Long Vacation With Daddy

Starting Thursday night we have had quite the busy and wonderful past few days. Matt took off Friday, then had the weekend, and now Labor Day off. So four days straight with Matt home has been a treat!

Thursday night GE had Family Appreciation night at the baseball field. They gave us a picnic dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, chips, potato salad, cookies, etc. To be honest it was not the best food, but the fact that I did not have to cook, and the friends that we got to spend time with, and the fact that it was free all made up for the lack in taste. Grace had a wonderful time playing with and smiling at everyone that she could see. She was handed off to many people and was easily the center of attention (of course). We made it to the fourth inning before we had to call it a night. (the Salem Red Sox...our home team...was losing, it was not hard to leave)

Friday we cleaned, played, and in general stayed around the house and had a wonderful day at home.

Saturday we woke early and went to Dixie Caverns. This is a small cavern in Salem, VA. We bought tickets, packed Grace in her hiking backpack and headed into the cave. To my surprise Grace stayed awake for the whole trip. She looked around, and loved playing with Matt's collar on his jacket. A few times she would make a noise, a squeak, or some other "singing" type sound. After that noise I would look at her and she would seem very proud of herself that she was able to make such a big noise and I think she liked to hear the echos. I am glad that she did not experiment with yelling. :)

The caverns were very nice. Grace did not try to touch or grab or break anything (much to our surprise). Matt was prevented from going to one area because he would not have been able to fit up in the small room very well with a huge pack on his back (but he had been to these caves before so he had seen that room already).

I just think that it is wonderful that we have to many options of day trips around us. I also think that it is wonderful that we actually try to take the time go on these day trips.

We finished the day off with a trip to a restaurant and a walk around the mall. Good and very tiring day.

Sunday we went to church. I was in the infant nursery by myself with Grace and a 7 month old. They both slept for a bit, but when they were awake Grace tried to make friends. I need to teach her some better ways to make friends because right now her idea of gaining friends is to grab hair bows out of the other persons hair, pinch them as you are trying to stand up, and poke them in the face. All in all they did really good together, but I should have been wearing black and white since I felt like a referee.

Home to relax, do work around the house, and cook up a few pumpkins. Yes we have pumpkins! We did not grow them. A local business was selling them fairly cheap and you had to buy two of them to get the deal so we bought four. I can not tell you how much we have cooked up but I do know that we have over 30 bags of 2 cups of pureed pumpkin in the freezer. Lots of hard work but it will be great in the future when we want to bake pumpkin bread or pumpkin cupcakes, or whatever. In the middle of cooking up pumpkin we had some visitors. Carol, Eamon, and Shannon stopped by since they were diving through on their way home from a soccer game. It was good to see them, unfortunately they came during Grace's nap time so they did not get to play with her. I am glad that they could stop by even if it was for a very short time.

Today, who knows what is in store for us today. It is always an adventure.