Potty outside?

This evening we are playing in the back yard and Weston says "I want to go potty outside". Daddy said "No, Weston. Go inside and go potty." I'm thinking to myself, "Weston has never asked that before .... What happened?.... Mike took Weston to the park today... "

Me: MIKE! YOU DIDN'T!!!

Mike: (on the defense) We had just arrived at the park and he tells me he has to go potty! There was no one around...

Me: UUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!

Trip to MD/VA

We made a marathon trip up to the Maryland/Virginia area (we never actually went into DC) to find a place to live. We started out looking to rent something, but the timing just seemed right to buy. The boys were troopers. After 6 hours strapped into their car seats we went straight to looking at houses. In one house, back into the car, drive to the next house, get out, look around and then back into the car to drive to the next house. We did this for hours 3 days in a row. They rarely fussed- in fact, Weston thought this was fun. He loved helping our fabulous agent, Kara, push the buttons on the lock boxes and get the key out. We ended up putting an offer in on a townhouse in Maryland and we are pretty sure we will love it there. (Although, I am not doing very well with the idea of moving from North Carolina.)

The boys had the most fun in the hotel at night. Dallin found his favorite place in the bottom drawer. Weston loved jumping on the bed and riding on the elevators. Dallin disassembled the telephone, twice.

We went to the Tyson's corner mall one morning for some retail therapy. That was quite a mall. When we got back to the van in the parking garage this Ferrari was parked next to us and a Lotus on the right side. Mike's little Nissan is going to look silly next to all these fancy pants cars.

I snapped some pictures of Mike's new office, right next to the Ritz-Carlton. Then one night I glanced across the street at night and found that a lot of the lights in the Deloitte building were still on even though it was after 9 p.m. Ugh. I hope that's not a bad sign.

Maryland is beautiful and even though I will miss my friends in NC like crazy, home is where my family is. They are so precious to me.

Dallin spent a lot of time playing in the suit case when we got home.

Trip to Boone, NC a

An amazingly generous friend offered to let us use their "cabin" (read: ultra-luxurious home in the mountains). It was a MUCH needed escape for all of us. I attached some pictures of the cabin and the view.

We did some gem mining. Weston loved it and actually found a 1-carrot ruby among other things.

We took a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We went to the Linville Caverns. We gave Weston the option to see the top of the to see the top of a mountain (Grandfather Mountain) or the inside of a mountain (Linville) and he chose the caverns. Once there he said he was scared, but he was a trooper and even survived the total darkness part of the tour.

But really the best part of the trip was just the R&R of not needing to be anywhere at any time and just kicking back on the hammock eating chocolates from the local general store. (Weston was the epitome of a kid in a candy store at the general store. People would just stop and watch him go crazy about being surrounded by candy.)

These last pictures are playing in a creek and a cool Christmas tree farm on the way to the caverns.