ben's first road trip

last weekend was absolutely glorious, but way, way too short! we packed up the little boy and the little car (how everything fit in there i will never understand...) late on thursday night and headed upstate to spend some time with a few of the best people we know (who requested to remain anonymous on the internets here so...much as it pains me cuz i took over 400 pictures, i am only allowed to share a small sampling of the goods *le sigh*).

we arrived thursday at almost 1am...or possibly right after 1am....it was painful, but the sleep that followed was without question the best sleep i have had since december 27th...(thanks ben.) it is just so quiet and serene and peaceful up there and the house is so comfortable (and so unbelievably gorgeous!) and spacious...ahhhhhhhhhh free space! i had forgotten how amazing it feels to spin around in open space with my arms stretched out and not crash into a diaper genie or trip on the pack n' play....i basically never wanted to leave.

(while we're at it, i am entering this picture in the Show {off} Your Shot photo challenge because i just think it turned out really cool and because it was my first time crawling around on my belly on rocks in an effort to capture the feeling i was after. i dig it :)

friday, ben got to go out on the lake for his first boat ride and he LOVED it! the kids water skied and he watched the whole thing, transfixed. we had doritos and sunchips and cheese doodles and beer for lunch, laid around in the sun and then went out for an awesome dinner...

just maxin' & chillaxin'...hey mom, can you grab me a beer? i mean a bottle...duh...of course i mean a bottle.

there is this ice cream shop up there attached to a mini golf course...omg you guys...i have no words. first of all, you can get like 7 scoops for about $3 which is insane, and they have a million flavors and the ice cream is like fall-on-the-floor-slap-yo-mama delicious! i got panda paws, which has these chocolate covered paw shapes filled with peanut butter and....i could just probably cry thinking about it....and look who had his very first taste of ice cream!!!

apparently, what followed was some wild partying around the fire but *somebody* fell asleep trying to get ben to go to sleep and missed the whole thing....i'm quite a party animal, the rumors are true. i blame the panda paws. or possibly all the beer......

saturday was more of the same, with a trip to the outlets thrown in....more sunning and snacking and drinking and some tubing for the kiddies....i know they asked that i keep them off FB and the blog, but you can't really see them can you? and look at how much FUN they are having?? i seriously must have taken 300 pictures of them tubing....something about seeing kids just being kids and making memories like that just fills your heart with a major load of warm fuzzies!

much to my dismay, we headed home late saturday night in an effort to keep ben on his schedule and give us a little free time to float and do laundry (drudge) on sunday (as you can see, benny was wiped)....i was really fighting it at the time, but once i was out on the floaty in our pool, i guess i have to admit leaving saturday night was a good idea.....what a wonderful weekend!!