Trick-or-Treat! Best Halloween yet.

Words cannot express how fired up Nico was when this costume came in the mail last week. He wore it every single day and ran around fighting us.

I love Halloween. And I love this boy.

We made an appearance over at my parents house so they could see Raphael in action.

Showing us his moves...

We met up at Derek's house to have a few munchies and then go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. His other buddy, Greyson, met us too.

They ruled the neighborhood. Nico knew the drill this year.

 

It was so fun to see him even more excited about it this year.  He made it nearly a couple hours and was yet again, one of the last ones standing in the neighborhood. Won't forget this one. Best Halloween yet.

Preschool Halloween carnival

Preschool has been working out so much better for Nico lately. He loves his teacher, Ms Carla, and he has quite a few friends! He most often mentions the names Evelyn, Cal, and Colt.

David says that he can tell that everyone likes Nico. The other day when he dropped him off, he heard a few of the kids say, "Yessss! Nico's here!" And also heard a mom telling her child, "See, I told you Nico would be here today." What can I say, he's the life of the party.

When my mom picked him up the other day, she mentioned that he stopped on the way out to tell multiple other teachers AND the preschool director goodbye. Hearing these stories cracks me up. Ohhh, to be Nico.

His school had a Halloween carnival day, and they invited the parents to come for a parade that morning. Cute idea! Here are a few shots of his classroom...

They walked around the school for their little parade. And ofcourse, our guy has to be the one that is holding his teacher's hand...

 

 

Here are his classmates! Difficult to get 10 children looking at a camera at once, but hey, we tried twice...

It's nice to know that he is enjoying himself there and will already be acclimated to a structured, school environment once kindergarten rolls around in a few years! (But please, let's not make that TOO soon, right?!) Really happy with his experience there, and you can't beat the cute little projects he brings home every week.

The big 3-0 in Mexico!!

Turning 30 isn't so bad when you get to celebrate at a new, all-inclusive adults only resort in Cozumel, Mexico!! Totally had a blast with David on this weekend getaway.

We ventured out and went to a Secrets resort, rather than our usual Iberostar routine. It was great! Give me sunshine on a beautiful beach, a nice resort, and a drink in my hand, and what is there to complain about?!

The resort workers made us feel special since we were preferred clients, meaning we only paid a little extra in order to have some special amenities. These included a separate pool as well as a special lounge with tvs, a serviced bar, and intermittent snacks put out during the day. Overall, this was a much smaller resort than what we are used to, but I really liked that about it.

We met a few other couples on this trip too, and we went to dinner as a table of 8 for the first night, on my actual birthday. We balanced mostly relaxing time by ourselves and occasionally hung out with hilarious couple from Green Bay.

Here's the view from our patio. 10 steps to the pool!

 

The beach was a quick walking distance from the front door of our room.

We had beautiful weather all 3 days.

The main restaurant for breakfast and lunches.

We did manage to have a few pics taken of ourselves this trip, but it was nice to keep the phones and ipads locked up a majority of the time!


Here's one before dinner. We clean up halfway decent. Too bad it's a little blurry.

In the lounge.

Watching baseball playoffs after dinner. Go figure.

Watching the sunset from a nearby rooftop.

Love our life together. Happy birthday to me!

 

ACL Festival

ACL Festival definitely makes my Top 5 list of things to do here. Especially when you get hooked up with VIP passes TWO years in a row!! (Thanks, dad!)

The 4 of us went all day Friday and all day Sunday, and it was a great time! We stuck to the same routine as last year-- a mix between watching some shows and spending time in the shaded Grove with free food, drinks, and other vendors.

Hangin out in the grove.

Here we are on Friday night, waiting for Outkast, who were one of my favorites of the weekend! They were high energy and played all of their hits. Brought me back to those early college days. Heeeeey Ya.

Saturday was a rainy, nasty day, so we didn't go to the festival. It worked out since there weren't too many bands that we were overly excited about. We stayed in an watched college football. For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant called the Park, which was fun!

We geared up again for the festival on Sunday though! It was cloudy, but still enjoyable weather. Despite being surrounded by 6 stages of live music, we watched most of the Cowboys game that afternoon. The better music was later that day.

The ultimate highlight for me this weekend was experiencing Calvin Harris with E!! I can say that I officially got to see what Ryan's Vegas fist-pumping times are like. We were jumping around and "dancing" (if you can call it that?) like fools to the DJ beats. Won't forget our brother-sister bonding that night!

 

 

Another trip to the zoo

This week consisted of another daddy-Nico outing to the zoo! David said that Nico walked the whole time for a total of 3 whole hours! He finally asked if they could leave so he could go home and take his nap. Ha!

He apparently was Mr. Social and kept trying to play with other kids who were obviously experiencing the zoo with their families. David had a hard time explaining to him why he couldn't play with them. He's so outgoing!

He loves animals so much and always looks forward to feeding them. He doesn't understand why the deer won't eat out of his hand by our house but they will here at the zoo.

 

He asked for TWO bags of Cheetos for his snack. Little pig.

 

Standing so proudly and happily.

 



Date nights- ACL style

We were fortunate to go to another ACL taping this week! When my dad has no interest in a show, it usually works out to our favor and is more of my kinda music! This time it was Sam Smith. He was great- much better than expected!

We finally had our first sushi date since we have moved here! We found a cute little bar downtown that was walking distance to the concert. A+ sushi, good happy hour prices, and the baseball playoffs on tv = success.

It's amazing how much nightlife exists down here, even on a mid week night. (We are pretty much obsessed with this town if you can't tell.)

 

 

Meanwhile, Nico was getting spoiled by grandma and grandpa. Their night included a trip out for frozen yogurt and some Tiger baseball. Love his little jersey!