Things That Make Me Happy

I don't get make much time to write these days, but I do take random pictures. Here are some things that have made me happy. With a few random thoughts thrown in.

• Natalia telling me, very seriously, "Mom, my favorite color is purple."

• Listening to Mike read. He amazes me.

• Giggling when Mike pronounces words incorrectly in every day conversation. I can always tell when he learned the word from a book and not from hearing it spoken.

• Leon giving me giant hugs and telling me he missed me while I was gone overnight for work.

• This look on Ree's face:

 

 

• My odometer reading 22222. (Don't worry. I was not moving when I took this.)
   
  
  
  • I suppose I should also mention I got a new car with lower mileage. Getting a new car was a bit bittersweet, but thanks to lots of road tripping, we've had bonding time. My new car is named Rocky, short for Rockstar Black, the full name proposed by Mike.

• Getting to leave work to go to Girl Scouts. (Lucky me! And I mean that seriously.) Girl Scout meetings at the beach. (Lucky girls!)

• "Winter" beach. We may not have "four seasons" here, but the beach definitely changes seasonally.

Family Fun Day

Ree got out of school last Friday and is on fall break for the first three weeks in October. In the back of my mind, I've had grand plans for a long weekend off, either as a staycation, or, even better, a mini-getaway during her break. The reality is that's not going to happen. Work is too nuts right out. I was out of town last week, I am out of town again in two weeks, on Monday I was asked to join a committee that meets in Chapel Hill (a little over two hours from here) every two or three weeks, and we are an office of 4.5 employees that's currently working with two employees. And, on a personal note, we have visitors coming for a week during the break. Things are a little nuts.

But I did decide to take time off. I took off today, and I am taking off at least one more day, for Family Fun Days. It turns out, it feels really decadent to take off a random Thursday. And only being off one day, I didn't really feel any pressure to check my email or get stuff done. That was nice. Even better was having a random day to just do fun stuff without any guilt about cleaning the house or getting chores done.

Today we headed to the Children's Museum of Wilmington. We were kind of overdue for a visit. The last time we went I had to stop and nurse baby Leon when he got overstimulated. It was good to go with kids who were big enough to get out of their car seats to play.

Every now and then Almost every time we plan a new outing that seems like it will be fun, it becomes a new form of torture. It does not go well. (I'm still scarred from taking the kids to the Cincinnati Zoo in the summer of 2012. Who knew they could be so miserable???) But, surprisingly, miraculously, we had a great time today. Not only did the kids have fun, we were injury free. Amazing. Some of the highlights of our adventures:

While Ree, Natalia, and Mike painted leaves with cotton swabs...

...Leon made "apple pie."

 Leon and Natalia in their fishing boat.

Ree digging for "gold."

While everyone else was busy, Mike found a quite spot to read.

Natalia was manning the cannon on the pirate ship. Yikes.

A budding scientist???

The picture is blurry, but the space room was awesome, and lit only with black lights. Leon was playing with glowing Legos.

Everyone building.

One of the favorite stops of the day was the "dentist office," complete with sheets the dental assistants had to complete for each patient.

After playing for over three hours, we were all starving, so we headed to Flaming Amy's for lunch. Here's Natalia passed out with a full tummy and a Flaming Amy's bumper sticker proudly displayed on her shirt.