Quick Trip to NC!

On April 22nd the girls and I took a weekend roadtrip to NC!  The elementary school where I student taught and then taught in for four years was to have a 25th Anniversary Celebration on Friday afternoon and I was invited to my sweet friend Stef's baby shower on Saturday.  Since both events were the same weekend, it seemed like a no brainer to go!  Reagan was SOO excited to see her preschool BFF, Brooklyn, too.  Welllll...earlier in the week we got word that the anniversary celebration was being cancelled, which was a huge bummer.  The girls from school and I had made plans to go to dinner Friday night anyway though.  We left our house at 9:30 Friday morning and my phone said I'd be at Southpoint by 3:15, which I figured gave me plenty of time to stop to feed Madalyn, grab lunch, and gas...even a little buffer for some traffic with dinner not until 5.  We got through DC, but that blessed stretch between DC and Richmond is the WORST and it was raining...THIS was my view... 

MISERABLE!!  We stopped during the traffic so everyone could eat and got right back into this!  THREE HOURS of traffic...I had to cancel dinner, we were detoured to get off of 1 in NC, and wound up at a McDonald's/gas station combo for dinner in the back of the van.  Poor Maddie had HAD it by this point...we all had.

Our sad/annoyed faces...can you tell I'd cried like 4 separate times?!  This was supposed to be a FUN weekend!!  UGH!

We quickly drove by our old house, which was so sad because it just looks sad now.  We LOVED that house and took great pride in it, so when you see it not being taken care of that way you would, it was a bummer.  Still great to see it though...so many great memories there!

We made it to Brooklyn's house by about 7:15!  The girls were shy for about 10 seconds, since they haven't seen each other in almost THREE YEARS!, but then hugged and warmed right up and picked up where they left off.  Such sweet girls!  We brought some matching pj's for the girls and they changed right into them :)  Madalyn was SO "off" and slept like crap Friday night, Reagan didn't go to bed until 10:30, so I was kind of dreading Saturday for kid moods.  Everyone did good though! So after stopping in a random elementary school parking lot, that happened to be hosting a car show, to nurse Maddie, it was time for Stef's shower!  SOOO great to see her and some of my best school buddies...and their girls!

Meanwhile, Lindsey kept Reagan for me and put them in their matching dresses that she bought them and took them to the mall for some Build A Bear fun and lunch!

Precious girls

They had SO much fun together and are just the sweetest girls!  SOO glad they were able to get together.  Saturday evening we left their house and met our old neighbor, Michelle, and her son for dinner and then stayed at their house that night.  THANK GOODNESS Madalyn did MUCH better and slept all night, R was in bed by 8:30, and Michelle and I chatted until 10:30 and then my eyes just couldn't stay open any longer!

We left by 7:30 Sunday morning because I was not hitting ANY traffic!!!  We had to stop by Bojangles though and get our fix...it did NOT disappoint!

It was such a quick trip and I wish we could have seen more people and done more, but it was so great to be able to be there for the weekend.  We do miss the NC state SO much!  We had a great trip home and made it in just over 6 hours, and that was with a stop!  Phew!