Happy Birthday Sweet Lily Grace

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Girl

Saturday Morning we piled into the car bright and early and set off for Durham/Raleigh for the weekend to celebrate this sweet little girls second birthday. Her Mommy is my dear friend Jeni, who happens to be the graphic artist of my dreams, the photographer of envy and my weight lost motivational guru...she has a lot of roles to fill and she knocks it out of the park every single time. But back to Lily...Lily and Avery are pals, and Olivia has taken a liking to this young little music lover as well, so the excitement had been building all week that we were going to get to see "Baby Lily" as they call her...again.

Avery, Ronin (his Mommy Rochelle) and Olivia enjoying their personalized cups and some juice

The 2 hour ride to Durham was more like 2.75 hours due to several stops we had to make along the way.  Not to mention it wasn't a quite ride, I was more than elated to get out of the car when we arrived at the Life and Sciences Museum.

Olivia BEFORE the cupcake

We celebrated with Lily and her friends and family for about an hour and then we had free roam of the Museum for the rest of the day. Jeni did a fantastic job with all the decorations and favors, her creative side came through with every little personal touch.  It was great to spend some time outside walking around with Jeni, Ronin and Rochelle, I wish we had more time together, but we are already planning our next get together.  The Museum was fantastic, I was so impressed with how kid friendly it was, we are talking about heading down sometime this fall to spend a full day there with the girls, they loved it.  The Dinosaur trail was super cool and the girls really liked seeing all the animals...which also tells me that we are ready to experience the Metro Richmond Zoo this Spring.

Olivia AFTER the cupcake

We met up with the Butner Family (Angie, Greg, Ford and Baby Maggie) in Durham and spent a little while with them at the Museum and then we all enjoyed a late lunch together before we headed to Raleigh for the night.  Brad and Greg have been friends for years, and Greg was in our wedding. We can't wait to visit them this summer in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach are two of our favorite places!!

Olivia being silly

The girls were BEYOND excited about staying in a hotel.  I can clearly remember my excitement as a child so it was neat to watch them run around and take it all in.  The girls didn't nap at all and our goal was to keep them up an hour later than normal to adjust for the time change, so we had a late dinner in our suite of Mellow Mushroom Pizza and Pretzels (one of our favorites from when Brad lived in Raleigh) and watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on ABC Family. 

Proof that we brought Avery along...

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast at the hotel, played a little more and jumped in the car.  The ride home started off a little rocky, but was quiet for a little while, so that was an improvement. Olivia has said numerous times "I had a great time at the hotel" and I heard her tell her teachers yesterday "We stayed at hotel this weekend" and Avery's teacher, who is also Olivia's dance teacher said "So Avery, I heard you stayed in a hotel, Olivia couldn't stop talking about it, she gave me a lot of details".  I love hearing that, it makes me feel like we gave her a great memory even if it was something as silly as staying in a hotel.

Ronin at the Life & Sciences Museum