From the Mind of a Married Mother: Road Trip!!

8.20

We just got back from a 9 day vacation with my parents.. It was so much fun! Sofia's very first road trip/vacation! We drove from Miami to Valle Crucis, NC. It was a long trip and I was concerned with how Sofie was going to handle it, but she really was a little road warrior! She did amazing!!!

We left Miami on Saturday at 11 am and drove all the way to Atlanta, GA. It's an 11 hour drive, but since we had to stop to feed and change Sofia, and potty breaks for ourselves, we made it in 13 hours. Saturday was a very long day! Sofie slept through most of it though.. She would eat, nap for about 2 hours, play happily for about 30 to 45 minutes and then she would start whining and wanted out. We tried to schedule our bathroom and dining breaks around Sofie so we wouldn't lose too much time, and I think it worked out pretty well..

The night before we left..

Her "I miss you daddy" face

Love those toes!!

Taking a break with Abuelo at Starbucks

My size rocking chair!!

Sunday we woke up early and went to the Georgia Aquarium.. OH EM GEE!! That place was amazing!!! I loved it! And Sofia did too! She was enjoying looking at all the fish! She looked like she was trying to grab them or go swimming with them.. I can't wait till she gets older and she can actually say what she's thinking and tell me if she is enjoying it or what was her favorite part.. I think her favorite part was my favorite part, which was the HUGE tank with the two Whale Sharks! It was incredible! The tank holds 6.3 million gallons of water.. It was truly amazing.. I also enjoyed the Dolphins, Penguins, Beluga whales, Otters and fishys! Basically, the rest of the Aquarium =P

Getting ready for an exciting day at the Aquarium!

Mommy I want to touch it too!

Peek a boo!!

Looking at the fishies!!

Amazing! I want to go back again! =)

From there we started our drive to North Carolina. Our first stop in NC was my aunt's house in Greensboro.. That was another 5 to 6 hour drive.. Again, Sofie did fabulous.. we stopped for lunch in Lavonia, GA and it was a random place, but the food was pretty good..

Stop it mommy!

The only thing that kept her entertained for longer than 2 minutes!!

We made it to my family's house at around 10 pm {ish}. My grandparents were there, along with my aunt, uncle and one of my cousins and their 3 doggies!!! We got to spend the whole day with them on Monday and it was nice.. I miss them all so much! Wish we lived closer, although North Carolina is A LOT closer than Wisconsin.. So hopefully we will get to see each other more than once a year..

Look who's top teeth are coming in!!!

Monday afternoon we hit the road to our second to last stop, the cabin in Valle Crucis!! It was a 2 1/2 hour drive and it was the only part of the trip that Sofie was extra fussy.

{Nery called me to be in the next podcast.. and now I'm annoyed.. I'll finish tomorrow}

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8.21

So, Monday afternoon was our drive over to Valle Crucis.. The drive was the shortest of all the drives we did, but it was so pretty! I love the mountains! {If Miami had mountains it would be perfect! lol} Our cabin was called Bridgepoint and it was so so cute!! It was 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom with a view of a river and mountains in the background!!! And NO CELL SERVICE! That was good and bad.. good because it was a nice break from my phone, but it was no good because it was difficult to stay in contact with Nery, which sucked. I really wanted to be able to send him pictures of the baby everyday, but the no service made it a little hard! So, I made the most of the service I had when we went into town!

We visited my favorite place up there called Blowing Rock.. such a cute little town! We walked up and down the main street and had lunch there one day and went to a farmers market.

Trying all the beds

We also visited two wineries, Grandfather Vineyard Winery and Banner Elk Winery!

{Gotta be honest.. not really feeling inspired to write today, so I am hoping for inspiration to strike tomorrow!! Good night loves!!}

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8.25

{Told you I was lacking inspiration! lol}

We went to two different wineries.. on Wednesday, 8.15, we visited the Banner Elk Winery. It was so pretty.. thankfully we got there right before the rain started, but it was still pretty nonetheless. We did a wine tasting while we there and Sofie got to sit on the bar and watch, bringing all the attention to her - as usual!! The winery was very pretty, inside and out!

On Thursday, 8.16, we went to Grandfather Vineyard and Winery, again beautiful place! We did a wine tasting here too, and I tried to sit Sofie on the bar, and then she spilled a pitcher of water all over the bar and her pants. Thankfully the day was beautiful and we were able to lay her pants and socks on a table outside to dry. Sofia made friends with the vineyard doggies {shocking!}. That vineyard was good for Sofia because they had baby toys and we read a Sesame Street book in the sun.. We also got to walk through the vineyard and splash in the creek by the winery!

