Vacation Re-cap

Last week we took our last vacation as a family of three.  Since our daycare was closed we figured we might as well use the time to get away and escape this god awful humidity.

I found a cute little "lakefront" cabin on Lake Adger up in NC and we booked it for Sunday - Thursday.  Sunday morning we loaded up the car and headed north. It only took 3.5 hours to get there (with one stop) and it wasn't bad at all.  Andrew actually slept for 2 hours which shocked me being that he had just gotten up not too long before that.

Of course right when we got to the lake area it started raining, just in time for the windy roads and having to unload the car - excellent. We decided to hang out in the cabin and wait for the rain to slow down before unloading everything.  While we waited we checked out the deck, which the owners so smartly decided to paint with what appeared to be a semi-gloss paint.  Yeah, semi-gloss paint + some algae from the damp lake air + rain = me biting it pretty hard.  I didn't completely hit the ground, but I did get a nice bruise on my knee.  Later while Andrew and I were hanging out in the cabin and J went out to look around and fell down the steps on his ass. He wasn't hurt and we had a pretty good laugh about it, but we blocked off those steps so the munchkin couldn't fall down them

That night we drove into Lake Lure to find a place to eat and a grocery store.  After some pizza and groceries we got back and got munchkin in the tub - the big jacuzzi one in our room:

He loved playing with his little animal friends, but was not a fan of the jets.

Once we had him out and in his jammies he wanted to put his life vest on. And his rain boots:

He ran around like that for a while until he was tired enough for bed and then surprised us by sleeping almost 12 hours. Yay!

Monday we drove to town so J could get a fishing license which turned out to be a complete clusterf&%@ when the yahoos at the place couldn't figure out their printer.  After 90 mins I was about to tell J to forget it and just fish without a license, but they had written him out something on paper before I could completely lose it.

We got back to the cabin and headed down to the lake.  There was a path between cabins 3 and 4 with some steps to get down there. Not an easy walk, but doable.  Andrew loved walking down there and listening to him say "Big step!" at every step was cracking me up.

We played on the dock some:

That orange kayak came with the cabin, but we never actually took it out since we were apprehensive about his staying on it.

Andrew tried some fishing with daddy:

His technique of yanking the line out of the water on a regular basis didn't lead to many bites, but J did catch a couple little fish without Andrew's help.  That night we hung out at the cabin and ate some leftover pizza and just had some nice family time.

Tuesday we got up and headed to Chimney Rock. The elevator was out of service (excellent) so we hoofed it up there.  Andrew insisted on climbing the stairs himself:

It was a little slow going, which was probably a good thing with me being 8 months pregnant, but he did a great job.  We made it to the one scenic lookout and took some pictures:

Andrew was having fun climbing around on the rocks and hanging out in this little hole:

Then we decided to hike up all of these steps to continue to the top:

My OB would totally kick my ass if she saw what we were doing, but I enjoyed the view from up there with my favorite little munchkin:

When it was time to head back down we decided that maybe Andrew should hitch a ride. Some of the steps were pretty steep and we didn't need him somersaulting his way down the mountain. They way I look at it, we both had to carry a kid on the way down:

We made it to the base of the mountain and walked around the cute little town for a bit before stopping for some dinner. Andrew had a bit of a meltdown, but calmed down enough for us to have our meals.  I was shocked when he didn't fall asleep in the car on the way back to the cabin - especially after all that climbing.  After another bath in the big tub my guys played blocks for a bit before bed:

Wednesday started out kind of rainy so we hung out at the cabin for a while.  Andrew and I took a walk down to the lake by way of the road, with him enjoying a giant lollipop along the way:

There was a cute little gazebo down by the lake with a swing inside.  I thought we could go in there and sit for a bit, until J looked inside and saw a snake up in the rafters. So yeah - no.

We hung out on the dock for a bit and saw some bass swimming around. Then we headed into town to take Andrew to a playground and let him run around and work off some energy.

We stopped for dinner at the Riverside Pavilion:

Then it was time to head back to the cabin.  We enjoyed our last night relaxing in the non-humid air before we had to head back down to Charleston the next day.  We all got a good night's sleep before packing up the car and heading home.  Andrew watched "Finding Nemo" for what seemed like the millionth time and we made it home in 3.5 hours with plenty of time to take him to the park after we got back.

It was a very nice little vacation and I will cherish that time as our little family of three before all hell breaks loose with the arrival of 2.0.  Hopefully the time off rested me up enough to take on the impending craziness that is to come  :)