OBX!!

Vacation blogs are the best blogs! I am so glad we got to take a full week's vacation and join Josh's parents in the Outer Banks for a week (with a wonderful cameo by my family). I'm not going to go day-by-day on what we did because vacation days seem to blur together, so I'll go topic-by-topic. It's my blog and I can do what I waaaaant.

SAND

Sand: Caroline's new favorite thing. She wasn't big on the water but she loved the sand. She had daily baths at the beach because she formed a new layer of "skin" every day: a sand layer. Our house was literally on the beach, no roads at all, so stepping out of the door meant stepping into sand. Caroline would be on the deck and point to play in the sand, Caroline would wake up and point for me to open the blinds so she could see the sand outside of her window, Caroline LOVED THE SAND. She did not love when it got in her ears, mouth, and eyes… but everywhere else seemed fine with her, sigh.

Introducing herself to the sand on our first day.

By the second day, she was deeply in love.

She clearly believed mommy needed to love the sand, as well, and covered me in it.

Swimming in the sand instead of the ocean...

This photo does no justice to the amount of sand on this girl's body.

FOOD

I failed at taking food pictures during vacation (sorry, food friend) because I was always so excited to eat, I forgot to take pictures! Breakfast every day was wonderful. We had a wonderful lunch one day at Sunset Grille, where I had fish tacos (OMG SO GOOD) and Sunset Ale. Josh and I had a great anniversary lunch at The Blue Point, where we split an appetizer of breaded peppers, I had shrimp and grits with an IPA, and we split a delicious chocolate brownie with coffee ice-cream and espresso sauce for dessert. Steve was a master on the grill while we were there: steaks, pizzas, pork loin, cedar salmon, grilled shrimp, and BBQ ribs. IT WAS ALL AMAZING.

SHOPPING

My first and most important purchase was an OBX sweatshirt. I failed to pack a sweatshirt because I forgot just how cold it can get with the ocean breeze. Best. Purchase. Ever. Kept me warm and toasty! We also got ourselves an OBX throw blanket with sea shells on it and an OBX sticker (with a backup sticker) for the Jeep! Caroline was wild during shopping trips, so we didn't take many of them. They consisted of me looking around while Josh chased her through the stores. Wild thing!

THE JEEP

Our Jeep did amazing on the beach, driving on the sand. It's 3.5 miles of sand driving to get to the house, so it got a lot of use! We didn't even come close to ever getting stuck, and Josh even helped tow people who had gotten stuck. He felt so fancy (you already knowww).

THE HORSES

We had a lot of wild horse spottings throughout the week. They live in this portion of the Outer Banks and aren't scared at all of the humans. One night they were right by our front steps and didn't even seem to notice us all on the porch watching them. One day we were driving down the beach and spotted some walking through the surf and they seemed oblivious to the cars around them. It's amazing!

THOSE TERRIBLE TWOS

Caroline still has a ways to go before she hits two, but those terrible twos made a few appearances during vacation. One day at breakfast I brought her milk instead of juice (OH THE HORROR) and she was not pleased. She threw her drink and her food and went into timeout… the most dramatically pathetic crying ever ensued and then she was fine. She was horrible at dinner and breakfast with my family, which both took place at the end of vacation at which point she was exhausted and grumpy. She did so well for most of vacation, though, and was an entertaining delight.

Seriously, how can anyone stay mad at this face for any longer than 5 minutes? LOVE HER.

CAROLINE THE ENTERTAINER

Caroline discovered near the end of vacation that the hose on the porch made a fantastic microphone and boy oh boy did she put on some performances. We think she watches the kids sing on the Disney Channel, mostly from a show called Austin and Ally, and was imitating them. It was absolutely PRICELESS. She was entertaining in general, running laps around the deck and just being her adorable, crazy little self.

CAROLINE THE HELPER

Caroline always loves helping… from throwing her trash away to helping mommy use the potty. On vacation, she also got to help "build" (DESTROY) sand castles, fly kites, and even fly a plane! She was so so so proud of herself for helping and it was priceless.

FAMILY

I saved the best part for last: spending time with our families! We had a great week with Josh's parents and I know Caroline loved spending time with them. We wish her uncles could have made it on the trip, but she gets to see them on webcam every now in then so she can keep tabs on them! My parents and sister joined us the last few days and I know Caroline enjoyed that, as well. She's used to talking to Memaw and Pepaw every weekend on the computer so it was neat to see them in person! I wish we could move closer to our families (especially after that epic, epic drive… we did the whole 14 hour trip in one shot on Sunday, ugh). Who wants to donate like a million dollars to our moving fund? #okthanksbye

Oh, PS!

Our 4 year wedding anniversary fell during vacation and we had a date, an actual don't-have-to-ask-for-a-highchair DATE! It was great to be able to spend the day with my husband, drink beer and wine with him, relax in the hot tub with him, and talk random nonsense with him because that's what we do. It's crazy how much we've done together in these four years: united in Florida, adopted a puppy, bought a house, lived through a perfect pregnancy, become parents to a perfectly perfect baby, traveled to Spain together, bought a Jeep together, traveled the East Coast over and over and over again together… It has been an amazing four years! (Even crazier to think we have known each other for 11 years now… we. are. really. OLD.)

OMG. We Had a Date Night.

Josh and I had the privilege of having our first true date night in a LONG TIME. Like, really long. We had so much fun!

