East Coast Trip: In the Beginning

As I sit myself down at this here computer to finish blogging about our East Coast Adventures, I am faced with a glaring realization that this has taken me entirely too long. Some of the pictures I am now posting are over two months old. And, since they are mostly pictures of the kiddos, that passage of time is all the more obvious. Sorry. At this point, I think this entry will serve more as a travel log/journal for our family and less as a "hey, this is what we've been up to" for the rest of y'all.

So, back to the beginning of our adventure. . .
We got up at 4:30 am on Thursday, June 24th to catch the early flight out of Pasco, WA. We made it to Denver, CO and then Charlotte, NC. We almost died getting off of the plane in Charlotte because the humidity was so stifling. (After 2.5 years in the dry desert, we've become real wimps.) After a slight delay, we took our last plane ride and landed in Raleigh. The time was around 8 pm, the temperature was around 85 degrees. (What's up with that?) It was a full day of travel, and I'm thankful for having children that like being out and about. They loved flying, and Ally couldn't get enough of the moving walkways at the airports.

Grampy Hoffman and Jordan were kind enough to retrieve us from RDU and take us home. Grandma, Grampy, Sarah, Jordan, Colleen, Kenny, and Nate were so excited to meet Cora for the first time. I guess most of them were probably excited to see Ally again, too.


Since Normie has a job and couldn't get away, we were forced to hang out with househubby Paul during the days. One afternoon he let Chris and I try out his speedy wheels. Vroom Vroom Vroom!


Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jordan, Aunt Colleen, and Nate also came over a lot to keep us entertained. Look how excited Ally was at the chance to "fix" Jordan with Nate's tools.


We had Chic-Fil-A for lunch one day. We had southern pulled pork plates for dinner one night. (That's the only night we saw Kenny. He had some lame excuse about having to protect the people of Clayton the rest of the time we were visiting.) We bought some new shirts at the Pottery Outlets, and we made the mandatory pilgrimage to J.R.'s. So that pretty much covers everything there is to see and do while in Smithfield/Selma-- except maybe buying drugs at the Brotherhood Market.

We hung out with Grandma in the evenings. She and Chris went through a few boxes of old family photos and stuff Chris' grandparents had kept. It was an interesting, but very dusty, look back in time. Fun fact: Grandpa Charlie (Norma's dad) was too short and skinny to go off to war, so he served the country by monitoring the Erie skies for enemy aircraft. Norma still has his letter telling him to report for a physical (the one he failed), his plane spotter's guide and patch, newspaper articles, some ration stamp books, postcards from the war, and other unique things.


I spent most of my time sneaking off to eat Paul's peanut butter balls. Ally spent most of her time playing with Nate. He seemed very happy to have a girl cousin to play with, although she did tend to boss him around a bit. They didn't get into too much trouble-- the worst they did was overturn the pack-n-play and use it as a cage-- but had a lot of fun running around together. And they got to go swimming.



Here is Cora's first encounter with a pool. She screamed and tried to get out at first, probably because the water is way colder than in the bathtub. Then she settled down and had a grand old time with the help of her hilarious cousin. Why can't Nate live closer?


Stay tuned for the next installment:
Moore County, NC and Myrtle Beach, SC