Hittin' the road and the "Cyborg"

We're heading out of town this week (leaving Thursday morning) for five days - driving down to Oklahoma to see my in-laws and all of Ava's cousins. :) It's been a looooong time since she's seen her cousins - uh, since Thanksgiving 2004! - so it will be lots of fun for her I'm sure, especially now that she can walk and run with the best of them.

We haven't attempted a driving trip this long (10 hours without stops) since that long ago (Thanksgiving '04) as well and I hope and pray this trip is easier than that one was. I am optimistic that it will be since a) Ava is facing forwards in her carseat now and b) we can read books and play games and be a lot more interactive with her than we could when she was only 5 months old.

Also, the last time we made that trip we ran into a HORRIBLE snow/ice storm on our way home which slowed us down considerably and made for some white-knuckle driving for Jody. Light snow is expected during our traveling days this time as well, but hopefully it will only be light snow and nothing more.

A friend of Jody's will be dog-sitting (yay!) so we don't have to pay an arm and a leg to board the critters.

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In other news, we had a pretty nice weekend. I felt much better as the day progressed on Friday after my morning from hell and even made up a sesame tofu dish for Jody's birthday dinner, as well as made brownies. I didn't write down what I put into the sesame tofu, but if I recreate it again I will be sure and jot it down. It was quite tasty.

On Saturday, went to a pizza place for Jody's birthday meal out. We were going to pick up a cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory on the way home, but decided against it since I made brownies the day before. Will have to save the cheesecake for another day. Then we spent some time hanging out with our friends.

While we were at the pizza place, the manager brought out a garbage bag full of toys for Ava to pick one. She pulled out a plush Cyborg doll from Teen Titans whom she calls "man." He looks like this, only as a plush "doll." Jody thought that was pretty cool that she got something other than a dog or a bear and, while I thought it was weird at first, I have to agree. It's nice to have some diversity in her toys. I would never pick out a cyborg for her myself, but I'm glad she's got one now. He already seems to be one of Ava's favorites - rivaled only by "baby." :)

The rest of the weekend was spent working a fair amount on my new photography website for my business. I still have more to do (including bulk up my portfolio), but it's coming along really nicely, thanks largely to Jody's help. Hooray for tech savvy hubbies.