City of Oaks

I had a unique opportunity to get away, and I took it. It was my first time away from Sophie overnight ever. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to, but as Jayna pointed out, if I have to be away from Sophie, who better to be with during that time than her? Trueeeee!

I've been to Raleigh plenty of times, so I wasn't there for sightseeing or really anything other than being able to see Jayna (for the first time since August 2019 when we had a rendez-vous in NYC) and of course, get my southern fix. And clearly nothing says that you're getting old when you come home and see you've taken hardly any photos and only ONE of you.

I got in very early on Friday morning, in enough time to help take Annika to daycare and then get back for a power nap.

Jayna knows all about Khaleesi's
antics with lizard-catching and swears
they aren't that bad... but these are her
lizards! Cute and green. Ours are so...
savage lol. Reptilian and big and gray

After Annika was done with school for the day, we drove over to Knightdale to visit a small fair. I'll never forgive them for charging extra for the House of Mirrors, but it was fun watching Annika have such a great time on them all. Aaaand we got deep fried Oreos. (Ser gerd).

Reading a bedtime story to Annika. We went cheery
and read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

In the morning, my basic self needed coffee, and Stephen whipped up this homemade latte for me... what a treat! Look at this picture-perfect caffeine.

That day, Jayna arranged the most perfect 24 hours to ourselves in the downtown, complete with a hotel room for us to just be away (and sleep). We did our rounds in Raleigh, complete with visiting her office at the downtown station (and a penny press! score!), a trip back to Lucette Grace, hitting all the trinket and local Raleigh swag stores, stopping for drinks, and dinner at the Capital Club.

Ukrainian sweet cheese (because duh,
Slava Ukraini and love Zelenskiy)
and birthday cake, because I am still
a child

Chicken of the treeeeees! Fun fact,
the next day, Stephen shared one of
his childhood memories from Kentucky
with us, which included his dad taking him
out of school to go hunt squirrels, which
they would then bring to his grandmas house
for her to skin it and cook it! It's real people!

The funniest part about this was how
they passed an actual real fire truck
right after this

Being away from Sophie was easier than I expected. I knew the anticipation and the dread would be worse than actually being gone, and like Jayna said, I was hanging with her and not on some stressful work trip. And it helped that Debbie was in town from Nashville to help out, and I got a never-ending stream of photos of Sophie's whereabouts and adventures, which included visiting the pets at the store when they went for dog food, and some stints eating out. Oh and a video of her practicing her jumping after music class!

After our fabulous time to ourselves in the city, we went back on Sunday and Jayna & Stephen indulged my love of southern culture (I should specify: select aspects of southern culture. There is without a doubt large sections of southern culture I would want nothing to do with) and took me to "Anytown, USA" in the form of Wendell! A cute little main street featuring a general store and ice cream shoppe and a pretty sweet brewery too. I cleaned up at the general store... I bought sweet potato and pecan butter, hush puppy mix, funnel cake mix and candy cigarettes because they still sold them - what an institution!

Their "worker bees" served the "drone bee"
(Stephen) and "queen bees" (me and Jayna)
from their "hive". Sorry but I live for that
nonsense

Mural across the street from the brewery; we
were sitting outside on the patio enjoying the
fresh air and playing a family version of
What Do You Meme

According to Annika, "Hornworms taste good!"

Lizard Lick, NC. A real place.

We hit up a super cute playground on the way back (all farm themed and built like chicken coops and barns and towers with real wood... where you at California??) and then to a nice little dinner joint where I got a southern fried chicken sandwich. I didn't realize pimento cheese was a southern thing... it's a unique taste but I enjoyed it.

The weekend went way too fast. And even though I was only there to visit Jayna, I still felt like I had so much unfinished business! I'm never ready to leave the south. I did come home with lots of stuff though, like everything I bought at the Wendell general store, and a glass from the Bearded Bee brewery (how did that get in there??), Yuengling beers, some Kentucky bourbon for AJ from Stephen, Sophie's new Good Night, North Carolina book and a whole host of clothes, shoes and other accessories from Sophie from Annika. 

We had fun when I was home that evening, pulling it all out and letting Sophie see and play with her haul. She especially loved the Hello Kitty gardening hat and gloves and spent some solid time taking them off and putting them back on, grabbing the car keys, kissing us goodbye and saying bye bye! It's crazy the things she's picked up on! I'm very happy she sees kisses goodbye as essential to the leaving process though. That makes me happy.

Now we really need to level up and get AJ and Sophie out to Raleigh one of these days too. The most annoying part is how difficult it is to get into Raleigh for some reason, airlines apparently just do not like that place. If you ever find a cheap route... you know who to tell.

