Sugar

Sometimes it's nice to just get away for a few days with your family and unwind. So that's what we did. We loaded up the car, strapped the snowboards to the roof rack, secured our 14 month old spitfire in the backseat, and headed out for nice 8 hr drive to Sugar Mountain, NC. Well, we had almost made it to San Marco before I couldn't take the screaming anymore. I climbed into the backseat and started whipping out the brand new "in case of emergency" toys. I talked her down, gave the Beast some milk and snacks, and was back up front in no time. We made it to Sugar Mountain in just under 10 hours, after stopping for a leisurely lunch and jaunt around the Chic-fil-A play place, a 30 minute oops we took the wrong exit episode, and dinner at an Italian restaurant called "Italian Restaurant". Books, toys, and snacks got Nora halfway there. Sesame Street podcasts on the iPad, bungee corded to the back headrest, got her the rest of the way.

We stayed in a friend's condo at the base of the mountain. The condo had a killer set of stairs, perfect for wearing out a little girl. Nora hasn't had a lot of practice on stairs, and she became obsessed with climbing them over and over again. Right before getting to the top, she would poke her head through and say "Hello" to whoever she could find. We were all about helping her up and down, over and over again, because that meant an early bedtime.

Vacations are a little different with a little one. We dined on Chinese takeout and snow caps and one of the highlights of the trip was visiting some ducks. I have never seen so many ducks and geese in one area. We pulled up to the water and they all started running toward us. It was so unnatural. The geese would hiss at us if we didn't throw the bread to them fast enough.

We were able to get a couple hikes in. Nora was packed into several layers and then squeezed into a backpack. She was in heaven. She giggled with delight every time the wind blew through her little mullet.

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We didn't have the best weather. Some rain and fog rolled in on Saturday and lingered until we left on Monday. We were hoping to get some snowboarding in, but the man made snow was sloshy and icy, and frankly it just wasn't worth sticking Nora in the flu ridden daycare to get in a few sloppy runs. No pun intended. So we let her play in the fake snow, threw it on her, took her home and hog tied her.

After a long weekend away, it's always nice to be home. After being free to explore so many new things in such a short time, Nora seems to have grown up a little and become even more independent. This morning when I told her it was time for her snack, she insisted on going to the pantry and getting it herself. Then, instead of sitting in her high chair, she went and waited for me to help her sit at the play table that I thought was still too big for her. Guess not.