I may have been missing for a bit there, but now I am back for a few days. Yay! I missed blogging a bit, but it was honestly so great to just enjoy time with good friends and nothing on the schedule. I did miss knowing how you all are doing though. I hope all is well. Things are decent on my end of things right now…but I am missing my friends already. Makenzie is missing her friend as well. All day she has been asking for “B”. We all had so much fun together. And I guess now is the time to fill you in on my Indianapolis vacay. It was a blast!

Thursday

We woke up at around 4 am to quickly get dressed and put some last minute things in the car to head out. The trip was pretty uneventful. We had to stop for Makenzie a few times, she refused to sleep, and we had an hour delay thanks to an accident on the highway but nothing exactly unexpected when traveling long distances and with a kiddo.

We arrived shortly after three and it was so good to see our friends Mandy and Jerry. We hadn’t seen them in 9 months! Here are some pictures from the last time – look how small M was! Mandy & I are the same person and it is no wonder we bonded so well and have become extremely close friends through a fitness forum.

After getting settled, we spent the afternoon at the park before heading to Qdoba for dinner and to the store for some food for the weekend.

Friday

Friday morning we spent at the Minute Clinic office in a CVS because Makenzie had a fever of 102.3 on Thursday night. We figured it was an ear infection since “B” got one from driving through the mountains when they came to visit us. It turned out, though, that Makenzie had a mild virus that is contagious through direct contact so we would have to spend our days watching the girls like hawks and trying to limit sharing germs as much as possible during their playing. For the record, that is way harder than it sounds.

Thankfully, Makenzie was still cheerful and the virus wasn’t super highly contagious because we were able to spend some time walking around at the children’s museum in Indy. We couldn’t go into the playzone because M was sick, but there were still many cool exhibits and things to see.

I was missing my DSLR camera thanks to leaving it at her house and had low battery power in my little point & shoot I luckily did have, so the pictures aren’t as many or as nice as I would like. I ended up missing out on lots of photos this weekend (even one of Mandy & I together!) because we were just so caught up in doing things. I’m bummed on the lack of photos though, since I know it will be awhile for us to get together again.

The remainder of Friday was spent hanging out at the house with some lean beef burgers on sandwich thins and sweet potato fries with chili seasoning. Deliciousness! We also watched the movie Shutter Island, which was much better than I expected.

Saturday

We woke up and were thrilled to see that the morning rain had already passed and more wasn’t coming in until late afternoon. We had plans to go to the Indianapolis Zoo and didn’t want to miss out. We spent the morning there and I had the camera in tow for some great picture taking of all the animals – from penguins and a dolphin show to baby giraffes and cheetahs.

I don’t think the girls were tired at all after that, do you???

After the zoo, we came home for naps and to get showered before heading out to dinner in a cute, artsy part of town called Carmel. We went on a little stroll on a paved, shaded trail when first arriving…

…to work up an appetite for a pizza dinner. Extremely good, even though it was way too cheesy. I’m not a huge fan of cheesy pizza so I had to remove half of the cheese. I still enjoyed every bite of the two square slices I had though.

Another good part of the night was Mandy was able to snap some amazing photos of us.

She is a professional photographer in Indianapolis, so if you are in that area you have to check her out. She is fabulous!

Sunday

We woke up, ate breakfast, said our goodbyes, and hit the road around 8:00 am. When we got home we went for a quick stroll around the neighborhood to stretch out our legs, and then just relaxed the rest of the night. Or as much as possible. I did NOT sleep well because the inside of our house is 84 degrees thanks to the broken A/C. It doesn’t help the nausea either.

