Home Sweet Home!

Well, we're back, and not a moment too soon...while it's always a little depressing to leave the family knowing we won't see them for quite some time, there really is no place like home. Jack and Toby were here to greet us of course...Toby is usually more snuggly when we return from a trip, but he hung back and Jack hogged all of the attention this time, which is fine with me. He insisted on being carried around (yelled at us if we put him down for too long), and purred the whole time. I swear I will never spoil my children, but I've clearly ruined the cats.

Anyhow, a rundown of the trip: after a rough nine hours on the road last Saturday (including a dinner stop and a bunch of crappy traffic), we arrived at Craig's parents' house in NJ. They were out so we waited up until they got home, chatted with them until about 1:00am, and then went to bed. Slept in the next morning, woke up and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast (I've so been craving breakfast foods) of blueberry pancakes, fruit, and bacon. Very good bacon. I appreciate good bacon. Anyhow, we also went to what I've decided is the world's best grocery store: Wegman's. It's like a combination of Whole Foods, Fresh Market, Williams-Sonoma, and a regular grocery store. Craig and I are food store junkies, so we were in heaven. I bought organic brown rice cakes (best thing I've found for settling my stomach), pretzels, raspberry wasabi mustard, grapefruit soda, some really awesome French brie (yes, it's pasteurized, give me some credit...), apricot fruit paste to go along with the brie, and I know there was more but I can't remember it at the moment.





That evening, we had steak on the grill (I'm also big-time into red meat right now, something else that's not usual for me), grilled vegetables, cucumber salad, potato and onion packets, and raspberry pie. Best meal I've eaten in AGES. The next morning (Monday), we headed about 2.5 hours north into NY to visit Craig's grandparents. Did a little bit of fishing (I caught nothing. NOTHING!), had burgers on the grill for dinner, and just hung out. The next day, it was in the 90s out and HUMID....now, that's normal for NC, but mind you, we have air conditioning. Craig's grandparents only have it in the guest bedroom. Normally that wouldn't bother me, but apparently incubating the spawn-child has made me incredibly intolerant of the heat. So on Tuesday I made a stab at fishing in the morning but had to go back and lay down, then when I felt well enough I sat on the porch in the shade and worked on things for school. I did not feel well at all that day, even though Craig's aunt joined us for dinner AND Craig made his famous baby back ribs for dinner. Wednesday we headed back to his parents' house and hung out for a few hours until his mom got home from work (I played with her cats. They're awesome. I should have taken some pictures but I was too busy playing), and then we went out to a seafood buffet for dinner. WONDERFUL. Spent some time chatting, went to bed, and left at about 9:00am this morning....the majority of the return trip was uneventful, it took about 8 hours and that includes the hour-long lunch break we took at Cracker Barrel (more breakfast food, woohoo!). Of course, we did hit some stop-and-go traffic so in addition to my usual morning sickness (since I haven't slept well the past few days, even my medication didn't give me much relief), I also had motion sickness. There should be a law against that, because it was awful. But, now we're home, and I am pretty excited to be sleeping in my own bed again, and I'm pretty sure the bean sprout is happy too. :o)

The lake at Nana and Poppy's house:


Craig, manning the oars:


Fishing. Note the absence of fish at the end of the pole. Also note the awful hair...I refused to do my hair all week (it was vacation!), I just pulled it back in a knot after showering. It actually didn't look too bad until I got out on the lake: