Weekending

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. 

The boys haha!

Molly Anne had a wonderful first week!  She has asked when she gets to go back every morning when she wakes up!

Sweet boy cuddling with me on Saturday afternoon!

Molly Anne has been really into her Calico Critters and Enchantimals lately!  She goes into her playroom and plays by herself for awhile and I catch her talking to her little animals about their mama and what they're doing!

Our friends (and old Avenue neighbors) came over on Saturday evening!  We were going to just order pizza but I ended up getting to the store.  We grilled bacon cheddar burgers, had some fresh corn and a delish caprese salad!  It was SO good to see them and we had the best time catching up!

The couple that flexes together, stays togetha.  Long story behind this one.  Haha

Mills had his fair share of Miller Lite Saturday night.  He loves it!

Jacket and Mills Turns 6!

Two things:
1.  The best jacket ever.
2.  Mills turned 6 on Wednesday.

Okay I know I talked about this jacket last year but it really is the best jacket ever.  We got a taste of Fall weather in Scotland and Ireland and I literally wore it every single day.  It's the best weight and matches everything.  Definitely a necessity for the transition to Fall and Winter weather.  They have it in sizes XXXS to 3X so that should tell you right there that it looks good on everyone!  

This boy turned 6 on Wednesday!  We celebrated how we always do - with a goodie peanut butter cake.  I make it (takes about 2 minutes) by stacking mini milk bones and layering them with peanut butter in between!  He ate the whole thing in one big bite this year!

(This picture is from Tuesday night when it was storming.  His thunder-shirt doesn't really help and I couldn't find him anywhere.  Until...I saw his eyes pearing out of his condo that he was in backwards.  Bless his little scared heart!)

Here he is eating his cake!

Molly Anne made sure he licked every ounce of peanut butter...like he was going to miss any HA!

We love our Mills and I know he will live forever!  

Last Day in Dublin

Our last day in Dublin, we took the train out to a little coastal town called Howth!  We had a couple of people tell us to do this and I'm so glad we did!  We walked a couple of blocks to the train station and then had a 25 minute train ride out to Howth!  

It was beautiful!  

All of the fresh seafood is delivered right off the boats to these amazing fish markets and restaurants.  

We walked in and out of the shops and stopped at a cute place for a glass of wine and fresh seafood plate!

We went for a boat ride around a nearby island!

 I like this below picture with the Ireland flag in it. 

We also went to the Yacht club to check that out and we got a few souvenirs here!

Of course we had to stop and share some famous fish and chips too!

We cruised back on the train to Dublin and got ready for dinner.   Before dinner we walked around some more then met two other couples for dinner at Bull and Castle.  It was delicious!  

We started with a couple amazing charcuterie plates.  

Kevin and I shared the T-bone and they serve everything over there with fries.  Meat and Potatoes!

It was a wonderful last night spent with good friends!  

Friday we hit the road via Uber to the airport and flew direct back to Charlotte.  We arrived back home around 1:15pm local time and ran home to get our act together before going to get Grady.  It was so nice to unpack and shower quickly.  Kevin went directly to the office.  The next morning I woke up early and drove to Pawleys and back (3.5 hours each way) to pick up our girl!  It was sooooo good to see her.  Yes, she had the time of her life with her cousins and aunt and uncle!

Whew, what a whirlwind of a trip!  Thanks for following along!  

Molly Anne's Last Day and First Day

Ahh Molly Anne started at a big girl school yesterday and I must post all about her last day at Ms. Becky's and her first day at her place!

Her last day at Ms. Becky's was last Thursday because on Friday she and I had a special girls day to celebrate the start of a new school!

Here she is ready for our big day!

We went to the mall and to American Girl, Lego and Disney stores.  This was so much fun and she loved playing in each!  Then we had a fun lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  The waiter couldn't have been sweeter and he asked what we were celebrating.  I just told him she was starting a new school.  Well after Molly Anne ordered "rainbow cake" he brought it out and he had them write Congratulations on it!  It was adorable that he thought to do that!  

She was so excited!  And you can tell she's way into hand sanitizer these days and got some new princess figurines at the Disney store! ;)  After lunch we watched one of the mall fountains and she threw some pennies in...she was thrilled! 

We ran home, changed for dinner that night and picked up Grady from Ms. Becky.  This happened on the way over there ha!

