5 Favorites and 5 Thoughts from a Weekend on the Road

This past weekend I made what will probably be my last trip down to southern New Mexico and Arizona before the baby comes (we'll see...that chocolate festival in Silver City really is tempting...and I'm not even a chocoholic!). I love being out and about. I don't have aspirations to travel the world, but I do love going and seeing friends and family and exploring our small corner of the world.

This weekend held photo shoots, shopping, time with my family, 19 hours in the car, card games, and good food. Rather than just give you a run down of "Here's what I did. The End." (because it really wasn't a super exciting weekend as far as reading material goes, even though I thoroughly loved it), I thought today (while I'm actually driving home...hooray for the scheduling feature!) I'd give you 5 favorites from the weekend and 5 things I'm probably thinking about right now while I'm driving.

5 Favorites from the Weekend: 

• Favorite hot beverage:
• White Hot Cocoa! I already wrote about this one, so I won't go further into that right now. But it's becoming a problem. Yum!
• Favorite cold beverage! 
• Route 44 cup of ice water from Sonic. Perfect size and perfect ice! Mmmm!
• But this all causes a problem. I used to have an iron bladder. As in I could make it from southern NM to central Utah without having to ask for the driver to pull over. Now I sneeze and I have to pull over. The baby karate chops my bladder and I have to pull over. I drink a thimbleful of water and I have to pull over. This makes it hard when all I want to consume is Sonic water and white hot cocoas! But looking on the plus side...I've found a very effective way to stay awake while driving!!
• Getting to meet a longtime blog follower! 
• As far as I can find, our first contact with Rachel (not Rachel who writes here occasionally, but Rachel-a fellow Pinstrosipeep) was in early 2013. Perhaps there were comments earlier than that, but that was the first email. We even featured one of her projects back in 2014! Well, this past weekend I got to meet her in person. Not only her, but her whole family! And I loved every bit of it. It made me realize even more how much Pinstrosity has changed my life for the better. I've gained some amazing cyber friends through the blog, and was so ecstatic to make one of those cyber friends into a face to face friend. Rachel, you and your family warmed my heart so much. Thank you for such a fun afternoon photo adventure in the park!
• Favorite game of the weekend: Hand and Foot! 
• This is quite similar to Canasta, but not quite. It has become the national sport of the Richins household. It's not a true visit to my parents without a game or two. Normally my Mom beats the socks off of all of us, but this time for once I sneaked in and took a win! It's fun to get to visit while we play, scheme moves, and just be together! 
• You can find instructions on how to play here.
• Favorite Darrow moment: 
• There were quite a few to pick from this weekend, but my favorite hands down came the last nigh when our Muggins domino game came to an end and we started building domino runs and towers for Darrow. To say he LOVED them would be an understatement. He was so excited each time he could hardly contain himself. I don't know who was more entertained, him watching the dominoes fall or us watching him.

5 things I'm probably thinking about while driving: 

• The supplies sitting in my trunk from Hobby Lobby and JoAnne's for the baby's corner decorations. I am SO excited to get started on those!! I can't decide if I want to share in progress photos along the way or just a wrap up post or two with what I did and how I did it once it's all done. Hmmm....
• The photos from the two photography sessions I did. They were so different from each other, but each were with fabulous new friends and faces, and I loved that!
• Sorting through the bag of baby clothes from a friend! She had a girl a few months younger than Darrow and now is having a boy. I had Darrow and am now having a girl. So, since we both have baby clothes in the opposite gender as what we're having we thought we'd swap clothes and help each other out! I can't wait to go through the bag she brought me and then to pull out our baby clothes from storage to send her some!
• Sonic Ice Water...and the fact that there are only 2 spots along the 6 hour drive where I could get one.
• Dreaming up ideal ways I'd like to redo areas in my home. Adding color to the back of the bookshelf. Painting the kitchen cabinets. Curtains. Bedroom wall decor (oh Hobby Lobby gave me some great ideas!!). Organizing the laundry closet. And what to do with The Yard. 

And of course getting back to this guy. Darrow's been asking for Dad since we left! Cameron had a weekend where he could have the house be his Man Cave, but I think we're all about ready to hit life together again!