Today

I have been having a bit of a rough day. I really feel like I am missing my mojo. I just don’t feel like myself and I hate that. The exhaustion from not sleeping well and having a busy weekend, coupled with the heat have made me feel pretty nauseous, tired, and headachey all day. I haven’t been able to do much of anything and then I feel guilty for not being as playful as normal with Makenzie and as put together as I prefer to be. It also doesn’t help being in the chubby looking pregnancy stage where my body is all swollen (the heat certainly making it worse) and not being able to workout. I can’t take Makenzie to the gym because her virus is contagious for the rest of the week and I refuse to be that parent, but I can’t workout at home like I normally do because I would honestly pass out or throw up. I’m not wanting to workout to lose weight or stay skinny during pregnancy, it honestly just helps me feel better to be doing something physical for myself. And now I feel unlike myself because I’m complaining about such silly things. I look forward to lots of walking on the beach and fresh food next week and then coming back and being able to get into the normal swing of things after that. Not feeling like myself kills me and I will end my pity party there.

• How was your weekend? Let me know what you’ve been up to!
• What do you HATE to go missing?

I’m baaaaccckkk! Did you all miss me? As much as I enjoyed unplugging over our Memorial Day Weekend trip to the mountains, I did miss being involved in the world of blogging. I feel so out of the loop! I’ll try to catch up with everyone as much as possible soon. I hate to think how much I’ll miss blogging when I am gone with no Internet access for 10 days! Please don’t leave me all of you fabulous readers! You really put a smile on a girl’s face…especially when she is still feeling sick as all get out 80% of the time. Yes, I still don’t feel so great. But I’m surviving and was still able to enjoy myself this weekend. Care to see what I did? I hope so because that is what this post is about. 😉

Friday

I spent the morning in the bathroom, the afternoon on the couch, and somehow managed to pack up for our trip and get a Flashback Friday post up showing my baby bump progression from my pregnancy with baby M. We left at around 6:30 to hit the road for the pretty easy drive to Ellijay in the North Georgia Mountains.

I was so happy when we finally made it to our cabin. It looks small but it had 6 bedrooms, a hot tub, a pool table, and plenty of room for the 8 adults and 4 kids in our clan. Friday night was all about getting unpacked and settled before relaxing with good conversation and company for the night.

Saturday

Saturday was a little more eventful. We searched the surrounding area for a hike to go on that would be suitable with little kiddos and had some pretty views. We found a good sounding one that had some waterfalls and was a short hike in.

We got M settled in the hiking pack and made our way up to the waterfalls.

The waterfall was smaller than we expected, but it was still nice because you were able to walk out to it easily. Makenzie even got the chance to touch it.

We then all packed back up to head back down and go to a little country restaurant we found for lunch.

It was along the river and had such a charming feel to it with all the country style decorations. Well, besides the stuffed animals all over the place. They could have done without that.

Continuing with my nothing-healthy-sounds-appetizing food aversions and first trimester eating habits, I ordered some chicken tenders, sweet potato fries, and coleslaw. It was delicious. Probably only because I was SO hungry after it took them an hour to get our food.

The remainder of the day consisted of naps and watching the kids use pool noodles for the best entertainment out of the many toys they had access to.

As well as cooking out and playing some games with Heather’s Insanity Bars to fuel us at night.

Sunday

Sunday was extremely low key. We took our time waking up and getting the day started. I even slept in until 9:00 which is unheard of for me. I honestly don’t remember how we filled our morning. After lunch, however, we headed to the pool and playground that was part of the cabin rental community. The girls all had a blast and Makenzie adored the pool.

Of course she loved the playground too. There was swinging involved and wooden bears she could high five, so how could she not love it?

The night was spent much the same as the previous one – eating and relaxing.

Monday

We did a mad dash of packing up the excess of stuff you bring on a vacation when you travel with 4 kids ages two and under to be able to make our 11:00 check out time. Then, headed home. I caught up on some emails and crashed on the couch out of exhaustion and the worst nausea so far. We still had to head over to Peter’s parents’ house to pick up our dog and also let them in on the pregnancy news. They were shocked and excited. I’m thankful it was a quick visit so we could get home and pop in a movie with some pizza. You would think I would be craving veggies after eating so little. Normally I would, but not when the sight of them make me want to dry heave. So, the lackluster in the nutrition department eats continue. I only have about 6 more weeks of this. Lucky me! 😀

• Tell me the best part of your weekend! I really want to know since I haven’t been able to catch up on blogs much yet.
• What is your favorite thing to do on a vacation? Do you like to be busy or just do nothing?