Family Time

Deborah, Blayne & Erin came into town on the 2nd and whisked away my car for their whirlwind family trip in North GA & TN. We had originally made the plans when I was working and carpooling with David, but I didn't mind giving up my freedom for them too much - certainly not enough for them to get a rental car...that's the kind of sister I am. ;0) Thankfully, Bethany let me take her to work and steal her car on Tuesday which was the only day I had anything formal scheduled - Thanks B!

On Friday the 6th, they came back to our place to spend the next few days with us. We had a blast doing simple stuff. We took Erin to the playground twice and she LOVED going down to the base of our backyard, standing on our bridge, throwing leaves, sticks, pine cones & nut shells into the water and cheering for herself "Splash!" It was hysterical! She got to do that a few times too so we definitely got her outdoors in the beautiful 70 degree weather.

Erin at the PlaygroundPlaying on the bridge at our house

David & Blayne did alot of brotherly stuff together. They went to the Wings place that David loves (Clays) for lunch on Saturday while Deb & I hung out at the house while Erin napped. Then Sunday afternoon they went out to Douglasville to play a round of disc golf...which they tied at 12 over par again while Deb & I hung out while Erin napped. Are we good wives or what?!? ;0)

Since they live in Colorado, we don't get to see them very often and I am always sad that I can't be at her parties to make her cakes like I do the rest of our nieces & nephews. Erin's 2nd birthday was Feb 18, so I decided to make her a 3-D Thomas cake and we'd celebrate her birthday here too. She was very excited about this and wanted to blow out the candles over and over again. Each time we took the cake back in the kitchen, re-lit the candles and re-sang Happy Birthday to her - getting faster each time we sang it. She did great and blew them out solo the second two times. She was totally enamored with her Thomas Cake and talked about it ALOT over the weekend. Thankfully they devoured over half of Thomas and I promptly tossed the rest after Erin was out of the house. Deborah has these pictures, I'll post them when I get them from her.

We're all on pretty tight budgets, but we did decide to go out for one meal. One of the girls from our church came over to sit with Erin (Thanks Erica!) while we went out for some adult time...dinner at Pasta Bella & Baskin Robbins for dessert. Can we say lots of coupons?!? In total for the 4 of us to go out at both places it was less than $30. Granted we had to pay a sitter, but still that's pretty dang good.

Sunday night we cooked up a big Mexican feast which was divine. Afterwards, we conned Erin into taking pictures with David & I with gummies - hey you do what you have to do. Deborah got some cute ones, I think. She was pretty disoriented from all the transition in their week long travels, but finally when I dropped them off at the airport she showed me some love and gave me a few hugs and kisses. It was a great visit.