(Not my 7 Days photo. It’s at the bottom.)

Last week, we made an impromptu trip down to Southern Virgina to see Karyl and her girls.

Karyl and I are both Navy wives. We’re accustomed to our husbands being gone for weeks or months at a time, and working long hours when they’re not gone. Most of the time, we deal with it just fine.

Once in a while, we struggle. It just happens that last week, we were both struggling a little bit. That made it seem like the perfect time for a 7 Days meet-up.

And you know what? It was. We arrived on Tuesday and had a great time hanging out, eating good food, playing outside, talking and laughing together. Grace and Annalie immediately jumped right back into the friendship they established when Karyl and her girls visited us last summer, when Sonja and Noah were visiting. And Mary Ellen loved Elliora. She seemed to think she was a living doll, and Elliora didn’t seem to mind that at all. Anytime we walked anywhere, Elliora walked straight to ME and grabbed her hand.

I dragged everyone all the way to Virginia Beach, to my favorite Greek restaurant, Elia’s. The hummus and pita there are to die for, and the rest of the food is delicious too. We were regulars at Elia’s when we lived in Virginia Beach over a decade ago, and just like every other time we’ve been there since we moved away—even when years have gone by between visits—Elia remembered us as soon as we walked in the door.

We sat in a booth right next to a high wall. On the other side of that wall was the grill, and Annalie and Grace amused themselves by occasionally standing on the seat and peeking over to chat with Elia and the other people working that day, all of whom seemed to get a kick out of it. Everyone enjoyed the food, especially Elliora. She took bites out of a lemon, rind and all; ate the hummus by the fingerful after we ran out of pita; and gnawed a kabob full of chicken clean. Annalie even branched out from her usual chicken nuggets, and thought the chicken kabobs and rice were really tasty.

The next morning, we all walked Grace to school and got to see her classroom and meet her lovely teacher.

Walking back to Karyl’s, I spotted this heart-shaped rock in the dirt path. I love finding random hearts in the world like this.

We stopped at the playground to let the kids blow off some steam, and so we could get our 7 Days shots.

The theme for Day 5 was FRESH. Karyl’s had the idea that we could be getting some fresh air, which we certainly got playing on the swings. But even more than the air, the time spent with a friend refreshed me. Thanks again, Karyl! We went home with lighter hearts, already looking forward to the next visit.

October 20: “Pardon me, Mom. I need to take this important call on my markerphone.” This was the beginning of Elliora pretending that many things—hairbrushes, barbies, remote controls, dollhouse furniture—are phones.

October 21: My business cards came from the Buy More!?

October 22: We drove down to North Carolina for our nephew Leo’s 6th birthday party! Annalie had fun playing games in the arcade and loved playing miniature golf for the first time.

Dana took this shot of our family. It’s not perfect—Elliora was overdue for a nap and resisting sleep and quite cranky—but I like it anyway.

Annalie and Leo had a blast playing on the trampoline, as usual.

They also spent some time playing in Leo’s room, making food for all of Leo’s many animals. I love how well they get along. Elliora spent a lot of time blowing her own mind, putting things into and taking things out of a toy hamster ball.

October 24: Hot dog sandwiches and roasted asparagus for lunch. That’s how we roll.

Since Elliora recently started sleeping in her own room, we decided it was time to make it a bit prettier and more functional. I am the rare mom who has never gone crazy designing a nursery when she was pregnant. I think I used to care about stuff like that, but being in the Navy for 16 years, living mostly in rentals, and moving every couple years has made me a lot more indifferent to that kind of thing. Elliora’s room was thrown together with stuff we already owned (dresser, changing table, bookcase) and stuff we bought in a couple of quick trips to IKEA (crib, curtains, rug).