On Friday, we tried to avoid spending too much time in the car to give Sofia a break from her car seat.. We stayed in Valle Crucis, we ate the the 1861 Farmhouse for lunch, and then went to the General Mast store for some window/Christmas ornament shopping! After shopping we went back to our cabin for a nap before we went to the Valle Crucis Community Park for a concert.

At the park, we ended up sitting next to a family from Miami. They moved up to NC about 15 years ago. We became friends with them due to my ever so social daughter. They had two huge, 100+ pound dogs that Sofie just HAD to play with! She even decided she wanted to sit with her new friends instead of mommy and her abuelos! Crazy girl.. During the concert Sofie and I went to play on the playground, down the slide and on the swings.. she really likes the swings. After the park we went back home, Sofie got a yummy bath and then we packed up ready to hit the road again..

Again mommy!!

Making new friends!

So, Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and took off for Orlando! We left the cabin around 8.20 and we were planning to leave at 9 am! So WOOT WOOT we left 40 minutes early! Go us! It was another long day of driving, around 11 hours, but Sofie slept through almost the entire trip!! Once we got to the hotel Sofie got a quick bath and a bottle and we went to Downtown Disney! I love that place! It's the closest thing to the Disney experience without being in the park, which is exactly what I wanted for Sofia.. It's way too hot to actually take her to Magic Kingdom, but a little stroll around Downtown Disney is perfect amount of Magic for a 9 month old! My favorite store out there is the Christmas store.. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!! I bought Sofie her second Christmas ornament.. I think it would be nice to build a collection of ornaments for her.. that would be nice..

Nery was working in Marco Island that weekend, and I always worry when he drives far {well I worry when he goes to the Miami Improv and that is 15 minutes from out home..} so I ask him to text or call me when he makes it. So, without fail, I asked him to text me when he made it home from Marco that night.. At around 4.30 in the morning I got a text from my hubby saying he made it safely.. that concerned me a little because it doesn't take that long to get home from Marco.. When I asked him why it took so long for him to get home, he told me that he made it to our hotel.. My crazy, insane, loving hubby drove all the way to Orlando from Marco Island after working all night to be with his girls for a few hours on Sunday!

I love him so much!

About three weeks before our trip, I made a reservation for us to attend the character breakfast at the Polynesian Resort on Sunday morning.. I really really wanted to take Sofie to Magic Kingdom, to meet Mickey and all the other characters.. but as I said before, it is WAY to hot right now and Nery and I don't want to be those miserable parents with a screaming baby in the park.. So, character breakfast was as close as we could get and it was perfect!

Sofia loved the characters! I thought she was going to be scared, even maybe just a little bit shy, but not at all.. She was loving all the characters! We got to see Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch.. Mickey and Pluto even got kisses from Princess Sofia..

On the way to see Mickey!!!

Sofie's second Christmas ornament!

First time they saw each other since we left!!

♥ ♥ ♥ I love this!! ♥ ♥ ♥

After breakfast, Nery had to leave to go back to Marco Island for the last show of the weekend, and we all came home.. Sofie was so exhausted from breakfast that she slept almost the entire way home.. 3 hours and 20 minutes.. she woke up about 20 minutes from home! Love my girl - she is awesome!!!

We had such a lovely vacation and Sofia seemed like she had a great time! We made so many memories and I can't wait till we can take another family vacation!!

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8.26

So, last night was my hubby's live CD recording at the Miami Science Museum.. It was such a great show!! Actually it was two great shows!! It was a little warm.. ok it was hot as hell, because the museum lost power earlier in the day due to hurricane Isaac {Sofia's fist hurricane! Woot woot!!}

Mike Mercadal opened for Nery {they also do the podcast together!} and Ramon Garcia was featuring and both guys did AMAZING!! I had never seen Mike perform before and I was impressed, and every time I see Ramon he gets better and better!! If you get a chance to see either of them {along with Nery} I say go!! You'll be able to say you saw them before they made it big!!

Also, I want to send a big thank you to the Have-Nots Comedy for putting together this show and promoting it so well! Both shows sold out!! =)

My parents watched Sofie for us, so I could be at both shows watching my love live his dream! I am so very proud of him, and I can't wait for the CD to be released!!

Check out the Miami New Times story on Nery!! Click Here! And Click Here for the Blog post!