Monday brought with it a lie-in, Amber apologised for sleeping late, but I told her that I had a bath and let her sleep in. All signs pointed to her needing a little extra sleep (I would have too, if it was me).
Averie was at the sitter, which meant it was a day of girlie bonding. It really was a throw-back to a few years ago when we used to just go shopping for hours and hours. I tend to hate shopping, but Amber makes it not only bearable, but also fun.
We can easily spend like 3 hours in Walmart – I think our record is 4… We did an independent scrapbooking shop (where I bought some pretty papers and clearance stuffs!), TJ Maxx (where I came out with 3 pairs of trousers and 2 dress shirts for Col), Walmart, Target and a few other places thrown in there too (but these are the ones I bought stuff in!).
Most of what I bought was clothes (including a cute Muppets T-shirt and an even cuter Fraggle Rock T-shirt!), Col and I both need clothes, I tend to buy like 4 tank tops and cycle them for a year (in Texas you wear a lot of tank tops!) and then they end up trashed and ready to be replaced (or at least this is the habit I’ve started to notice developing!)
The list of what I bought is pretty extensive, including two glue guns (with refills), a couple of bits and pieces for Col, for Magz’s baby shower (and when I got home to Ambers and started trying to pack – you can guess what’s coming – I didn’t have enough space, but, again, more on that later!)
We enjoyed dinner in a delicious little place called Cibo – we had a LUSH Spinach and Artichoke dip, gorgeous chips with a garlic dip (omgggggg I want some now just thinking about them!) and for my main course I had Sambuca Chicken (which came with rigatoni pasta!) – it was delicious, and the more I ate, the less Sambuca I tasted! LOL!!! We didn’t get home until almost 1am – yup, we really did shop for almost 12 hours solid!
It was AWESOME!
Ok, not so much for my credit card, but still!
Tuesday was a bonding day for little miss Averie and her Aunty Las. Amber and Aaron both went to work and instead of dropping her off at the sitter, I stayed home and sat for her.
It was great fun – she was seriously, a peach (yes, I’m aware I’m getting more and more ‘American’ in my writing, but I can’t help it, I’m living in America, surrounded by American’s – you try and resist!!)
After a breakfast of bananas and cereal, we got dressed and headed out to the nearby park – after a slight detour to the petrol station for some provisions, and a ‘moment’ when we passed the school park and Averie thought that was HER park and she got upset thinking I wasn’t gonna take her to the park.
She played for AGES, running around, sliding, swinging, bouncing, making snow angels in the gravel (personal favourite! LOL!) and, instead of a big scene when it came time to go home like I expected, she in fact, surprised me and said she was hungry – when I said, ‘you wanna go home for lunch?’ she went ‘yup’ and hopped right in her buggy!
It was very cute.
She’d run herself ragged.
After a lunch of grilled cheese (my first time cooking it!) and a few stories, Miss Averie sobbed a little when I left her in her bed telling her it was nap-time, but the sobbing barely lasted 10 seconds and she was unconscious!!!
Just over 2 hours later, I had to wake her up! She probably woulda slept on for ages, but I got her up, bundled her into the car and headed up in to the city to pick up Amber from her office.
This sounds pretty straight forward, and after the sat nav navigated the diversion from the closed road this time – I thought I was home-free. However, the address we’d told it to take me to, as it turned out, was no where near where Amber works!!!
So, I had to call her, use my mobile while driving (which I’ve never, EVER done and I’m so highly against!) and have her direct me to her office – which we found eventually!
After picking up Amber, we went back to Walmart (for me to pick up a duffle bag cause I was out of room AGAIN!! When will I ever learn? 😉 lol!) and then headed to Applebees where Miss Emily treated us to dinner (which was most gratefully received!)
Wednesday morning, we’d promised Miss Averie that she could finger paint in the garden, so we changed into paint-friendly garb and headed onto the patio where we sat finger painting for a while – it made me wanna go home and buy finger paints! LOL!
It was such fun! Averie, of course, got covered and needed a bath –
– not before a wee bubble-related tantrum!
– or two! LOL!
I did the bath-thing while Amber cooked us a yummy brunch of banana pancakes.
Before leaving for the airport, we watched Disney’s ‘Tangled’ – which, again, is a cute film and definitely one I plan on picking up. Did you know that Disney vault their films after a certain period of time? I didn’t, so I’m now stressing about what movies I can buy and when! LOL!
The travelling home wasn’t overly eventful, I joked with a TSA Agent about firearms and being Irish, the food in the terminal SUCKED for the, like, billionth time, the steward on the plane caught me dancing to one of any number of R’N’B choons I was bopping to and started to giggle at me and the flight was an additional 40 minutes long cause of some bad weather over somewhere…
All in all though, it was, as always a great trip and I’m already trying to scheme when I get to go back to Iowa…though Amber tells me Matty Nay is there in July – and i’m DYING to see him. After 6 years, I think it’s about time I caught him in concert somewhere…and I do have airmiles lying around!