I have been fantasizing about spring break ever since March of 2009–my first Winter semester at BYU. Since we knew we would be doing grad school not at BYU, I have had this plan to go somewhere really cool and see lots of really cool things! Afterall, that’s what spring break is all aobut! I had this same plan all the way up until about November of this past year, when it dawned on me that I would be WAY pregnant over spring break and that I can’t be trusted to stay as pregnant as I should be, and that I have to go to the hospital weekly for a shot anyway.  Suffice it to say, we did not take an epic vacation this spring break. However! We decided that this would be the perfect opportunity for us to see the things around us that we haven’t yet. Hence, “staycation”!

Monday

We decided that one of the best things about vacation is that you get all your favorite treats for the road–you know, the ones you love, but never have a really good reason to buy most of the time.  So, we did that!  We started out by going to Rise in Durham for cronuts and biscuits! Their biscuits should probably be illegal or something, because they are SO GOOD!  Then we took Fay to the park, and then we went to Aldi and got a jillion snacks!   We still had some time before lunch and Fay’s nap, so we decided we would go work in our little garden plot (Baity Hill has a bunch of plots that residents can enter a lottery for, and we got one!).

Fay helped out by playing with rocks! She also ate a mouthful of dirt!

After naps (I took one too!), we headed out for a place that is very near and dear to my parents’ hearts: West Point on the Eno.  Fay loved the waterfall, and throwing rocks into the water.(This is just a picture of Fay being adorable in the car)

Tuesday

This was the nicest day we have had thus far this year!  It was warm enough at 9:00 in the morning when we headed out that we didn’t need jackets!  Later in the day it was even hot! Perfect day for the zoo!  We did the park in the morning because Josh had a phone interview at 11:00 that turned out not to be until 2:00. And then we headed out to Asheboro to go to the North Carolina Zoological Park! Josh ended up just finding as quiet a place as he could to talk at the zoo. While he was doing that, Fay and I just saw a few more animals than he did.

Waiting for the tram to take us to Africa!

So, this little girl saw Fay and just NEEDED to be best friends with her. It was pretty much adorable to watch her try to explain everything, and Fay just happily went along with it! Also, don’t Fay’s shorts just kill you?! I love them! She will probably wear them about 77% of warm days until she grows out of them.

Fay loved the gorillas! One even came right up to the glass and stared at her!

This is the worst picture ever, but I just had to prove that I was there!

Wednesday

Our activity for the morning was swimming! Fay LOVES playing in the water! This pool was much more accustomed to having a little kid playing in the water than the last pool we tried. (If you want to hear an amusing story, ask me about the first pool we went to in Chapel Hill.)Fay got a new swimming suit for this season! She is adorable in it, of course!

After lunch and naps, we went to Carrboro and visited a cool little toy store there. There were a lot of really fun things, and we all had a good time!  After that, we went to dinner at this restaurant that we had a recommendation for. I won’t mention its name, because I don’t want anybody to hate it just because of us. But we did not have a positive experience there. The food was very expensive and not what we were hoping for.  Oh well. I still didn’t have to cook that night!

Thursday

We had been quite busy the first half of the week, and we decided it was time for a morning of relaxing.  Josh worked on his robot car (he’ll have to do a post on that soon, because it is way cooler than I can describe!) and I worked on some sewing projects. We did this while sort of tag teaming playing with Fay, and during her nap.

In the afternoon, we went to UNC campus! We have been wanting to see the art museum forever, and we needed to get some UNC something for our baby (that was my compromise with Josh after I bought a Duke sleeper for Kid at a consignment sale). So, we took the bus (Fay was very pleased) and went to the museum first. It was smaller than I expected, but there were quite a few impressive pieces. Josh specifically noted the Durer prints!  After the museum, we walked around campus (it was a little different to see it so empty) and saw the Old Well!  Then we went to the student store and got  a really cute onesie for Kid (I don’t have a picture of it; you’ll have to wait til he tries it on!)

 At the well!At the student store!

Friday

This day went quite differently than we were anticipating.  We had planned to go to Raleigh and play at Marbles (a kids museum type place) and then we had dinner plans with friends that evening.  However, on Thursday, we noticed a crazy rash thing developing on Fay’s face. By Friday morning it was out of control, so we took her to the doctor (we were just there last week for nursemaid’s elbow, but oh well). It turns out that somehow she got exposed to the “hand, foot, and mouth” virus. The doctor said that she was in the early stages of it, and we have seen that to be accurate.  By Friday night, it was getting worse on her face, and showing up more on her hands and in her diaper area. Saturday, she was blistering all over. Fortunately, the blisters don’t really hurt or itch. But Fay does have a tendency to pick at them which then causes pain because she has open wounds on her face.This picture is actually from Saturday, but it shows the blisters really well.

Had that been all, Friday might have gone smoothly. But I also added to the drama by waking up with contractions.  Before we even went home from Fay’s appointment, we went to the women’s hospital and I stayed in triage for about 4 hours. I was having regular contractions, but fortunately never dilated. And after a bunch of water and an IV, the contractions slowed down and we are still pregnant!  This is me looking like death in the hospital. I’m not really sure why I put it in…

I got home around 2:30, and we spent the rest of the day at home. We opted against our dinner plans because there was a baby going to be there and hand, foot and mouth disease is apparently very contagious. Our fabulous next door neighbors, the Paces, brought us dinner, because when Josh asked them to watch Fay (at our house, so that she wouldn’t get their little boy sick) so he could come to the hospital to be with me, they decided that we had had enough for one day, and didn’t need to worry about dinner.  We are SO grateful for them!

Saturday

We mostly spent the day at home in an effort to avoid spreading Fay’s rash to others. But it was just such a nice day, and Fay was getting stir crazy, so we took her to the park.  We let her swing on the swings for a while, but other than that, we tried to do more exploring than playground-ing.  She started doing the cutest thing: hugging rocks!

 

After the park, we went to dinner at a place on Franklin Street called “Buns.” It is a hamburger place that we’ve heard about and was really good!  We are no longer afraid to go to new restaurants! 🙂

This weekend was our stake conference. Josh let me go to the Saturday evening session while he stayed home and put Fay to bed, and did all the dishes! (He’s way too good to me!)

We have loved Spring Break, and we are getting more and more excited for summer!