DC Surprise

Even though I've been to DC on business several times over the past however many years, it's been a good long while since I did anything touristy. Usually I work and grab a meal with Ben & Anna. But this time, since Anna's travel conflicted with mine, they were out of the picture. But I did get a nice change of pace with a visit to everyone's favorite White House.

It was my co-worker's first time to DC so we took an after dinner walk to bring her face-to-face with one of our country's favorite icons. She was not disappointed (and neither was I!),

#DeltaNashville

Three best nights of the year!

I spent Friday-Monday in Nashville with 12 Deltas (husbands included) and we had SO MUCH FUN. In pictures...

Friday night we had a big family dinner at the house

Saturday we did some day drinking, including this one at Tootsie's

That night we hit up the Opry. Check out the new boots on three of the girls

Sunday we woke up...and did more day drinking

On a pedal pub. That's right, a bar on wheels and powered by pedaling.
Meg D, Jess and Rob made the trip for the first time since 2012!

Standing next to me is Kristin's beau, Matt. He fit right in :)

Monday we went to the Ryman and then Matt, Kristin and I hung out on Broadway before our flights.
The set-up for the CMT Awards had started and we caught this promo filming with acts Big & Rich and Macklemore right outside of our final bar stop.

ThisClose

The little boy's language continues grow leaps and bounds. He loves repeating new words. Just this week he started saying "Daddy's coffee." With the repetition though comes some kinda funny things. He's thisclose on so much.

Pronouns kill him. He doesn't get them at all. He tells me...

"Mama I want carry you."

and

"I want sit in my lap."

How do you explain to a 2 year old that what he means is I want you to carry me and I want to sit in your lap? I have no idea! So I just go with it and we do "carry you" and "my lap" regardless of who is carrying who and whose lap is being sat in.

School Daze

Check out Mr. Cutie's school picture! We've never bought them before but with a face like that, how could I say no?!

Find Lexi

Our darling Lexi girl ran off last night on a camping trip in Burnet County. We're all looking very hard for her.

If you see her, please call me at 512.461.0244.

UPDATE

After posting this and starting ads on Facebook, I called an animal rescue group that had been referred to me. I gave a description of the situation and Lexi and right before I could give my name, they asked if I had already called. They already had a missing pet report that matched my description exactly and could I please confirm my phone number. Somebody named Jenny had called it in. (Turns out, my wonderful neighbor called it in because they were so worried about Lexi and wanted to help.)

Megan and Nancy met Ross in Burnet to help look. After getting there, Meg asked me to print flyers and bring them up. I was doing that, Brittany was on her way over to babysit when...

A little after 1p I received a call from a couple who had LEXI. They lived on the same road the boys were camping on, about a mile down the way. Their neighbors own a Lexi-look-a-like and that is who they thought wandered into their yard this morning and barked at the door to be let inside. After playing with her, loving on her and trying unsuccessfully to call the neighbors, they saw her tags and realized this was not their neighbordog. (Keep in mind, this is out in the country so I suspect they don't know the neighbor pets as well as some of us in suburbia do. It's probably hard to tell one mid-sized black dog from another when you have 30 acres between you and the neighbor.)

I had a complete happiness meltdown on the phone. Wrote down all the pertinent information and after several attempts (over what felt like hours but I think was less than 10 minutes), finally got confirmation from Meg that they were on their way to Lexi.

Ross also had a complete happiness meltdown when he saw her. When I talked to him after he picked her up, he told me this was the nicest couple in the world. His point was proven when they called me back 30 minutes later to let me know Ross had picked her up, how overwhelmed with emotion he was to be reunited, how much they appreciate his service as a firefighter, asked us to keep in touch now that Lexi had introduced all of us and invited us to come play on their 60 acre ranch any time we like. Turns out they had also invited Ross, Megan and Nancy to come back any time for margaritas. Clearly the nicest people in the world. And they saved our Lexi girl.

We're all home now. Cade is in his crib sleeping (knock on wood, he's had a cough so sleeping is a struggle), Lexi is dozing on the couch, Ross is watching baseball and I'm about to pick up my book. Thank goodness and thanks to our wonderful friends, family and new favorite ranchers.

Poor Baby

Ok, preschool, you were right. Our little boy is sick. I think it is just a good old fashioned cold. One that likes to take center stage after midnight each night. Ross did a 11:30p-2a shift on Thursday and I did a 12:30-3a shift last night. Blessedly, right now little boy Black is 2+ hours into an afternoon nap. Goodness knows he and I both need it.

I'm sure the cutest boy in Texas will be back to his usual train-loving, playground-running, chatterboxing way soon. Hopefully by tomorrow as our family has a busy Monday that really needs a healthy boy to be successful.

In other news though, we're working on a gameroom makeover! I would say we're "redecorating" but that implies we actually decorated it in the first place.

It's a mish-mash of a couch from Nancy's house that Ross loves, a table from Amazon, a Black Friday TV deal, toy cubbies, and cheapie posters. And as you can see, I didn't bother to clean up for the "before" photos below. It'll make the big makeover that much more dramatic. Kinda like how people never smile in the "before" photo but have a mega-watt grin for the "after" photo.

The Pinterest board is growing and the first round of decor has been purchased from Target.com. Full makeover to occur in July when Cade spends 2 nights with Nana (because you know, toddlers and wet paint do NOT mix). Stay tuned!