At long last, a post!

Well, we've been busy ever since we've gotten home from Charlotte for our visit to Gram and Pops. We were in NC from last Sat until Wed night and were SOO glad to be home after a long drive!!! A normal 3.5 hour trip took almost 6 hours with all the stops that we had to make with the kids. I think afternoon travel for both kiddos is a lot more difficult than morning travel. Our trip on Saturday morning was great! But, Wed night was NOT! Ethan was the main problem; he just wanted to be out of his carseat!

We arrived on Sat around 2pm and just hung out a Patrick's parents house. Mallory usually has a difficult warming up to new places if we arrive too close to bedtime, but she had several hours to explore her new environment and she ended up going to be very well. Ethan had a difficult time sleeping through the night almost all 4 nights we were there, but oh well! Gram and Pops LOVED having us there and it was fun for me to watch the kids soak up all their lovin'.

Patrick and I decided to go to our old, old church (Hickory Grove Baptist) on Sunday morning. We saw some old friends we hadn't seen in years. We also chatted with the pastor who married us and we beamed as we showed him our two children. I'm glad we decided to go there since it had been almost 3 years since we had stepped foot on their campus.

I was able to visit with a lot of my friends during the week while Patrick was in training. It was nice to catch up, see their children, hear their stories, and just enjoy each other. I'm sorry that Patrick wasn't able to join me, but he did get to see one of his best friends and have dinner with him. AND Patrick and I were able to have a night to ourselves. It was so much fun to go on a date and just be together. We have GOT to do that more often!

Well, I've got to cut this off. The kids should be waking up soon and we've got lots to do before Grandma and Grandpa Lahman (my folks) come later this afternoon!!! They'll be here for Easter, which will be lots of fun. As I'm writing this post, Patrick is enjoying this beautiful spring day getting our yard ready to be fertilized and seeded. He's spent about 4.5 hours so far mowing, tilling and bagging all the discards from the mowing and tilling...he's still got a lot to do, but my, oh my, it already looks 100% better than it did at 8am this morning!!! You do a great job in the yard, sweetheart.

I sat in the back of the van on the way to and from church and enjoyed watching my son fall asleep. Too cute!

Me and my awesome friend, Courtney (we have LOTS of pictures like this from years past...)

Mallory, Ethan and Michael Dean (Courtney's son). We could not get them all to stop crying at the same time. But, that's how it was! :-)

Here's Mallory playing with Gram's broom and dust pan. She had a lot of fun helping "clean".

This is the only picture I have of Gram, Pops and the kids...