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.