Girl's Weekend 2012

Yesterday, we took Doug and Adam to the airport for their early trip to Kansas City for Thanksgiving.  Mary and I will join them on Wednesday, since she has school.  We decided that we needed to have a fun girl's weekend to celebrate our time together (and keep us from missing the boys too much).

We headed out to the mall for some Christmas shopping.  We then realized we needed something special for Mary.  We thought about this...

        Or this...

But fell in love with this.  So pretty.

Mary had a short lived virus Thursday and Friday and I could tell she was still a bit puny, so I chose not to head to Norfolk for the pre-Illumination Parade festivities (face painting, carnival rides, arts and crafts, etc, but all outside in the cold and wind).  However, after a good dinner, I made a spur of the moment decision to go to the parade that started at 7pm.  We ran into some serious traffic.  Thank goodness we left early enough, thank goodness I have such an easy going little girl who didn't make a single complaint.  What should have been a 15 min. drive took us just over an hour.  We parked and high tailed it to the parade that had already been going on for 40 minutes.   We found a teeny tiny spot to wedge ourselves into and watched the festivities through a 5 inch gap of heads.  Seeing the smile on this girl's face was 100% worth it.  She was so happy.

We even saw Santa.  Mary said he looked at her, waved and blew her a kiss.  She must be on the "nice" list this year.  :)

The very second Santa disappeared around the corner, the massive crowd threatened to stampede us on their rush to get to their cars.  Mary and I decided to head to the mall (2 blocks away) to get a treat.  I'll be honest, I wasn't too anxious to get back in the traffic jams.  We meandered to the food court and found a cute bakery stuffed with delicious, mouth watering, diet blowing desserts.  There were red velvet cupcakes, chocolate ones, sprinkled ones, and cookies galore.  I told Mary she could pick anything she wanted.  She looked around and chose...a pear.  Yep, she saw a basket of fruit and wanted a pear.  OK.  I then asked her if she wanted a juice and she chose a bottle of water.  Where did I go wrong?  (insert head shaking)  Just kidding.  Needless to say, I chose an apple.  (reinsert head shaking)

And the only way to end our "girl only" special day?  A carnival ride of course.  Thank goodness it was already waaaay past bedtime or she would have been begging me to try the man made ice skating rink they had outside the mall.  That was one full day.

Today, we weren't quite as busy, but we were certainly productive.  I've been wanting to paint Adam's room for quite awhile now and thought this would be the perfect opportunity, since it will now have a whole week to air out before he gets back.  Plus, painting with a 2 yr old isn't as easy as it sounds.  Amazing, huh?  Mary really wanted to paint, so of course I let her because 1) 6 yr olds are great painters, 2) I enjoy testing my patience and doing jobs twice and 3) it's her brother's room.  He won't be looking at it with a critical eye.  There was only 1 accident...Adam's comforter got a mysterious blop of blue paint on it.  Mary said it wasn't her, I know it wasn't me, so we have agreed to disagree.  Doug would tell me I should have thrown a tarp over the bedding.  Yeah, hindsight's 20/20.  Oh well, at least it isn't a huge blop.

We finished the room and by 6:00pm, little girl was yawning and saying it was time for bed.  I guess girl weekends are pretty exhausting.  I have to say this has been a wonderful experience.  I truly miss my little man, but it's rare to get this much one on one time with Mary.  She is growing into such a fantastic, smart, fun, and easy going girl.  We are so lucky.