Carter Logan Smith: Christmas in NC, part 1

I meant to post several times during our trip to NC, but the time just got away from me. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

We flew to Greensboro on Sunday the 18th, arriving in the afternoon. We spent that evening hanging out at my Mom's house, and my sister and her kids came over to play. Carter had a blast running around the house and playing with them, as usual. I think this was the first time Doug's really seen him playing with his cousins and he was surprised at how excited Carter was to play with them!

Unfortunately, Doug had to go on a business trip for a good chunk of the week, so he missed out on much of what we did. Even more unfortunately, he was sick with what we'd later learn was a sinus infection, so the time we did have he didn't even get to enjoy so much.

Carter and I spent Monday afternoon at the Greensboro Science Center, and we basically spent the entire time in the kids' play areas! In fact, we went back a few days later with the intention of going to the zoo there, and he was upset because he thought we were going to spend the entire time playing again. This is a picture from the five minutes he spent in the zoo before we headed back in to play.

On Tuesday we went to the awesome Greensboro Children's Museum, where Carter had a blast playing. We had lunch with Nana and then went back to play for the rest of the afternoon. I basically had to drag Carter out of there!

On Wednesday we went to Mount Airy to visit my grandparents. We had lunch with them and then went to the John Deere toy store in downtown Mount Airy. Carter and I had been talking about going there for six months. The last time we tried to go back in October, they were closed, and Carter was devastated. This time I called ahead to check the hours first, and he was so excited! We walked in the door and he did a single lap around the store, picked out a toy, and said, "Okay, this is what I want to buy." I tried to convince him to keep looking, to check out the vast array of John Deere tractors, to just hang out a bit, but that was it. He was done. A couple of minutes later we were headed out the door again, purchase in hand. I couldn't believe it! We spent that afternoon hanging out at my grandparents' house and then had dinner downtown with my Uncle Scott and Aunt Pam before heading back to Greensboro.

On Thursday we hung out at my sister's house and played, and then we all went to see the Chipmunks movie. This was mostly a success, though Carter is still not quite ready to sit through an entire movie. Afterwards we played at Donna's house a little more, then went to the airport to pick up Doug and then on to the Greensboro Colosseum, where Donna had tickets for us all to attend a UNCG basketball game while enjoying a special lounge. We had a buffet of hot dogs and hamburgers in an area where the adults could watch the game and the kids could run around and play, and it was a lot of fun!

Friday was the first day I remembered to take pictures, somehow. It was also a dry day after several days of rain and it was even unseasonably warm, perfect for playing outside. Carter spent a lot of time playing with his cousins at Nana's house. They rode vehicles down the driveway, ran around in the grass, rode the zip line, and even found some dirt to dig in.