Ms. Becky is the best.  We are just so fortunate to have had her as part of our family for the last three years and we get more time with her now for Grady!  I literally cannot even talk about how special she is to us!  

She surprised Molly Anne with necklaces, bracelets, a jewelry box, a princess book and a balloon!  I mean yall!  

I had taken Becky this book earlier in the week and asked her to sign it.  I plan to have all of Molly Anne's teachers sign it and will give it to her at her high school graduation!  
  

So it isn't goodbye to Ms. Becky for Molly Anne because Molly Anne will still get to see her every day when we pick Grady up!  Thank goodness!

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On Monday, Molly Anne had a meet the teachers day where we got to go see her classroom and meet Ms. Amy and Ms. Paula for 30 minutes!  

She LOVED it!

Yesterday was her first day and Kevin and I took her!  She didn't even look back at us!  She was sitting at the table and coloring instantly!

She had pizza, green beans and pears for lunch and evidently had a wonderful day!  She didn't nap but laid on her cot quietly the whole two hours.  She played with a friend named "Riva" according to her but there aren't any Riva's in her class!  Ha!  And on the playground she said she had fun going down the slide because it was very fast!  That's about all of the information we were able to pull out of a tired little girl!



And they made this precious artwork! 

I know she will have a great year and I'm just so happy for her!  The structure and challenge will be wonderful for our Molly Anne!  A precious chapter closed but another one has opened! 

Dublin Days 1 and 2 (Gala Night)

We arrived in Dublin on Tuesday, August 7th around 1pm and this is how it went down:

Checked into the hotel

Went walking all over the place

Found a bar

Took too many Irish Car Bombs

Went back to the hotel to get ready for a welcome reception

They bused us to the Guinness Storehouse

We had the whole place to ourselves with a band on every level and traditional irish food stations everywhere.  

Okay here are the pictures:

This is the place we spent most of our time.  We had some friends come meet up with us.  

We happened upon the table right in the front next to the guy playing guitar. 

Of course we bought him a drink in true southern form and he played us a carolina song! 

That's Kevin delivering him his Guinness. 

The Irish Car Bombs go down much easier in Dublin!

We walked back to the hotel with our friends about an hour before we were to be downstairs for the event that night.  By the way, we WALKED SOOOOO much this whole trip.  And we barely slept.  I thought for sure it'd be so enjoyable to sleep with no monitor and because I hadn't slept in three months.  Nope, we enjoyed every bit of our trip instead haha!

There it is - Guinness!

We walked through all 5 levels of how it's made!

The Guinness people seemed nervous with so many people eating and drinking all over the place.  Evidently it was their biggest event they've had there by far and the place is pristine and spotless!  

It was a super fun night!

Wednesday morning we knew we had a big day ahead.  We found a cute cafe for breakfast and waited out about 10 minutes of rain while we planned our next thing we wanted to do.  

Best frapp I've ever had.  And I don't really drink coffee but this thing was delish!

We ended up walking around everywhere checking out tons of places!

We bought a bunch of artwork from this guy!

Christ Church

Literally the most insane thing happened.  When we flew over from CLT to Dublin, we sat next to this cool guy Bryce.  He's in school at Ole Miss and this was the first time he had been on a plane by himself!  His mom was so worried!  We chatted it up and became friends.  Well we moved on to Scotland and he stayed in Dublin for his study abroad program.  So now, we were back in Dublin walking around and we saw him right in the street coming out of a restaurant with his buddies.  UNREAL!  Now we follow each other on Instagram, naturally! 

We stopped for some fish and chips at a cool pub.  This is where I talked to Molly Anne's new teacher for the first time haha!

We walked back to the hotel and got ready for the Gala!  

They bussed us over to 3 Arena which is THE place to watch a musical performance in Dublin.  

Largest seated dinner ever in Ireland is what the CEO told us!  CRAZY!  I have never seen so many wait staff people!

Our friends Alison and Chris who live in Atlanta!

Christina Aguilera performed!  My favorite part was when she brought her children out on stage!  It was precious!  She said she had never done that before but it made me feel like she was a normal person like us!

Her show was great. All of her dancers were amazing!

We went back and changed after the show and then went back out.  Pizza was necessary about 1:30am!

We met this sweet girl Orla on the street and had the best time chatting with her!  

Okay that was a lot!  We only had one more full day in Dublin then we came home!  I'll recap that soon!  Thank you for reading along!