Rewind to Easter

After returning on Saturday from a week away, we were thrilled, but a little bit exhausted to just dive right into Easter! The Easter Bunny made a grand showing at the Ernst house (with some surprisingly unique Bahamian treats! :), and the girls loved sifting through their baskets first thing that morning.

After getting dolled up,

we headed to church, then to our neighborhood club for an Easter egg hunt and brunch with the family. The Easter egg hunt was done before you could blink, so we continued our hunt-and-find routine for another hour or so, due to later reservations for brunch.

It was a GORGEOUS day outside, so I don’t think any of us minded the wait while the girls hunted eggs and paused as frequently as we’d let them to eat candy.  Unfortunately, I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to take pictures of the rest of the family...:(

The Easter Bunny was circulating around the crowd, and the girls maintained their usual look of fear. Of course, the one moment when there were no cameras handy, they did get close enough to at least take some candy, but that was the end of that!

We had an awesome brunch, and were thrilled to have Mamaw, Papaw, Mamaw Eunice, Shawnna, and Jonathan join us!

I was just letting myself feel comfortably pleased at a successful day when Macy was provided with just ONE.MORE.COOKIE. She gets sick frequently enough that we know when it’s coming, and Gary gave me the warning just in time for me to grab her and DART toward the bathroom…too little, too late. We got in front of the bathroom door and out it came…ALL of it…lunch + breakfast + a morning full of SWEETS. I had 3 very distinct reactions. Disgust. Embarrassment. Sympathy. Sadly, that was probably the order. We made a VERY abrupt departure and made it home to strip off our clothes and Macy was passed out on the couch within about 10 minutes.

All in all, it really was a good day. We had lots of conversations with our little ones about the real meaning of the holiday, they seemed to comprehend as much as a 2 year old mind can, and then we all enjoyed our treats from the bunny. The day wouldn't have been complete without dying a few eggs, and the girls, with their current ACUTE attention to detail, really worked hard to make their eggs perfect!  It was a Happy, Messy day!!

To top off the treats from the bunny as well as the treats from Mimi and Aunt Miss from the previous week, the girls were lucky enough to also get sweet cards and money from Ma and John, as well as a couple of cute outfits and Easter treats from Mamaw and Papaw...very blessed!

Spring Break

OK, I keep getting further behind, and actually typed up this post over a month ago...so I'm going back in time, then I'll probably do some current stuff and then back up to cover the rest of the time since my last post.  I wish I had just one more hour in each day so I could keep up, but life is moving FAST!! 

The last weekend in March (yes, that long ago) was planned as an "adult weekend" in Charleston for our second annual run of the Cooper River Bridge 10K. After all of our friends ended up backing out and Gary and I landed a free trip to the Bahamas for the next week (for Gary's "work"), we decided to make it a family trip instead! We headed out on Friday morning, made the short flight, and were at the beach in time for a late lunch that afternoon!

After lunch, we headed out to the beach! It was a LITTLE chilly, but pretty perfect for hanging on the shore! I was PLEASANTLY surprised to see BOTH of our little girls loosen up and dive into the sand! On beach trips in the past, Makayla has been particularly opposed to the sand, given her resistance to anything dirty! After a few minutes of warm up, she was literally swimming in it! Macy loved it as usual, and mostly enjoyed running to throw seashells in the ocean! That is definitely her new FAVORITE pasttime! I can't WAIT for warm summer days at the beach ahead!!

Friday night we headed back to the boat and ended up feeding the girls PB&J for dinner...they didn't really seem to mind too much, and enjoyed eating on the upper deck of the boat...who wouldn't, right? Gary and I ended up ordering a gourmet dinner to enjoy for ourselves after the girls had completely pooped out...ok, maybe Papa John's pizza doesn't qualify in the gourmet category...but it was a nice, quite dinner, the vino tasted good, and it was fun hanging out on the boat!

Saturday morning started extra early for me, as I headed to catch the bus for the race. I was COMPLETELY shocked at the crowd that winded through the entire downtown area waiting to do the same thing. About 2 hours later (and an hour late for the race), the crowds had been coralled to the starting line, and the race started...it was by far the largest and most unorganized mess I have ever seen. I'm not sure exactly what happened...I do know that the race as a whole seemed MUCH more crowded than last year, but something went horribly wrong in the planning department this year!

Anyway, the race was complete, I met up with Gary and the girls at his favorite joint, "Mellow Mushroom", and Aunt Miss came into town to hang for the evening! We had another late lunch, hung out for a while, and, again settled for takeout from the marina for dinner, since we had 2 tired little girls in tow!

It was a fun trip, and the girls, Aunt Miss, and I headed out of town bright and early Sunday morning. We were on a mission to beat the crowds, since getting 40k people into and out of Charleston is not a small task...fortunately, we got out ahead and were home in time to eat lunch and hit the park! Gary stayed to fish with the boys, and he was also home in time to meet us for dinner!

That afternoon, Mimi came into town as well, and Gary and I unpacked and re-packed so that we could head out for the Bahamas the next day! We were sad to leave the girls, but happy that we got to spend such a fun weekend with our little ones before leaving town...and they were in EXCELLENT hands with Aunt Miss all week! (and little bits of Mimi and Mamaw and Papaw)

Like most jobs, Gary’s job can be amazingly accommodating with free time and chances to hang with the family, but as everyone knows, can also pull him away from home for days…and even weeks…at a time. Again, like with any job, you have to take the good with the bad, and we do what we have to so that we can all juggle life as best we can. This week was one of those fairly rare chances where I got to tag along and have a truly wonderful trip…with very little expense…definitely some GOOD to outweigh the fact that he’ll be gone a lot over the next few weeks.


It’s always sad to leave the girls, but I’ve had a particularly demanding couple of months at work myself, and that coupled with the demands of raising 2 energetic 2-year-olds, had left me pretty EXHAUSTED, so a couple of relaxing days in paradise couldn’t have been more welcomed!

We stayed at a nice resort in Cable Beach (on the island of Nassau) and got the chance to hang by the pool, play volleyball in the sand, kayak to a nearby island (where we got to enjoy a personal tour of an abandoned sting ray park), shop at the straw market, pay the obligatory visit to Atlantis, eat DELICIOUS food (including a wonderful meal prepared by personal chefs aboard an amazing yacht) and walk on the beach. While this was definitely not one of our more “adventurous” vacations filled with daily activities to take up every hour, it was a perfect amount of relaxation and “couple time” that was definitely needed to recharge us for our wonderfully busy life!

While we were gone, Aunt Miss came into town and spent her entire Spring Break taking care of our sweet girls…from what I can tell, it went GREAT…the girls had an awesome...and BUSY week!! They were treated to days at the park, a trip to Lazy 5 Ranch to see the animals,

a trip to Discovery Place Kids where they got to show "Baby Hudson" how things are done at the "museum",

They had Easter Egg hunts,

 made adorable Easter crafts,

and got cool new Easter gifts...

and also got to still maintain some routine with daycare, gymnastics, and swim lessons!  We missed them like crazy, but knowing they were having fun and in such good hands was all that we needed to be able to relax and just enjoy our trip. THANKS AUNT MISS for your loving care and for sacrificing your week of “vacation” to be there for our girls!