Family Bonding

Daycare closed for a week at the end of August for annual staff training and CPR certification -- a week of excellent refreshers for #2's teachers and a week of forced vacation for us. It was also a clean break for #1 as he came back from vacation and started PK at a new school. With sweltering heat at home, we headed to the NC mountains for some family time with Grandma & Pops and started September in the upper 50s.


Highlands was crisp and heavenly. Mr. Right and I actually made it to the gym most days and had uninterrupted time there. I downloaded some of my brother's recommendations to my playlist and had a little sibling bonding while working off many weeks of work-home-overall life stress. The boys were spoiled ... we all were spoiled. There were extra hands all over the place and it gave all of us some room to breathe. Heaven.

One of the best parts of our trip was watching the boys play together. During the day they were in different classrooms at school and until recently, were interested in totally different things. However, the more #2 talks, the more we all understand that he would rather be a big guy - doing big guy things. And for the first time, #1 was finding that waking up at 8:00AM means that his brother has been playing with the toys he designated "mine" for over an hour. Inside toys weren't such a big deal ... Outside toys such as the Golf Cart and the Gator ... BIG DEAL. Overall, they both shared and enjoyed one another more than not.



A second milestone - #2 slept in a twin bed while we were there! He is more than ready to be out of the crib, but we've held off on a big boy bed until we got the house sold. He loved sleeping on the bottom bunk (#1s previous post) and he LOVED sharing a room with his big brother. #1 was also very sweet. I heard lots of sweet advice coming from the top bunk - don't be scared, I'm right here if you need me, you're a big boy in a big bed ... it was all really sweet. I was a little worried about what this might mean when we got home to 2 separate bedrooms and back to a crib, but he's been unfazed. Hopefully the house stuff will be over sooner rather than later and we won't need to be so camera ready ... then we'll get his bed.

All in all, a wonderful family getaway and for the most part we were unplugged. It was nice to have the noise at a distance for a few days and enjoy the calm of the mountains (where mobile phones don't work very well). Lots of golf for the big and small boys, lots of driving trucks in the driveway, a day trip to explore the Nantahala River (which is about as warm as the Snake River - burrrr!), QT with the Grands and the first 2 kids on the brand new Cullasaja playground. Thank you Mom & Pops for treating all of us like Royalty.