FaceTime!

Sophie's starting to understand the phone and even holds it up to her ear to say hello (which kinda blows my mind because... does she ever see us do that? Do I ever talk on my phone anymore?) but I figured between my work phone and personal phone I could FaceTime her, and watching her confusion first, followed by looking back and forth between the phone screen and me and then just thinking it was funny was hilarious.

And she's obsessed with going outside lately (definitely don't blame her) so we spend some time hanging out under the carport in the front where she can hang out at Cafe Sophie and go in and out of her tent and practice big steps over the cracked driveway concrete (guess that's good for something).

Oh and guess what! Happy Birthday today to Enzo!

O'ahu, Hawai'i

For the first time in two years - I had a vacation! I went to an airport! I got on a plane! The smell of LAX was invigorating and so welcoming and exciting. My days of crazy travels all around the world multiple times a month feels so far away, I almost forgot it existed. Even though it was a domestic trip, it still felt so fresh and new and exciting... I mean it is Polynesia. And the best part was that we pretty much saw the entire island.

Monday, February 28, 2022 was Sophie's first plane ride - Los Angeles to Honolulu, that's a fun one! And I was so relieved to have the extra hands available to help with Sophie for that 6 hour plane ride, and we had a whole row which helped her be able to stand up and move around. Here she was, reclining and enjoying some light plane reading.

Our timeshare had a great location just about a block from Waikiki Beach and in the great neighborhood with the international market and shopping and just overall beautiful scenery.

Sophie had had a long day and I was pretty exhausted, so we collapsed in our room while everyone else went out to the grocery store and then dinner. It was the best decision ever cause I woke up happily refreshed the next morning. AJ went out golfing, and while he often invites me to come do the ride-along with him, I can never bring myself to join, at least not for a full round. But with the pictures he sent from the course, I was starting to second guess myself...

While he was out golfing, the rest of us went walking out in the beautiful weather and stopped and got some amazing Hawaiian breakfasts (I went all extra and got this raspberry smoothie, which I'm still salivating over)

and then we walked to the Honolulu Zoo, because God knows if there's a zoo nearby, we need to visit it. It was beautiful! We saw a black swan which was something new, chimps, rhinos... the hippos were lazing against the glass and we got to watch them for awhile - they were shockingly incredible. We also got to see an elephant playing with a ball and rolling it around! Sophie's favorites that day were the zebras and giraffes (they were in the same enclosure) and then some form of hyena or hunting dog?? We just called them puppies and she was sold.

By the way, Sophie was obsessed with every dog and bird (read: pigeon) that we passed. She would practically throw herself out of the stroller to point and wave at them.

That evening, we wandered into an H&M on our way home, and that's where we learned that Sophie will strut through a store with her hands behind her like this. I have no idea where she learned it from but she does it a lot now!

The next day, AJ cashed in on his birthday present from me and had a round of golf up at Turtle Bay Resort (oh hello Forgetting Sarah Marshall!) which was on the total opposite end of the island on the North Shore, so we got to drive pretty much around the entire island by going up one way and coming down the other. (So beautiful!) We dropped AJ off and then found a cute little stand of food shops to get breakfast at.

While AJ golfed, we hung out at the resort beach until he finished and came to join us. Sophie wasn't totally feeling the water, but we got her in eventually.

We drove down to Kailua and cut back to Honolulu through the Pali, and of course none of these car pictures do it justice, but the whole drive was so picturesque.

With AJ's golf trips done, we spent the rest of our trip pretty local, spending time at the beach and visiting the Iolani Palace, which I really loved. AJ's mom and sister also did us a huge favor by taking Sophie for an afternoon/evening and we got to go out on our own. We explored the southern part of the island, saw a beautiful sunset, and had diner at a "French" restaurant. It's in quotations because, aside from the name (Michel's), a painting of the Eiffel Tower at the front, and escargot on the appetizer menu, there was really absolutely nothing else French about it LOL. I got a salmon dish and AJ got an "Ocean's Bounty" that was every seafood piece you could imagine. Still delicious though! And beautiful beachside location with downtown Honolulu in the background.

We had a later afternoon flight out so we had time on our last day to drive up to the one northwest corner of the island we hadn't seen and visited the "Mermaid Caves", which actually require you to climb down a hole to access. The tide was kinda high so there wasn't a lot of mobility but it was still pretty cool to see!

And that was our trip. Of course the travel home basically undoes all the relaxation of your vacation, but we have great memories from such a good week, and AJ's family stayed through the weekend which helped us relax more since we could sleep in and nap - praise the Lord!