You're Only 100 Once

After a long Thursday night of packing, the girls and I loaded our stuff up, added my mom's (Mimi), and hopped in the Trailblazer for a road trip to North Carolina for my Nannie's 100th birthday party. The trip was relatively easy...little to no traffic and silence in the back seat, thanks to the fabulous portable DVD player.

Whoever invented those ought to be granted sainthood. Not a peep for almost an hour!

We arrived in little bitty, sleepy "S City" around lunchtime and grabbed lunch at the McDonald's because really eating anything out of Nannie's fridge is like playing Russian roulette. We think that is partly why she has lived to 100.

My mom and aunt grew up in Northern Virginia, and my grandparents didn't actually move back to S City until the mid-1990s. But my grandfather was born and raised there, and his family history goes back some years there. I love history, and I love small towns, so it was cool to drive through the older parts and have my mom point things out to me that she remembered from childhood visits.

My great-grandfather was an architect, and some of the buildings he planned are still standing...

This mural just says "small town America" to me. I love it!

Mimi says this house used to be really lovely and everyone knew that the "Mrs. S." who lived there could heal you if she touched you. We saw several beautiful old homes that looked like they needed some TLC.

The party was Saturday afternoon, and attended by mostly family. Nannie has been wined and dined for the better part of a month now as one of the town's oldest residents. When they had her up to the courthouse for a surprise "proclamation, " she was afraid they were going to take her driver's license away. After all that excitement, we felt like something low key would be best.

My girls got to love on their great-grandmother...

...even when she yelled at them to pick their Barbies up. It was a flashback to my childhood. The girls learned fast to react if we said "you better not do that or Nannie will get mad."

One of my mom's cousins made the cake, and it was fabulous! I get my love of cake from Nannie.

Lots of time to hang out with cousins we don't normally see, and we were able to relax some with my brother, his wife, and my nephew ("Baby J").

For those of you who wondered how she'd like the gift I made for her, she was relatively unimpressed, but she did smile and say "thank you" so I will consider it a success.

I have to admit that it made me a little twitchy to be unable to check my email for three days; and with no Starbucks in sight, SuSu and I went on a hunt and found a sweet little coffee shop downtown.

We needed the coffee because the baby kept SuSu up and I had to share a room with the girls- a fate that should be reserved for people serving hard time. They are quite unpleasant to room with, as they fought over everything from who got the softest side of the blanket to whose pillow was bigger. They also wake when the sunlight begins streaming through the curtains and do not yet grasp the meaning of "quiet morning whispers."

But it was a nice little weekend get-away, and a blessing to be able to wish my grandmother a belated Happy Birthday in person.

{Have you had any fun get-aways lately?}