grandparent week

I think Mae and Colin enjoyed their week at home just as much as Dan and I enjoyed our vacation! GranE and Batman visited for the first half of the week. It was a week of picnics, forts, and silly play time!

In the mornings, they got Mae out the door for school and then got some quality time with Colin. GranE enjoyed introducing Colin to the joys of jelly thumbprint cookies at the coffee shop.

In the afternoons, GranE set up fun activities. They loved playing "airplane" complete with seat numbers, suitcases, and snack service!

Mae and her stuffed animals even had a fancy little tea party with GranE.

Colin enjoyed having a captive audience to pore over the pages of "Cars And Trucks and Things That Go" with him. I think he's better at finding Goldbug than I am now!

Grandma came on Thursday to take over kid-watching duties so GranE and Batman could get home in time for other travel. We missed Mae and Colin so much while we were gone, but it was much easier knowing that they were having such a fun time at home with their fun-loving grandparents!

ten year anniversary

Dan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a trip to the Dominican Republic at the beginning of October. Since we haven't had a chance or an excuse to take a big trip like this since before Mae was born, I had SO MUCH anxiety leading up to it (What if we get sick before we travel? What if something goes wrong while we're there? What if we wasted all that money??) Fortunately, we had a really wonderful trip with only a few minor issues!

About a week and a half before our trip, our original hotel (Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana) got pummeled by Hurricane Fiona and we had to make a stressful, last-minute decision to re-book at the Iberostar Grand Bavaro. The hotel and grounds were beautiful, with very minor impacts from the hurricane. The food was great (especially the breakfast buffet), the beach was beautiful, and the view from our balcony was great. We had immaculate weather the whole time, except for 10 minutes of rain during breakfast on our last day.

We spent our time drifting between the beach, the pool, and the restaurants. We loved being able to just relax, read, and sip drinks.

We only did two of the resort activities during the week: playing a quick round of beach horseshoes (which I won) and competing in the archery tournament (which I also won.) Go me!

I enjoyed watching the wildlife on the resort grounds. We didn't see any lizards or crabs, but the pond was home to some huge koi and various birds, including these little black birds with huge feet that the staff called "water chickens." I had lots of fun watching them, especially after I noticed the tiny baby water chickens scurrying around.

Hopefully we don't have to wait another 10 years for a beach vacation!