Week's High's and Low's

Life has been pretty busy recently, so it's been quite a while since I last made a post here on Head Happenings. I'll do a little catching up with some high's and low's for the week.

Starting with last weekend:

High: My Mom and I made a trip down to Lake Village, AR to go shopping at Paul Michael, you can check out some of their items HERE. It's totally worth the 2 hour drive. They have really great prices on furniture, home decor as well as seasonal items. They are just starting to get their Christmas stuff in, and its beautiful. It is a definite "must go" if you get the chance this fall, I promise you won't be disappointed, its a great girls day trip from Little Rock because you can leave at 8am and be back by 3 or 4 that afternoon.

The drive is really easy and honestly very pretty as you get to see all different types of Arkansas agriculture.


We had Emerson and Ava Jane with us. Emerson did this most of the trip.


And we decided to turn Emerson's water wing into a bottle holder, it propped Ava Jane's bottle perfectly while we continued our trek down South. I must say I'd recommend this little trick to help you out if your little one can't hold their bottle very well.


Low: Being that there aren't very many restaurant choices in that part of Arkansas, Mom and I chose to stop at Sonic instead of McDonald's and honestly, it was a real LOW, and I usually really love Sonic. All we ordered was two large boxes of popcorn chicken, 2 medium vanilla cokes and an apple juice but the lady taking our order came back saying that they were out of popcorn chicken and vanilla, so we ended up with 2 boxes of chicken strips (that don't hold a candle to Chick-Fil-A's), 2 medium cherry cokes and Emerson's Minute Maid Apple Juice (it's hard to mess up a juice box!).


High: I went to fill up the Suburban and much to my great pleasure, this was the price per gallon that I paid for my gas!! Can you believe that? I actually saved $1/gallon! Isn't that awesome?!


LOW: The only reason that I was able to get that much off on my Kroger gasoline was because I'd spent over $600 in groceries that WEEK, from having to re-stock my pantry that was invaded by ants. YUCK!!!

High: My Mom asked to take the boys with her one morning, so they got to have a little field trip down at the Little Rock Police Department. They thought the Jr. Badges that they got were so cool! It's such a blessing to have grandparents that love our children and want to be with them! Gotta love Lawson's stoic look here.


Low: The reason my Mom was taking the boys to the LRPD, unfortunately was because she is helping to head up Crime Prevention in their neighborhood, and just the night before, another family that we know who lives near them, had their home broken into.


High: Peyton has become the most helpful little guy. I just have to continue bragging on him. He has started vacumming our entire house WIHTOUT even being asked. He regularly, as in EVERY DAY, has been doing this both in the morning and the afternoon and I am oh so thankful for his helpful spirit.


Low: The fact that no matter how hard he (Peyton) or I work to keep the house clean and picked up, the dust bunnies seemingly never go away, the laundry continues to pile up and potty mold keeps growing!

High: Getting into my car yesterday and finding this sweet note taped to my steering wheel. Adam knows how important "gifts" are to me and my love language, I don't necessarily want things that have to be bought, simply just things that let me know that he's thinking of me. Things like this precious note or the Southern Living magazine under my pillow, speaks volumes to me. I love him tremendously and am so grateful to have a husband that takes the time and the energy to love me well.


Low: The reason Adam wrote the precious note was because he has been super swamped at work and has had many many early morning as well as many late night meetings the past few weeks.

So there's a little recap of the past week. I'm looking forward to a low key weekend, getting to enjoy the beauty of Lake Ouachita and spending time with family next week.

Re-Entry

Well I must say, our trip was so much fun! I would highly recommend it and would gladly go again! It was relaxing and enjoyable just being with Adam doing whatever we wanted to do, was fabulous! I'm so grateful for the refreshment that we had and the memories we were able to make!

A huge thanks must go out to my parents and the Head's for being willing to take care of our precious cargo while we were away. What a blessing it is to be able to leave and not worry about the kids, it made the trip so much more enjoyable!

While we were away they did all kinds of fun things from The Museum of Discovery to the pool, to four wheeling and ice cream runs for dessert. The kids definitely enjoyed time with their grandparents!






Even Ava Jane got in on the ice cream at Baskin Robbins, I'm thinking she LOVED it!


I must say re-entry has been so much easier thanks to the fact that all the kids laundry was clean and ready to be hung up or put away in their drawers, how great it was to not have piles of laundry waiting for me. Thanks so much Mom and Donna for all your help!

Sometimes re-entry can be super difficult. To transition back into the whining and constant neediness of children can be quite overwhelming when you let yourself get used to the quiet for six or so days. It's really amazing how quiet the "quiet" is when you're used to as much noise as I have going on at any given moment! But honestly, I can say with no fibbing involved, that re-entry has gone really well. I was glad to get back and re-engage.

The thing I wasn't ready for was an ant invasion! Really, where in the world did all of these come from? And why, on Earth did they decide to invade this house? It was a death sentence (for them) from the start! So yesterday afternoon I had to throw out a TON of food because they were in everything: cereal boxes, crackers, peanut butter lids, etc...it all had to go, to my chagrin. Not exactly what I was looking forward to doing on my Monday back, but never the less, it had to be done!