The blue quilt up on the wall is mainly for noise reduction. No one made it for us; my mom bought it somewhere ages ago because it was blue (Annalie’s favorite color) and had stars on it (I like stars). The rocking chair belonged to Troy’s Grandpa Gronberg, who passed away shortly before we got married. Troy’s sister Dana had this chair at her house, but it was in storage, not being used. So she let us borrow it to use in Elliora’s room for a while.

I was feeding Elliora her dinner when she grabbed the fork out of my hand and fed herself. By the end of the meal she was quite good at getting the right end of the fork into her mouth. Now she tends to get a little annoyed if I won’t let her have the fork and feed herself.

October 25: I had to fudge the Elliora-and-Katy photos for 11 months, since we were going to be in Omaha by the time she turned 11 months old and I didn’t want to skip another month.

October 26: While we were in Omaha, the girls and I all shared one small bedroom. It had its disadvantages, but one advantage was that seeing Annalie and Elliora sleeping next to each other every night was adorable.

October 27: Annalie asked for, ate a couple bites of, and then decided she didn’t want a ham roll-up (deli ham rolled up in a tortilla). She handed it to my mom, who was holding Elliora and chatting with me. Elliora grabbed the roll-up when my mom wasn’t paying attention and went to town on it.

October 28: Demonstrating for my mom and brother how the Ergo can be comfortably used to carry toddlers. Aurora thought it was pretty fun.

The geekiness is strong in my family.

Girlies dressed in their Halloween best; Annalie posing with my cousin Ted, who is also my parents’ contractor.

My new favorite photo of Aurora; that’s a whole lotta orange.

WHAT.

Self-portrait with Annalie.

October 29: This was a full day. First, I met Kassie, Rainbow and Katrina to paint pottery. Rainbow wasn’t so sure about painting pottery at first, but she surprised herself by having a lot of fun. I mean, she expected to have fun talking and laughing but I don’t think she expected to enjoy the painting part as much as she did.

It probably helped that she had an idea for what to paint before she even got there. We were talking about how cool it was that we’d reconnected and become friends via the internet, when we were only friendly acquaintances in high school and college. Rainbow suggested we needed matching necklaces, and I said, “How about mugs?” Internet friends, FTW!

After painting, we said good-bye to Rainbow and walked a couple doors down the sidewalk to B&G Tasty Foods. My doctor’s office when I was growing up was in the same strip mall as this diner. I had not been there for at least 25 years. The decor has been updated in a really great way! The food’s still the same (their specialty is the interestingly-named loose meat sandwich) and is, as advertised, quite tasty.

But even if the food hadn’t lived up to the name, I wouldn’t have minded because I got to eat with two of my favorite people.

After Elliora’s afternoon nap, we headed over to Katrina’s house for more fun. Kassie and Joe were there too, and our friends Jeff and Alma and their daughter Isa.

Elliora is apparently the best toy ever. The boys dragged and pushed Elliora around the house for a while on a plastic lid, which she loved.

As far as Annalie was concerned, though, the boys’ pet rats Ginger (above) and Steve were the best thing ever. She was rather sad to hear that we probably won’t ever get any kind of pet rodent as long as we have cats.

And I’m stopping here. I think Halloween weekend is gonna need its own post.

More photos of October and our trip to Omaha are in my Flickr.

P.S. Like the spiffy new banner in honor of Elliora’s 1st birthday at the end of this month? Thanks, Brenda!

pretty: I like playing with the shutter speed when there’s a fountain around. This one is in the main park in Erin and Rocco’s downtown.

happy: Annalie loved this ziplining thing on the playground in the same park. She went on it over and over and over again. There was a similar piece of playground equipment on the playground at our old church in Maryland, and she loved that one too. And she was pleased as punch with herself when she was able to go all the way across the rings on her own.

funny: Silly ice-cream posers. And goofball me, posing on Annalie’s scooter with Elliora on my back.

real: This is what happens when you accidentally fall asleep with wet hair when you’re putting the baby to bed for her afternoon nap.

Pretty, happy, funny, real is about capturing the context of contentment in everyday life. Via girlwithgreencard.