Special Visitor

This past weekend my friend Kelly came to visit us from Atlanta. Kelly was one of the first friends I made when I moved to Atlanta way back in 1997. We met in the parking deck of City Hall East on our way to a volunteer orientation for Hands on Atlanta. Had we not happened to arrive at the same time and befriend each other on our way in, my life would likely be very different today!


Anyhow Kelly took a break from her awesome husband and two boys to come hang out with us. On Friday we had a bit of time to ourselves so we took a brief tour of my alma mater. Brief because it was extremely cold, windy, and raining. But we did manage to make it to Duke Chapel.


We also made a tour of various local Target establishments in search of the perfect pair of black boots. Fortunately we succeeded, though I have no visual proof of the evidence.


As always, Kelly came bearing gifts. Her brilliant older son sent Ben the cutest little note and her younger son picked out an awesome boat for Ben to play with in the bath. Unfortunately not even this awesome boat was enough to make Ben sit and play in the tub, so it is more of a land boat than a tub boat.


Ben, opening his bag of goodies from Kelly and the boys.

On Saturday we went to Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh. I had never been there and was pleasantly surprised to see what a great play area they had for toddlers. After a minor confrontation with another parent (parents of other children can be really aggressive and annoying, though we certainly don't fall into that category, right?) and a few kiddie clashes over access to the various trains at the train table, we had a great time.


There was a splash play area that Ben absolutely did not want to leave, even though he absolutely detested wearing the smock. I suppose Ben thinks the whole point of playing with water is to get soaking wet, not to avoid it by wearing a plastic apron.

They also had an "around town" area, where Ben was able to participate in a variety of activities such as ambulance driving and letter writing at the post office.

There was also a boat for fishing, though Ben preferred trying to catch the real fish in the aquarium versus the stuffed ones lying on the ground by the boat.

Fishie!

After the museum trip, Ben randomly puked in the car on the way home. He seems to prefer throwing up in places that are the most difficult to clean. I've now become an expert at dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling the car seat.

All in all we had a great weekend. We had briefly contemplated actually going out on Saturday night, but after an exhausting day chasing Ben around, reality we quickly set in. So we stayed in and watched a couple of episodes of Glee instead. I guess we aren't the 23 year olds we used to be.

In case you're wondering, why yes this is one of the worst pictures ever taken of me, but alas I promised to post a picture of the two of us, so here it is. I wouldn't do that for just anybody!