San Francisco/Napa Trip Part 3

Friday we took a Bike and Roll tour of San Francisco. It was a 4 hour bike ride that took us all along the shore, up and across the Golden Gate Bridge and over to a quaint little town called Sausalito, for a total of 9 miles of biking. We rode the Ferry back to San Francisco, which my legs were oh so happy to do! It was quite foggy and cool the last few days we were there. It's pretty amazing how it can be cold and overcast in SF but when we got to Sausalito (which is just across the bay) the fog was burned off, the sky was clear and the sun was bright and shiny!




We rode to several of the piers and saw some people training for a triathlon, swimming in the hypothermic waters in nothing but a swimsuit, no wetsuits at all...I could hardly believe it, the water was less then 50 degrees, and literally if they stopped swimming the mile and half between the piers, they could die of hypothermia...it was crazy to say the least, or maybe the nicer term would be to call them very determined. We could see Ghiradelli Square as well as ships coming into the bay.




We stopped for a little break right under the Golden Gate Bridge and watched guys trying to surf in the frigid waters, it was crazy because the water and shoreline is extremely rocky but that didn't seem to deter them at all!




Adam and I locked up our bikes and helmets and enjoyed walking the streets of Sausalito. It was so much warmer and really pleasant over there. We ate lunch at Venice Pizzeria, a pizza place right along the water then enjoyed a home made waffle cone and ice cream.




As we waited to board the Ferry back we got entertained by this character and his dog. He was strumming his guitar and "singing" the same line over and over, "I'm sittin' here in Sausalito, let your dog be a dog..."


Here's some shots of Sausalito from the Ferry.




It was another lovely day!

San Francisco/Napa Trip Part 2

Wednesday night we had a nice dinner at Michael Chiarello's restaurant, Bottega (he's from the Food Network). It's located in the lovely, quaint city of Yountville, a town that resembles pleasant-ville! I enjoyed walking hand in hand with my love up and down the tree lined streets just taking it all in. It's wild how on one side of the road are palm trees and on the other are these whimsical ones. The Napa area is a crazy mix of mountain scenes (like I've seen in Colorado) and tropical ones like Florida or even southern California.








I did so enjoy my tomato salad with balsamic vinaigrette and balsamic pearls.


Neither of us was really crazy about our entree, but the desserts were definitely great! I enjoyed this Tiramisu, it was served completely differently then I've ever had it before.


I've been enjoying all my time with Adam this week; we've had such a fabulous time together! I'm very thankful for our marriage and the almost 10 years that we have had so far. God has been incredibly gracious to us. While we've been away we've been able to spend some time praying together and thinking about the future but also thanking God for where He's taken us in the past years. It's been such a sweet time for sure!


We had a great time stopping in for a quick bite of lunch one afternoon in Napa too. Gotts was a great place to stop along the highway. We split an Ahi Tuna sandwich with de-li-cious slaw along with fried zucchini sticks that were out of this world good!





We drove into San Francisco, returned our car and found our hotel, they were literally 50 yards apart...I was shocked at how close the two places were, and it wasn't because of my planning, that was just an added bonus.




We checked in and dropped our luggage. I had told the lady at the front desk, when we were checking in, that we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary, and this kind jester was waiting on us when we walked into our corner hotel room.


We grabbed a bite of lunch before heading to Pier 33 to catch our ferry over to tour Alcatraz. Let me just start by saying, IT.WAS.FREEZING! I can hardly believe that it is July 11th, and I'm having to wear a fleece lined jacket!! Bbbbrrrrr!!

Alcatraz was really neat, there was an audio guided tour that was very informative and interesting!



The view of the city from the ferry.


Alcatraz, was beautiful and picturesque.



Here's the warden's house that burned down.


Inside the prison, was a little bit creepy to think about (or hear, as I was listening to doors slam shut on a new prisoner, or the sounds of a fight breaking out amongst the prisoners) in my audio tour. Alcatraz housed some of the most notorious criminals in the United States, Al Capone was one of the most famous inmates.


Here's Adam standing in Cell block D, also known as Isolation. There was a quote that kept coming up on the tour, "if you can't obey the rules you have to go to prison, if you can't obey the prison rules, then you have to go to Alcatraz!" Alcatraz was one of those places where you couldn't escape because the island was about a mile and a half away from San Francisco and the water was very cold but more then that, the prisoners could see and hear the hustle and bustle of people living in San Francisco and it reminded them of just how close life was around them, but yet how far away their freedom was.


In the kitchen/dining area, there were pictures of the knives that should be hanging in a certain place, that way the warden and other officers could tell if a knife was missing.


Alcatraz is a national park and therefore everything is protected and kept immaculately. There are lots of species of plants and birds that are protected on the island. There are many beautiful gardens with lush succulents as well as different types of birds.








We ended our day with dinner at the Pier 39. We enjoyed some seafood at Bubba Gumps. Our waiter was quite flamboyant, he asked all his tables to answer some Forrest Gump trivia, he was very fun to watch. We walked up and down the pier shopping and enjoying some Ghiradelli chocolate, those chocolate carmel cashew turtles were so good!