Home!

After collapsing into my bed at 11pm, about ten minutes after arriving home from the airport, I slept long and hard.  Keep in mind, I was on east coast time.  My body was absolutely convinced that it was two o'clock in the morning, people.

I woke up this morning and dove back into life with my family, filled with joy and delight to be with them.  I started by enjoying coffee on the couch with the man of my dreams, my very best friend, my husband.  I love my life.  A lot.

After coffee time, I brought out the boys' little travel gifts.  I found these super awesome, two-sided dinosaur puzzles (for $2 each!) at a little gift shop in Greenville.  The boys were delighted and sat down to do them, placing them on library books to make the job easier.

Paul's iguanadon has Luke's pterandon on the other side.  Luke's spinosaurus has Paul's triceratops on the other side.  Am I the coolest mom ever?

After puzzle fun, I got focused on unpacking and doing my laundry from the trip.  And now a little back story.  Before I left for New York last weekend, we took my Volvo into the shop for some much needed love and maintenance.  The arrangement was that Oma would help Erik pick it up on Tuesday when it was ready.  When I arrived home last night at 10:45pm, I noticed the Volvo was not in the driveway.  

I thought, "Silly Erik forgot my car.  Oh, well.  I'm just happy to be home.  I'm not going to mention it.  We will fix it when the shop opens on Monday."

This morning during coffee time, I purposely did not bring it up, knowing there wasn't much we could do about it with the shop closed on the weekends.  I did not want my first day home tainted by the nagging wife thing.  Everything would work out on Monday.

Then the craziest thing ever happened.  Erik opened the door to the garage and MY VOLVO WAS IN THE GARAGE!!!!  No, you don't get it.  It was IN the garage.  That room has been filled with copious amounts of our garbage, Roots garbage, BSF garbage, pharma garbage, and kid garbage for two years, people.  Two years.  My awesomely awesome husband cleaned it while I was away.  Witness the glory.

Even Paul knows this is cool.

I'm still flabbergasted.  My husband is awesome.  I don't think I can say that enough.  I really appreciate the fact that he didn't just keep our kids alive and our home clean while I was away.  He cleaned the garage!!!  This is sexy, people.  Any movie, book, talk show host, magazine or music video that tries to convince you that something else defines sexy is simply trying to sell you something and make you discontent with your life.  Just sayin'.

We headed out to donate our garbage and drop some off at the recycling center near our house.  Feels good to reduce and recycle so others can reuse.

After that, we headed to our local farmer's market for lunch.  We bought two types of hummus, stuffed grape leaves, a tabbouleh salad, and some homemade pita chips with lemon.  The feast began.  It was super yummy.  My guys even tried the stuffed grape leaves.  They weren't partial to them at this time.  This is not a bad thing.  It leaves more for Erik and me.  :-)

The Feast!

Our final stop of the morning was the bike store.  Luke needed a new bike.  His old one was way too small about six months ago.  They just keep growing, don't they?  The bike store we patronize, The Outer Rim, is locally owned and about four blocks from our house.  They do service for life, and they are super nice.  We love it there.  The man helped fit Luke for his next bike and even said we could bring Paul's "new" one in for a shine.  (We purchased it there two years ago for Luke.)

 It's huge, and so is he.  Weird.

And then, this happened...

Paul got on Luke's old bike and gave it a go, rather successfully.  He still struggles to steer and pedal at the same time, a combination that is fairly necessary for biking.  But he does great on the straightaways.  We will work on the turning process this week.  We will also raise the seat a bit.  He just wanted to be as close to the ground as possible while he learned.  I get it.  I feel the same away about horses.  If they were just built like wiener dogs, short legs, long bodies, super close to the ground.  Then I would be thrilled to ride on their backs.  Wouldn't you?

Okay, that took a fairly crazy turn at the end, not unlike Paul's biking.  So I guess it all does go together.  I think I'll go take a nap now.  I might have jet lag.