4 Miles

This last week it seemed we had a vacation without leaving home. Well, we did leave the house, we just didn't leave the area. Much. 

Our extended holiday weekend started Thursday night. My brother surprised my parents by driving out from AZ to visit for my dad's birthday. And because he's a grad student with the summer off and has nothing better to do. (He has a job, it starts later.)  He and my parents came down and my sister drove in from St. Louis and we all met at our house to celebrate dad's birthday by him taking us out to dinner (Aren't we thoughtful?). We hired a sitter for the boys and that made the event even more nice. They enjoyed the cake and ice cream once we got home–which really is the part they cared about the most anyway! 

Aunt Heidi stuck around that night so she could meet up with friends on Friday. Will enjoyed playing with her Friday morning and then we went to the park, we once again we did more exploring of the woods then playing on the playground features.  And that made me very happy!  The rest of Friday was spent cleaning since I knew we'd be gone all day Saturday.

Saturday we drove up to my parents house and had a cook out and a marathon session of games. Dad enjoys playing them and we didn't have time to do any on Thursday night, so we had to make up for lost time. We finally got to play the games I got for Christmas!

Sunday James went to the Indy 500 with my dad and a friend of my dads.  The rain held off enough they were able to get over half the race in before the first major rain delay. They decided to come home (which made me very happy) and he got home just a big before his brother and his family arrived.  That's when the fun really began! (Not to imply my family isn't fun, they are, but we see them much more often then we see the other side of the family and my side doesn't have any cousins yet for the boys so it's a bit trickier to keep them entertained.) RD&S have a little boy (the Micah mentioned in a previous post) who is a year younger than Will. They get along very well and seem to make each other braver.  Each did things he would normally not do if he was just with Mom.  They also have a cute 4 month old little girl.  We had fun letting the boys play, eating, talking and playing more games.    Monday we had our big cookout.  Tuesday we took them to the Children's Museum. Between the trails we have near our house, the Museum and the lower cost of houses here in the Mid-west compared to the Philly area, we almost have them convinced to move out here! ;-) 

Sadly, they had to leave this morning.  It was a great deal of fun having them and now I feel like we're having a post vacation let down, even though we didn't go anywhere! We also have all the laundry you have from vacation and some very tired boys. 

Also, we're still having camera problems. I promise I'll get pictures up soon for the Grandmas!

This evening I left to go do some dress shopping without the boys. Will was sad he couldn't go. "I want a dress!" he whined said. I told him dresses were for girls, and he wouldn't have fun going with me anyway.  A few moments later he declared, "When I turn into a girl, I will have a dress!"