Mom's Visit to NC

Yay! My mom visited us again this year. Last year, she came in May for Caylor's spaying (and then again in July with the rest of my family...and again in November for days surrounding my bachelorette party). 

This time, she came into town to be with me for awhile while Shane was at MARSOC training all week long/for part of the weekends and to drive back with me and the dogs so we could spend Shane's month of training (with absolutely no communication again) back in Vernon Hills with my parents.

As always, the pups were attached to her hip. They were so excited to see her at the airport that they jumped over the backseat, into the trunk, with their seatbelts on, to greet her. We've never seen them do that! They were so embarrassingly loud too, of course.

She accidentally left Caylor's chair/ottoman with too big a space between the two. How dare she! In true Caylor fashion, she just dealt with it and made the best of it with zero complaining, poor girl.

Just like last year, we did the first initial yardwork of the year. A landscaper is coming on Monday, but it looks so much better! I am addicted to chopping down and almost completely hacking away all the excess of bushes and tree branches, so that was fun for me again.

After our morning yardwork, Cher and I hung out out back for a few hours until Shane came home. We then headed to the beach for the whole day. It was crowded (first super warm day so it was like "opening day" for us and everyone else!)

We went to one of Shane's favorite beachside places- Shaka Taco for dinner. Not the best sideview picture, but I was busy saving the table. We ran into a military wife friend from the neighborhood (whose husband was gone and is seemingly ALWAYS gone), so her and her dog joined us for dinner. We ran into her at Publix 2x previously and recently- small town life.

So good!

And had a dessert of our favorite ice cream from Hot Diggity Dog right across the street from the taco place and also across the street from the beach.

It was also our first time of the season back here. We'll be back a LOT this summer, if the previous years were any indication.

We finished our night off with a movie at home. It had Jessica Chastain starring, I love her acting! We got up Sunday morning to watch church from home (since Shane was home for so few hours and wanted to spend some time with the pups too), have gluten-free pancakes from the breakfast chef Shane and spend some family time in the backyard again.

Caylor always sneaking kisses on Shane

These poor pups are always getting legit thrown around, thrown on their backs, thrown in circles, and wrestled- between themselves AND from Shane. They absolutely love it and miss so much of the roughhousing when he's gone. I do my best to fill in, but I'm definitely not at his level. Caylor usually has to simultaneously fend off Shane AND Cash.

Caylor's face...hahaha

Shane grilled us up some hot dogs for lunch; it felt so much like summer this weekend that it just sounded so perfect.

A lazy casual rest of the Sunday and then Shane was off again. It was hard saying bye to him again- this time for a month. 

The dogs (Cash only) definitely act up with all this Shane being in and out, me being gone, my mom being here...and it's hard for them to be without him for extended periods too. It definitely impacts their behavior, anxiety, routine, etc. It's very rare these days thankfully, but Cash gave us 1 very needy/pushy evening the other night from it.

It's sad watching him say goodbye to them and saying he has to go away for work, tell them they need to behave, they're going to have a fun vacation with me at Cherry and Grandpa's, and saying he will join us there in a little over a month. I can only pray this won't happen once we eventually have kids.

All in all, we had a great 5 days of my mom being here and then we were off on our road trip to VH!