A Weekend Close to Home

Hey party people! I hope you’re checking in after a good weekend. It was a cold weekend here — what we think may be one of our final wintery weekends before spring — and we did our best to embrace some indoor fun on Saturday and venture outside on Sunday afternoon once the sun finally emerged. We spent the weekend close to home and it was a good one!

Saturday

On Saturday morning, I did something I haven’t done in months and worked out in our garage. Once Ryan was done with his workout, we flip-flopped kid duty and I did a Burn Boot Camp metabolic conditioning workout around 7:30 a.m. Weekend workouts are far from common over here these days but it felt good to work up a sweat!

After a quick shower and breakfast 2.0, Ryan, the boys and I made our way to Discovery Place Kids in Huntersville. DPK is geared toward younger kids than Discovery Place Science in the city and since our membership covers entry into both locations, we figured the boys would enjoy changing things up and visiting Discovery Place Kids.

(Sweater: Aerie but old / Jeans: Old Navy High-Rise Curvy Jeans / Lug Boots: Ruanyu via Amazon / Chase’s High Tops: Reebok)

They were in their element and loved running all over the place, playing various imagination games, building different structures and watching the short science show.

The rock climbing wall was a major hit!

Before we headed out, we spent a little time in the arts and crafts area and Ryder made a self portrait (the orange guy) and a portrait of me (the red guy).

Aren’t we beautiful!?

By the time we made it home and ate lunch, Ryder and Rhett were ready for naps and while they snoozed, Ryan read with Chase for a bit and then Chase and I made a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. We then did our best to sort through more stuff in our house to donate as we continue to prepare to put our house up for sale.

It’s no small feat and I feel like we’re only beginning to scratch the surface but that’s probably because we’ve really only been working on it during the small chunks of time when Rhett is napping. Rhett’s current favorite hobby is unpacking all of the boxes we pack up in his presence so we’ve learned to wait until he’s asleep to tackle certain tasks.

Eventually my father-in-law came over and joined us for dinner and we spent the rest of the evening laying low at home.

Sunday

I slept terribly on Saturday night — I was legitimately awake from 2-6 a.m. — and ended up reading for nearly four hours because I could not for the life of me get back to sleep. On the bright side my book, 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand, was a big-time winner and after I finished it, I managed to sleep from 6 – 8 a.m. thanks to Ryan keeping the boys entertained downstairs and away from our room.

We spent most of the morning in our pajamas once again boxing up things to donate. As I went through a golden pail I had filled with old maps and magazines in my office, I came across this note at the bottom:

I knew this pail came from my Nana’s house, my grandmother on my dad’s side of the family, but no one in my family ever realized why she selected the pail specifically for me until I saw this note yesterday.

She had the pail cleaned, polished and lacquered and apparently gave it to me because of the date on the bottom: April 27, 1869, my birthday more than 150 years ago.

I was incredibly touched to find this and immediately sent a picture of the pail and note to my family. My dad called me feeling emotional about the find and I’m now hoping to laminate her special note to preserve it with the pail. (My grandmother remembered my father, mother and her daughters up until she passed away but lost her memory of me and my sister, so this find was especially meaningful.)

Eventually we made it out of the house to donate a few boxes of various household items before we grabbed some groceries for the week along with Jimmy John’s sandwiches for lunch.

Rhett took his usual afternoon nap on Sunday and while he slept, we prepped some beef stew for dinner while the big kids played. Ryan then took Chase and Ryder fishing and no less than 10 minutes later, Rhett was awake again.

(Shout out to our Foamnasium Blocksy kid couch! It hasn’t left our living room since Christmas because the boys still play with it every single day.) 

I tried to get Rhett back down but that was clearly a pipedream so the two of us walked to the marina to meet up with the rest of our crew.

(Jacket: Steve Madden / Shoes: Reebok / Sweatpants: Old Navy / Sunglasses: Quay / Sweatshirt: Fifth Sun but old / Beanie: Columbia but old) 

I brought some small soccer balls and snacks and we ended up spending the afternoon outside rotating from the boardwalk to a small field to our neighborhood park.

Chase is 100 percent soccer obsessed lately and is all about kicking the ball around any chance he gets. Soccer is also Ryan’s favorite sport so they’re two peas in a pod and practice together (both inside and outside) all the time.

By the time we made it home, the boys were clearly hungry so we dug into beef stew and then Ryder and I made a batch of homemade ice cream in our ice cream maker together.

We added crushed cookies to a vanilla ice cream base and it was the perfect way to round out the weekend!

And now I’m off to get this Monday rockin’. I hope you all have a great week and, as always, I appreciate you making PBF a part of your day. Enjoy your Monday!