Canton Love

Well, hello there. Remember me? I'm the girl that used to blog regularly. Nice to see you again!

I haven't opened my laptop in two weeks and haven't been motivated/had time/had energy to write anything. Summer is in full force around here these days. 3/4 of us are up at the crack of dawn and 1/2 of us are up way later than we should be. Unfortunately I am in both of those categories. But The Toddler, who has become a little night owl and has quickly learned how to charm his way into staying up past his bed time to join me in category 2, left today to visit his Mamaw and Papaw for a few days. And I've quickly decided that his bed time will be reinforced promptly upon his return because the last couple of hours of silence has been veeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrry nice. Very nice, indeed. Now if only I had a glass of wine...

Anyway, tonight I revisited the list of my lingering draft posts. I'm determined to wrap them all up, if you can't tell by the 50 times I've said that. Maybe I should stop saying that and just finish the dang things up already. Interesting thought. I'll take it into consideration.

So here is a recap of our somewhat recent trip to Canton. April 1st is considered somewhat recent, right? I'm going with it. If you haven't heard of the 1st Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX, immediately click on that link and educate yourself as soon as possible. This was my first time going and it was UH-MAY-ZING. It's basically a HUGE market where you can find pretty much anything and everything. Lots of unique, one-of-a-kind items and lots of good deals. We left the house in the wee hours of the morning on a Friday so we could get there when they opened at 10. We shopped all day Friday, Saturday, and even came back Sunday for a couple of hours. It was that good. Speaking of good, so was my family for being such good sports about all that shopping. It was Rick's birthday present to me and I'm pretty sure there were times he was wishing he had just gone out and bought me a gift. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved having "him" buy me things. All our accounts are joint but he had birthday cash for me to spend and it felt like he was courting me or something. There's something sexy about cash and there's something sexier about cash from your hubby's wallet being spent on you. :)

It took us about 4 or 5 hours to get there. But it was a beautiful, scenic drive and felt so good to get out of town!

But seeing this sticker on the gas pumps didn't feel so good. Neither did getting close to the cut off. Ouch.

I didn't take too many pictures, you know, since I was busy shopping like a mad woman and all, but here are a few things that you can find there:

I am obsessed with all things turquoise right now.

Loved these mason jar door knob hooks

I loved this frame so I brought it home with me. It's 16x20 and I got it for a great price!

I brought this towel rack home with me, too.

Loved this store! So many neat, eclectic finds.

Cute pillow, right? I may have to try to make one.

Did I mention they have ALL kinds of things? This was actually a person dressed up as some kind of moss monster, holding a sign that reads "Remember to Always Be Yourself...Unless You Suck"  Ha!

We had pretty low expectations of the kids lasting very long. We figured we'd shop until they were bored and then we'd either go back to the hotel and go swimming or we'd find other things to do around town. But they did amazing! Such troopers. Including The Hubster, ha! 

 

 We came back to the car for diaper changes and breaks to cool off a little.

We were going to let Harper drive but she couldn't reach the pedals...

Did I mention they did GREAT?! They napped longer than they do in their beds. I was one happy mama.

Since Canton is an itty bitty town with not many hotel options, we decided to stay in Tyler. It was about a 30 minute drive or so but Tyler is a cute little city and had more things to do there. Friday night we went out to dinner and then back to the hotel to go swimming. I realized I forgot Harper's swim suit so she had to borrow one of Harrison's extra trunks. It was so weird seeing her dressed like a boy. She even got a few awww, look how cute he is! comments in the elevator. Rick and I just chuckled to ourselves because it felt awkward to correct anybody...seeing how she was wearing boy's trunks and all.

Such a little stud muffin!

On a side note, something else awkward? Walking down the hallway to your room and thinking you're alone so you go ahead and pick the wet swim suit wedgie out of your butt, only to realize that you in fact aren't alone and that you just totally picked a wet swim suit wedgie in front of the man walking behind you. Awkward. 

On the drive back to Tyler on Saturday, I heard a little voice from the backseat trying to tell me something but I couldn't quite hear what he was saying. The moment it clicked that what he was saying was my tummy hurts was the same moment he spewed vomit all over the inside of the truck. It was also the same moment I regretted the corn dog and snow cone lunch we had. We pulled over and he was crying and asking for his mommy, so I did what any mom would do: I held my breath to avoid the smell and picked up my puke-covered kid into a hug to comfort him. That right there is true love, folks. Then we stripped the car seat cover off, stripped his clothes off, and then realized we didn't have extra clothes with us. I'm sure we looked pretty classy walking through the hotel with a toddler in just a diaper and reeking of a frat party. Luckily the hotel had a washing machine and luckily Harrison felt fine after getting all that awesomeness out of his tummy...no bug, just too much carnival food and apple juice. Crisis mostly averted!

Traveling with two littles is always a little challenging when it comes time to go to bed. They would much rather play and talk and jump and laugh than go to sleep...but they are cute so we let it slide.

Yeah right, Mom. Like we're actually going to lie down and go to sleep. Why would we do that??

I have an idea! I'll pet your head...

And then you can pet mine!

My babies...I love how much they adore each other.

On the way home I turned around to check on the kids and found Harrison like this. Not sure how long he was riding like this but he was being quiet so I kept quiet, too.

Two thoughts: a) hey, at least it's not plastic, b) where in the heck was that bag the night before when we needed it?!

A few hours later, it was back to reality:

 The first day home from vacation is always kind of blah, but then I remember that man, I sure do love my reality.