Isabella and I took a little vacation to my parents house in NC last week. We were able to stay a week and we had an awesome time! Thank you to mom and dad for helping me out so much with Isabella while I was there! Isabella was very busy: she mastered the doggie door, she conquered the ocean, and she made the outdoor fountain her personal playground. The doggie doors brought us plenty of laughs but it also made it hard to be certain she was inside whenever I left her in a room alone. A few times I came looking for her only to find she had climbed outside and was standing in her clothes in the fountain! We had to lock the dogs out of their doggies doors so Isabella could be contained, but she still managed to get the cover off one of the three. Of course, after she mastered climbing in and out the "normal" way she had to try it backwards and every other way to make things more interesting. She also loved all the flowers in the garden and mom was kind enough to clip a few for her here and there that she could play with.
We also spent some time at the beach. Unfortunately my camera ran out of space so I wasn't able to get any videos of her at the ocean, but as you can imagine she loved, loved, loved it! It took her about 5 minutes to lose all fear and hesitation and go running straight in to the ocean with complete confidence. That of course made me and everyone else very worried, knowing the very real dangers of tides, currents, and waves, so we had to stay right on top of her. She had a great time Uncle Chris and Grandpa who took her out in the ocean, but she also loved just playing in the surf. Grandpa had so much fun with her we had to go back, just the three of us, on Tuesday and Grandpa let her run as far down the beach as she wanted and that was far! She loved the wide open space.
We were also fortunate to visit Raleigh, NC on the way to my parents and spend a little time with Cindy, Scott, and Cade Pearson. It had been a year since we saw Cade so we were amazed at how much he had changed. It was so much fun to see our friends and we were able to visit the Raleigh Children's museum, Marbles, and had a great time!
Nick and I went out to dinner last night thanks to Isabella's Nonna and Pop-pop, who stayed home and entertained our little busy bee. We were celebrating our recent 8 year anniversary. We finally got to try a nice restaurant in the city and we had a wonderful time! We went to Rathbun's, a restaurant started by a chef who has been on Iron Chef America, so he is obviously some kind of good. It was so relaxing and enjoyable to be able to eat a nice meal and have good conversation without attending to Isabella's needs. Thanks so much to Nonna and Pop for that opportunity!
