I should go away more often

Brenna is currently enjoying her ExerSaucer and after 3 days of long car rides I am hesitant to put her back into a car seat to run to Target.

On Monday Brenna and I took our first "girl trip". OK, so went just went to Minneapolis to visit my friends. It has been about 3 months since I've been up there and my friend Bobbi just had a new baby boy. (They named him Rickson. It's Spanish- the "R" is pronounced as an "H". Poor kid- he'll be called Hickey in junior high for sure.)

We fought some pretty strong headwind on the way up. Although the speedometer said 70 I really don't think we topped 63. So we stopped at the big "Red Barn" rest stop just south of the MN border. We sat on the second level and chatted with the lady who runs the country boutique while Brenna had a bottle.

I got to spend time with my friends and visit the Mall of America. This was the closest mall to my house when I lived in the Twin Cities- I avoided it like the plague. It still doesn't impress me much. Although I did manage to get some pretty cool walking shoes for our trip to San Antonio in a couple of weeks.

And then, Tuesday afternoon, we headed home. About 60 miles north of Des Moines Brenna had had just about all the car riding she could take. We stopped about 45 miles from home, at Story City, and wandered through the Outlet Mall. I bought a sweater. It's Brenna's fault.

We got home shortly after 7pm. Brenna gave Daddy the biggest smile when he took her from her car seat. (She probably would have been happy to see the boogeyman if he would have taken her out of that thing. But we'll let Daddy have that moment.)

I noticed right away that Doug had done some cleaning. Yippee! And when I went into our room I noticed the box of Ghiradelli Chocolates on my pillow. And when I went into the bath to wash my face I saw the bath salts and bubbles. I married well.

And, if this is what coming home is like, I should go away more often.