I've been writing this post a little at a time over a couple days. It's taken me a lot longer than I was planning to get back into the swing of things post vacation, but I'm okay with that because it was so worth it. I think all of us really needed a little physical and mental break. The girls and I have been all up in each other's business 24/7 since we moved to Georgia, and we were all driving each other crazy. It was good for us to miss each other a bit, and now we can be home happy, thankful, and refreshed. Especially because since we've been home, the girls have been on their most impressive sleeping hiatus yet... but I digress. first of all, let me make you all a little jealous of our sunny paradise in the middle of February. ;)
We made the long 10 hour drive to Chicago overnight so the girls got a full night sleep in and didn't make us completely bat shit crazy the whole time. If you have kids who sleep through the night and you can handle being up all night, this is totally the way to go. On the way down when we moved, we drove during the day and it was a new kind of hell. The girls were miserable and so were we, and we tacked on another 3 hours to the journey with stops for food, gas, and diaper changes. Driving overnight was totally worth it.
Once we finally made it around 4am we were promptly spoiled by grandparents (yes, I'm 23 and my grandparents still spoil me rotten) and they woke up with the babes and let us sleep in. It was wonderful. When we decided to join the world, we got to spend some quality time with the Fam bam! I've been really happy in Atlanta, but I realized how much I missed them when I went home. They missed the girls so much, and the babes went crazy when they saw everyone! We went to the auto show, went to a few of my favorite restaurants, and overall just had some much needed family time. Such a sweet reunion, and I'm already looking forward to the next one!
Bright and early Thursday morning we were off to the airport and got the cocktails flowing promptly at 6am. I knew that was a sign that it would be a super fun (and highly intoxicated) trip.
We arrived in sunny Puerto Vallarta in the afternoon and met up with our friends from Minnesota that we met on our girls trip the year before. The first day we were a little too excited, drank a bit too much (even by my standards haha), and half of us didn't make it to dinner that night, but the day was totally worth it. The rest of the trip was more toned down, packed with hanging out in the pool, eating delicious food, relaxation, and a few drunken shenanigans including the theft of a cantaloupe basket and a couple of our guys hopping on stage for the Mr. Riu competition! We were there for the perfect amount of time, because by the last day we were all more than ready to get back to our babies and fur children! Our vacation in the sun was exactly what we needed to unwind and come back refreshed and ready to keep up with our crazy toddlers! We are already talking about making it an annual tradition...I won't need much convincing. ;)
Here are a few highlights!
Our matching bags and fun towel animals just made everything a little better!
We flew home to a very cold Chicago on Monday after enjoying our last morning in the sun for a while. It was definitely a shock to our systems getting off that plane and walking through the snow!
Dan and I were planning on spending Tuesday in Chicago, but made a last minute decision to drive back to Atlanta Monday night. We wanted the girls to sleep, and avoid the snow that we were supposed to get in Georgia. That turned it into a very long and exhausting day of travel, but having the girls sleep the whole drive was well worth it. We didn't get into Atlanta until 10am and poor Dan had to work all day. That evening though we finally got to sit down and snuggle with our little babes that we missed so much!!!
Since we've been back the girls have been sick and hardly sleeping at all, so all of us are running on empty. Even before they were sick though, they have completely done a 180 in the sleep department. They are up playing (which really doesn't bother me), coming downstairs multiple times, throwing tantrums, and overall averaging a bedtime of around 9.45. It's awful. On top of that, every night since we've been home they have ended up in our bed in the middle of the night and all but kick us out. The inmates are officially running the asylum!! On the plus side they finally started napping again, but I'm dreading potentially having to nix that so they sleep better at night. I'm hoping once we fully get back to our routine, things will level out.
In general we are slowly but surely getting back to normal with work, routines, and getting back to the gym. We are also tackling some potty training again this week which I have attempted multiple times with no success, so wish me luck!!
Counting down the days until the sun comes out to stay...
Xoxo
-Emily
