June Wrap Up

And just like that, the end of the school year was upon us and I couldn't have been more thrilled to visit Carolina's class one more time and thank her teachers for such a wonderful Kindergarten experience. It's true Carolina has embraced the school life in an easier manner than her big sis, but really, it's also been helpful that she's found such a welcoming classroom with friends and some terrific teachers. We made it to their publishing party before school let out and I had to laugh when I saw the title of her "How To" book--"How to Beg Your Parents for Toys." Yeah, that sounds about right. I enjoyed a night out to the theatre just before school ended while Nacho ditched me to take advantage of a green slip from work. With double pay and an easy flight to LAX and dead head home the next day, it was well worth the sacrifice. I saw the new adaptation of "1984" which couldn't be more bone-chillingly timely and Olivia Wilde and Tom Sturridge were equally riveting. A short walk through Times Square at night and I was reminded how amazing it is to live here and have this all at our finger tips. The park's annual Out of School BBQ the following day meant I needed to get my butt in gear and bake a delicious cake--only this time I smartly reserved it for our own family. Every year I've baked for the Cake Walk and my kids obsess about winning a cake. But this time they played (and lost) and still won! I even soothed poor Crosby's soul with some of my shimmering unicorn poop cake (as I took to calling it) since he was a Cake Walk loser many times over. Determination is everything, but sometimes you just want a slice! 

The next day we cooled our heels and got ready for our big drive to NC to deliver Mia's new (old) car--our Toyota Matrix! Since we bought our new Acura at the end of June, the idea was to get our car to her for her to learn to drive a stick. Originally the plan was for Nacho to drive alone while I flew down with the girls to meet him. Easy peasy, right? But the flights weren't looking great as we went to check them a few days out, so the thought of waiting and missing our chance to get on didn't make a lot of sense. We would all drive down and have one last giant road trip to say goodbye to old "Reddie" as the girls have suddenly christened her. The truth is we haven't take too many road trips as a family of 4 so this 9-10 hour epic journey was a little daunting. We left mid-day on Friday which couldn't have been worse, most likely. But I wasn't in the mood to rush. And so we didn't. We planned to stay the night somewhere south of DC and that mostly worked except for the massive construction near Richmond that left us tired and unable to find a hotel in a decent range. But we finally did and that was the rest we needed. The next day we were onward to Raleigh and the promise of swimming and lots of fun with the fam.

Making it to Stacey's the next day (and in time to drop Nacho at the airport directly to make it home again) was the real beginning of our summer vacation. There was lots of swimming and drinking cocktails and eating good food. And all in two days! We were going to pack up and drive down to Emerald Isle on Monday and let the beach week begin. We booked two hotel rooms at the Best Western in Cape Carteret and that was the best of both worlds: near mam and dad AND the beach. I think we might need to make this a tradition.