This morning I am drinking my coffee sitting on my sofa, the skies are just beginning to lighten out the window behind me, cartoons are on the television, but I am wishing for summer mornings by the lake. I took the above picture when we were on vacation last summer up north and I am ready to go back. It was an awesome family trip, with my brother and his family and my mom, and my SIL’s mom too.

But alas, I am here. And that is ok too. My coffee is hot and delicious (Newman’s Own Sunrise Blend today) and my husband made it for me, so bonus, coffee I didn’t have to make!

I did book a small trip! Between now and the beginning of March, Wyatt has like 7 different appointments with various specialists. No fun really for any of us but just a fact of our lives. But I felt like we were going to need a break, so I booked an Airbnb and arranged for a trip with Wyatt’s interests in mind. His birthday is the first of week of March and we usually go to some sort of nature center to celebrate. Well this year we went a little bigger than the average nature center – we are going to Wolf Park in Indiana! Wyatt loves wolves so I felt like for birthday #8, we could go see a few. I also reserved a private tour just for the three of us, a golf cart to drive around in if the weather is terrible, and a spot for us at the evening howl as well. I know Wyatt will really love that part. The little town we will be staying in looks super cute too! It will give us all something to look forward to through these gray months.

So I mentioned on my blog the other day that we had a Fast Food French Fry Showdown on Saturday night at my brother’s. Billy and my niece have a french fry rivalry going, so we were determined to get to the bottom of it, and see who has the best fries around. We got fries from 6 different places – McDonald’s, Arby’s Rally’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and White Castle. My brother picked up fries from three places, we picked up fries for the other three, then met over his house for the tasting. It was an absurd amount of fries. We got two larges from each place, and then divvied them up one restaurant at a time to everyone. Some of them were cold by the time we got to them, which didn’t help when evaluating, as they were kind of soggy, which was gross. We obviously need to work on our technique for this type of thing in the future – like maybe keep the fries or food we are not ready to eat yet in the oven on low to keep warm until it is time to eat? Anyway, that is next time.

So the votes and the verdict! I won’t give the entire breakdown, but the ultimate loser was White Castle, with Arby’s a close second for last. The White Castle fries were entirely tasteless. The Arby’s curly fries were also very disappointing – they had a very oniony taste which was very off-putting. The clear winner was McDonald’s, with all but one person (Billy) voting for them. Even I voted McDonald’s first in this challenge, when I do love Burger King better. But in this particular challenge, the McDonald’s fries were still warm and tasted better. We had a lot fun with this and are going to do this again. I think next time we are going to compare cheese bread!

Billy had also been working on a surprise for Mermaid Girl and he finally finished. He gifted it to her Saturday night and she LOVED it.

He made her her very own Explorer bag! He hand cut, hand sewed every feature, created all the bits for test tubes and tweezers and containers, planned it all out, and even purchased a little whimsical unicorn charm to decorate it because that is who Mermaid Girl is. When we asked her what she was going to collect she said “fairies”. Her plan was to catch some and bring them home to play with though, not hurt them. He is busy planning out Wyatt’s bag, and after a lot of thought, he has opted for a nature bag that is also part art bag, because that is Wyatt. Billy does such good job and is so talented.

Here is happy girl with her bag.

And it is time for a refill friends. This cup is empty!

What has been going on with you all lately?