was going into ICU.  We got our check and left without eating-- the most expensive thing I never ate! ha....

After talking to Chris and hearing the fear in his voice, we decided to head home the next morning. 

We were in NYC less than 24 hours.  We had SO MUCH planned for Monday and Tuesday, but we both agreed it was the right thing to do to be back where we could help, if needed. 

So, Monday morning, at 4am, our alarm went off and we  headed to the airport. 

We landed at 8:50 and went straight to the hospital.  Thankfully, Margaret was doing so much better and she was released later that afternoon. 

The trip was cut short, but I am thankful we packed as much fun as we did on Sunday! I can't wait for next year... more fun and more memories!