Babies, sunshine, and milkshakes.

For President's Day weekend I went out to North Carolina to visit Allison and the rest of my peeps out there. I know I always talk about how nice it is to get out of the city, and I promise I really love living here, but this trip came at a perfect time. It had been frigidly cold here for a while, and between that and a couple other things, I'd been feeling kind of down lately. So spending a long weekend in the sunshine with family was just what I needed.

I flew in on Friday night and our first stop was to pick up some Bojangles fried chicken and biscuits on the way home from the airport. It's always a nice welcome to the South to be licking grease off your fingers at 10pm. In the morning, I was awakened by two little blondies and we got round TWO of Bojangles--this time, breakfast biscuit sandwiches. Delicious.


The weather was supposed to be sunny and in the 70s all weekend, so we spent most of the morning playing outside. I can't say for sure that Emaline was more excited about this than I was.


In the afternoon we went to the Charlotte Nature Museum and had fun checking out bugs, birds, and butterflies.




Next to the Nature Museum is Freedom Park, which loyal fans of reality television will recognize from Emily's hometown date on The Bachelor. Allison told me beforehand that she had recognized the park from a preview in last week's episode, and when my face lit up, she said, "See, Dave! I told you she would think it was cool!"


After Allison and I shared a romantic embrace on the bridge, we headed to Cookout and gorged ourselves on burgers, fries, and delicious milkshakes.


On Sunday, we had waffles with the Spekuloos I had brought from NY. Seriously, this stuff is joy in a jar, I am telling you. My roommate eats it with a spoon. Anyway, we went to church and then while Allison worked on an awesome roast dinner, I enjoyed tea at Emaline's restaurant, aptly named "Emaline Fiesta Crab". We had a few rounds of Mario Kart and then the kids went to bed and we watched Amazing Race with a big bowl of buttery popcorn. Bliss.


On Monday, Emaline had to go to school thanks to a bunch of snow days earlier in the month. After she was dropped off, I dragged Allison and Dave (with the jogging stroller) out on a 3.5 mile run. I couldn't stop exclaiming about how gorgeous the weather was and I was seriously loving the abundance of vitamin D. We stopped by Emaline's school for lunch, which was fun--I loved seeing the tiny kids going and buying their lunches, acting like they're real people.


Allison and I spent the afternoon shopping and chatting, and then it was time to head back. And to add insult to the injury of returning to 20 degree temperatures, halfway to the airport I realized I had left my coat at their house. Awesome. Allison offered to let me take the Strawberry Shortcake blanket that was in the back of the car (Emaline had some strong objections to this plan) but I toughed it out (aka took a cab home from the airport). It was a great weekend, and just what I needed to get me through these last few weeks of winter!