Random Ramblings

Oh, why, hello there! It's been a while. A lot's happened since we last chatted. The big thing for our family was a trip to North Carolina to see my mom. It was an eventful journey, at least at the start, since The Eldest totaled her car after the rest of us were already three hours away at a relative's home, where we were planning to spend the night before the rest of the trip the next day. She was participating in an activity near home and was supposed to drive up and meet us, but instead we get a tearful call saying she'd been in a crash. Every parent's worst nightmare, at least until she calmed down enough to tell me she was OK and no one else was hurt. Seems the accident was the result of a police officer, without lights or sirens, running a red light directly in their path. Yep, she ran into a friend of hers who was attending the same event. We wound up driving back down to get her the next day then leaving for my mom's house the day after that, so at least we were still able to go.

But wait, there's more! Yesterday she was driving around in another county and sends a picture to her dad via her cell phone. The picture was his car... with a badly dented front fender. So that's two wrecks in 11 days. I can't even believe it. But no one was hurt this time either, and his car is still drivable so we don't think it's totaled. I am so beyond upset.

But I digress. We went on a trip! It was a very long drive, but thanks to Yelp and The Eldest's phone we were able to get a few really stellar meals along the way. (This is a very important issue for us- we are a pain in the tookus very particular about our food.) Once we were at my mom's house we went to a favorite restaurant she loves- twice!

The details- we ate at the Indigo Coastal Shanty in Brunswick, Georgia for one meal and it was outstanding. We ate another meal at The Floridian in St. Augustine, FL and it was also outstanding. While in Charlotte, we ate at Lang Van, a Vietnamese restaurant, and it was, you guessed it, outstanding. We also put together a very tasty Thanksgiving feast at my mom's house, with several of us pitching in and helping out. My brother really came through- he came over while I was cooking and asked how he could help, then he didn't leave the kitchen until we were all done eating. He even helped with clean up along the way. (We ate on very cute but way too small Thanksgiving paper plates so there wasn't a ton of clean up after the pots and pans were washed.) True confession time- I wasn't vegetarian on Turkey day! I ate the dead bird and savored every single delicious bite, but only on that day. (And I always do the pescatarian thing when we travel- with my soy issues it's too hard to find something to eat that's vegetarian, diet friendly, has some protein in it, isn't soy, and isn't covered with cheese.) (Told you I was a pain about food.)

It was so great to see my family and share a holiday with them. It's been a long, long time since I've been able to do that and I've really missed it.

Now if I could just get my daughter to stop wrecking cars...