Spring Daycation

Once again I am terribly, terribly behind, but a day with a cold that makes you want to lay on the couch and shove tissues up your nose seems like the perfect excuse to play catch up. As well as watch a ton of family-friendly movies with Gracie.

Back in March Steve and I dropped Gracie with her BFF Abby (and her parents) for a night, and we drove... and drove... and drove...

Down to Wilmington, NC. With a detour in Poland?

We stayed at a B&B that I'd found (after much web surfing) called the Graystone Inn. I chose it because (a) it looked pretty cool, and (b) it was the only B&B in NC that didn't have floral wallpaper everywhere.

While it didn't compare to our favorite ever (the Blue Lantern Inn in Dana Point) for a perfect-Walton-match, we still had a lot of fun. We ate out every meal guilt-free, played chess in the inn's library (Romantic? Geeks?!), and were delighted to find we could watch the LOST we'd missed the day before on Hulu (we'd been pretty sure they didn't believe in wi-fi at this place, but lo and behold--miracle!). We were pleased to see that there was an enormous tub (my dream is to have my very own enormous tub one day--stay tuned for that one, folks), and very amused to discover that portions of several films & TV shows (including Dawson's Creek haha) had been filmed there. And apparently Jay Leno and Tom Cruise have both stayed there. Fancy, no?

Also, this dog was in our room:

Oh sorry, I forgot to edit Steve's red eye. And I am too lazy to do it now and reupload. His pupils, for the record, are black.

On the map it looked like Wilmington was close to the beach, but alas, it was at least 20 minutes away. We were pretty excited to see ocean again, and I made sure to have my first skin-to-water contact with the Atlantic (it was too cold for swimming, but I poked it). It was cloudy but still really pretty, and after over 6 months of inland living, a sight for sore eyes.

J+S

Probably our favorite part was visiting one of the three state aquariums. Everyone there was really psyched about an albino alligator, but I have to admit that didn't really do it for us. The huuuuge scary non-albino alligators, however, were super creepy. As was this eel. Can you say heebie jeebies???

But we saw lots of cool things, too, like some gorgeous jellyfish and beautiful blue treefrogs:

It was awesome to have a night away, but we were super happy to get home and give Gracie big fat hugs and have the convenience of a refrigerator, and no rules about where we could eat our dinner. And no one pouring hollandaise sauce on our breakfasts. The more I see of fancy breakfasts, the more thankful I am for cinnamon rolls, oatmeal, and cereal.

Hey, Steve, how did you feel about taking a trip with your cute wife who loves you to the moon and back again?