Josephine and Mommy Trip to North Carolina

Back in September Ava asked me to be her confirmation sponsor. I of course was honored and immediately said yes. This also gave me a great reason to go visit the whole family in Apex, NC. Being that it would be a fairly quick trip, Nate and I decided that we didn’t have any interest in bringing an 18 month old on an 8 hour flight and deal with jet lag so it was decided that Elaine and Nate would stay in London. This meant that Josephine and I got to have a trip of our own with some quality one on one time.

We headed out for just about a week. Josephine was so excited for the trip! It had been since Christmas since she’d been on a plane and this girl loves to be on holiday. She did great on the flight out there but did seem to max out on her Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig with about 2-3 hours left of the flight.

We had a great week hanging out with family in Apex. My parents came out as well as Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Andy. Josephine loved just being at the house spending time bouncing around a basketball, riding a trike and jumping on the big trampoline in the backyard. We’re not so used to having yards to play in.

We also got to do a bit of sightseeing. We explored Duke University and the Duke gardens. I just love East Coast college campuses! And we went into Raleigh. We visited the North Carolina history museum and wandered around the state capitol building. Of course we had some good ol’ bbq. And then of course the Confirmation ceremony.

Overall we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and it was such a great mommy and daughter trip too. Josephine had a blast playing with Ian. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with family. And on top of that, North Carolina was a state I had never visited before. Such a fun trip and I can’t wait to go back with the whole family.

And that's a wrap

And New Year’s in Vienna

After our Christmas in London, we all packed up and on the 27th headed to Vienna where we stayed until the 1st. Vienna is a charming, beautiful city. It was cold of course, although no snow. And their Christmas markets were still up which was a treat. We had two Airbnb’s within a 10 minute walk of each other, just slightly outside of the city center. 

In a nutshell, here’s what we did:

• Explored the city center
• Walked around the Hofburg Palace
• Enjoyed warming up with hot chocolate and treats in little cafes
• Visited the Haus der Musik, an interactive sound museum. The highlight was a room where you could actually conduct an orchestra. The kids loved this.
• Went to mass at the beautiful Kirche St. Peter
• Caught a bit of the opera (Hansel & Gretel) which was being projected on a big screen outside the Opera house
• Ice skating near city hall
• Ring tour via the city tram
• And for NYE, Julie and family made an amazing dinner and later that night at midnight when the kids were already asleep, we enjoyed one of the best fireworks shows from our apartment window.

We really enjoyed ourselves although Elaine gave us a run for our money when it came to sleep. For about 3 nights in a row, she woke around 1am and was up for a good 2-3 hours. We eventually decided that she was probably over stimulated with all of the activities with her cousins and sister around. Of course it took us a couple of extremely sleep deprived nights to figure this out before we made any changes.

But all in all we still had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed Vienna.