We started off at 101 Cantina in FSU's College Town. Being in College Town was… interesting. Guys, college girls have lost their minds with their clothes. We saw so many butt cheeks in our hour there and most were butt cheeks that were not so pretty. They were all wearing these denim shorts up to their belly buttons with their butt hanging out; it was like they all had permanent wedgies. I told Josh I should have borrowed some of Caroline's denim shorts because they'd be about the correct length on me. Sheesh, college girls of 2014, I'm disappointed in your tackiness. With that being said, we had a BLAST people watching. We sat there, drinking our drinks, eating our nachos, people watching like crazy! It was a wonderful date and it was fun being out without a toddler :)

We then went to my coworker, Madeline's, birthday party at Food Glorious Food, a local favorite of ours. We each had a beer, met my coworkers' significant others, and stared at the food wondering why we had pigged out on nachos before the party. Le sigh. It was a very nice party and it's always fun seeing coworkers out of a working environment. We left the party around 9:15, certain we'd show up to a fast asleep Caroline. Nope, she greeted us at the door, pointed out Laura's "dah" and "tats" to us, and was wide awake. However, she dozed off the second we got her in the car and was easy to transfer into the crib for the night. Old lady Kaitlin went to bed right when we got home around 10:00; I just can't hang anymore, guys! So old and uncool…

Sunday, Caroline seemed to have forgotten she stayed up way past her bedtime and was trying to wake us up at 5:30am. We snuggled in bed until we finally got her to go back to sleep, and we all slept until 8:30am, YAY! We had breakfast and then went to the park. When we got to the park, it was clear that Caroline's night of partying had caught up to her. We put her on the playground, where she promptly laid down, almost getting trampled by crazy children. Soooo, we decided no playground for the day. We took her to the dog park where she had fun watching dogs for a while. We then walked around the lake, which she loved but was more interested in the dogs on the bridge. That girl LOVES dogs. Definitely our girl :) 

It was an absolutely perfect weekend with multiple park trips, a wonderful date night, and tons of glorious sunshine and warmth! We are getting SO excited for our upcoming trips. May includes both a potential Disney World visit for our little princess AND a week at Lake Lure in North Carolina with the Rose Family. We cannot WAIT!!

Three Years!

Soooooo, this post is a day late, but whatever. Yesterday was our three year wedding anniversary. It was about as great as a middle-of-the-week anniversary can be!

We met for a delicious lunch at Vertigo Burgers & Fries AKA the most amazing "fast food" burger place OF ALL TIME. We both got the Triple Throwdown (beef burger, applewood bacon &  blue cheese, horseradish sauce, caramelized onions) and split an order of sweet potato fries (SO MANY FRIES). It was absolutely delicious and a great anniversary lunch. 

We then went to the mall to order Josh's anniversary gift. Yes, we ordered it together, because I didn't want to screw it up! We ordered him a Name Plate with his office nickname on it (Josh "Eight Names" Brian) with "Attorney at Law" underneath. He is SO EXCITED about this gift. I'm pretty much the best wife ever for thinking of it. Unfortunately, they are out of the name plate he likes, so he can't get the gift immediately, but he's still very excited!

We had a super romantic frozen pizza for dinner and then Josh went out to buy my gift (he has been busy at work, so he had not yet had a chance to purchase it) while I snuggled on my couch with my sleep-fighting baby. We had a good snuggle session and watched Netflix together. She finally nodded off in the swing literally as Josh walked back in the door. 

We exchanged cards (he got me the card I almost got him) and then I got my gift. He got me a new point-and-shoot camera to replace the one that broke while at Clearwater Beach. It was an absolutely perfect gift! I think we did pretty awesome choosing gifts for each other this year.

Just for fun (and because I have no motivation to do any work at the moment), let's take a little walk down memory lane. Here are some old pictures of the two of us; can you believe we have now known each other for nearly ten years? WE ARE SO OLD, GUYS.

College was fun.

Life in the "Real World" was fun.

Getting Married was Fun.

Life after marriage is fun.

Being parents is THE BEST.

Lucky Ladies!

I'm a lucky lady to have a husband that is amazing and comfortable with our daughter. I have heard some dads are terrified and uncomfortable. Josh adores his lady. She gets kisses goodbye and kisses hello. He leaves work early so he can beat me at picking her up from daycare (or "steal my baby" as I call it, haha). He's the one that bathes with her (and yes, I mean actually bathes with her... poor lady is going to be traumatized if she hears about that in the future!). He takes care of her so I can have "mommy time" (i.e.: a bath with a glass of wine, a baby-less shopping adventure, etc.). He washes all of her bottles every night. He talks to her in funny accents to get her to smile. She LOVES that. I just know I'm super lucky to be married to a guy who truly loves his baby. I am lucky to have an amazing dad, and I'm so glad Caroline gets to grow up with one, too. It's a good thing they like each other, because, as my mom puts it, Caroline is a "Joshalina" - she looks sooo much like him!!

I write this because right now I'm awake and Joshua is sleeping, but for good reason. First, I think I fell asleep on the couch around 8:00 or 8:30 last night, oops, so my lazy bum NEEDS to be awake right now! Second, after waking me up to eat around 2:30am, Caroline was WIDE AWAKE. Without hesitation, Josh scooped her up and took her to the living room to hang out so I could sleep. When I woke up around 7:00am, Josh was asleep on the couch and Caroline was snoozin' in her swing. Adorable :) It was so nice to get that peacefulness for a bit, so YAY hubby!!!

So, I said "thank you" by just washing a gazillion bottles, doing laundry, and making a tasty pot of coffee for when he wakes up. I may even offer to make breakfast, WHOA THERE.