on the road again

I apologize for my absence. John, Hannah Grace, and I spent last weekend and the first part of this week with family. Once we got home I prioritized getting the house back together before moving on to anything else, so blogging sat on the back burner for a few days.

But we are back, the house is clean, and meals are (sort of) planned.

John and I (and HG) took my mom to Atlanta last weekend to have a fun little getaway-shopping trip. This was mostly for my mom and I, as John doesn't find shopping all that enjoyable, but I was (and still am) thankful he was willing to drive us there so we could have some fun. Our hotel was in Buckhead, which is a rather fancy-schmancy area just north of downtown Atlanta. This is actually where John has come to do some trainings for AT&T (including the time when Hannah Grace and I got to tag along back in May), so we were fairly familiar with the area.

We arrived Friday afternoon, unloaded the car, and explored the hotel room before grabbing dinner at Chipotle. I'm using the word hotel "room" loosely because it was literally the size of the townhome we lived in when we first got married. When we first walked in were were surprised to see that the "room" was actually two stories. Each floor had it's own bed and bathroom, and there was a sleeper sofa. There was also a full size kitchen with nicer appliances than mine! The reason we had such an elaborate "room" is because John is a Marriott Rewards Gold member, so he is eligible for a free upgrade to the nicest room (even if he originally reseved the most basic room available) if he calls the morning we are to check in to see if it's available. This is definitely a perk of him traveling with AT&T.

We spent most of Saturday shopping at IKEA, buying little odds and ends, including this throw Mom found and bought me:

We rested for awhile at the hotel once we got back from IKEA, and then I took Mom to Lenox Square, a gargantuan mall in Buckhead. We looked around Anthropologie (didn't find anything this time), Gymboree, Pottery Barn Kids (where I saw a lampshade I can totally make for HG's room), and American Eagle. There was a little hat shop set up in the middle of the mall, and Mom and I each found hats we liked, so we bought them. By this time we were getting tired, so we decided to leave, drive thru at Chick Fil A, and take dinner back to the hotel where John was watching the Titans play.

We left Atlanta Sunday morning, let Hannah Grace play at my mom's house for a little while, and then got back in the car and headed to John's parents for a couple of days. We actually spent much of Sunday afternoon with Andy, Cherie, and baby Zach. Our friends Michael and Amber then met up with all of us for dinner at Qdoba (my first time eating there), and that was fun.    

Hannah Grace was up early Monday morning, and we had no plans for the day. We hung out at John's parent's for a little while before grabbing lunch at Chick Fil A and then meeting up with his mom at Sam's so she could add me to their account, allowing me to have my own Sam's card! After Sam's we headed back to Andy and Cherie's, where we went swimming! This was our third try at getting Hannah Grace in the water (other than bath time), and while she wasn't a huge fan of it, she did much better than the previous tries. She loves baths, and I know it's just the size of the pool that scares her. I do not doubt she will grow out of this fear, so next summer should be filled with lots of water time!