Staycation

As we prepare for Daniel to leave for work again, we had a big milestone to recharge.

Daniel and I took a staycation while Alexander spent his first night away from both of us.

My mom came and stayed at our house with the littles while we went to Pensacola.

It was a fun-filled weekend, starting with the TEAM w/ Paula Sherman sponsoring a Ruck 22 in awareness of the 22 Veterans a day who commit suicide in our nation.

Xander loved the emergency vehicles that were set up.

After a quick lunch, we headed to Pensacola.
Daniel planned the perfect day away!  He found the UGA alumni club for the panhandle and we joined their viewing party for the Georgia-Auburn game.  I knew we were in the right place when Harry Dog greeted us at the door!


Bryan came to join us, and even donned red and black in honor of the dawgs!


The game was miserable.  Our season strong dawgs simply crumbled against early missteps and could not recover.  Once upon a time, this would have ruined my evening, but when an adult-only evening is so hard to come by, a quick walk through downtown Pensacola and a delicious pumpkin milkshake, and I was ready to shake it off!
The alumni club met right across the street from Pensacola Bay Center, where we had tickets to an Ice Flyers hockey game.



We had a great time watching a high scoring game- SEVEN goals in the second period!  And the Ice Flyers got the win!

We met up with a couple people Daniel knows from work.  What surprised us was seeing another person from his work sitting just behind us AND I ran into Alyssa and James as we were in line for beer!  Their seats were in perfect view for me to see James catch a t-shirt!

We scored a t-shirt too, when Daniel got closest to one of the targets in the Chuck-a-Puck game.  I felt like a high schooler at a carnival, with our dates winning us the prize! 

After the game, the zamboni does a quick lap and then the rink is open for ice skating

It was a redemption moment for me....back when we first started dating, Daniel and I visited my brother in New York and Daniel wanted to ice skate in Central Park.  I REFUSED!  I am terrible at anything with my feet not on the ground, and used to get very hard on myself, so I simply chose not to try.  It was a real disappointment for Daniel.  I've grown up a lot over the last 12 years and now I would rather try and fail, and laugh at myself, then sit on the sidelines.

We had a blast and I only fell once!

Bryan and Daniel were pros- They could join the Ice Flyers!

A kid even told Daniel to slow down

Our evening ended with saying goodbye to Bryan and heading back to the hotel where we had met the alumni club.  It was amazing not having a pup or a toddler to disrupt my sleep.  I slept until 8:30!

The next morning, Daniel was ready to get back to the crew.  I insisted on being fed first.  We had brunch at this neat little place downtown and then hit the road to our precious family.

Of course, the crazy began as soon as we walked in the door (terrible twos are real, y'all), leaving us to wonder if it's easier just to trudge through without taking the time to remember what it was like before....just kidding!

My mom and Potatoes had a great time while we were gone.  She took him for his first visit to the Gulfarium.

He loved it so much, when we drove by it a week later, he started talking about all the sea creatures he saw there!

The next morning, he woke up at 4am wondering where his parents were, but after a quick tantrum, he finally let Gammie get him out of the crib and they headed to the park.  She was sweet enough to take Zoey too!  I know that's a handful to have both...

Mayhem

Oh what fun...

Potatoes got 'suspended' for the first time.

He has been going back and forth between the one and two year old rooms as the numbers allow since he isn't technically two yet, but has the energy and language of a two year old.

While in the one year old room, he got so frustrated with a little girl, he pushed her down and she busted her nose.  They called Daniel to come and get him, which is school policy for high aggression, but neither he nor I were able to.  In lieu of typical punishment, they made him stay home the following day.  True punishment- I was sitting an open house, so he got to go to the office with daddy.  I'm sure he learned his lesson....

I was pretty upset by this course of action until I took him to school the following day, and they explained that they had added a second teacher to the two year old room so he could officially be moved up.  I appreciate that they saw the cause of the aggression and found a solution so quickly,

Leaha made the joke that she better start preparing for him in her 3 year old room, because at this rate, he will out grow the twos pretty soon!  Tehehee I can't wait for him to have Aunt Leaha as his teacher!