Texas Wants You Anyway

Three days after returning from McCall, we packed the car up again and headed down to Austin. Now that I am not working we are not restricted by my vacation time so I jam packed trips into Daniel's free time.

The drive down was not bad at all. The girls only watched a few movies each day. They did a lot of coloring in new coloring books and playing with little toys we brought. On day 1 all 3 girls actually fell asleep at the same time for a bit. 

When we arrived Sunday afternoon the girls were so excited to see everyone and play with the toys at Mimi and Paco's house. They love Polly Pockets. 

On Monday we went swimming at Dell Diamond, the stadium of the minor league Round Rock Express team. 

Soon-to-be Aunt Michelle (Tyler's fiance) knows some important people there so we got to use the swimming pool that is normally reserved for private parties during baseball games. The girls were in heaven. Their first pool swim of the summer. They were dancing and posing all around the pool.

Sadie got daring and started swimming around the pool sans puddle jumper. Michelle helped talk her through it. She did great! She can hold her breath for a decent amount of time and she isn't afraid of sinking anymore. 

 We swam our hearts out, ate a picnic, and then headed back home for a few naps.

That night we had a family dinner at an Italian place where Camille yelled for food until I gave her her own fork and plate.

Michelle kindly indulged Sadie with lots of tic-tac-toe games.

 That night I attempted to run while full of pasta and bread and only made it about 2 miles.

Tuesday morning Carolyn, Camille and I headed down to the Brushy Creek trail for some exercise. We attempted to beat the heat and humidity by going early, but I was still sticky with sweat within 2 minutes. After some cold showers Carolyn and I drove with the 2 older girls out to The Thinkery, the children's museum in Austin.

We met Julia Moss and her kids, who drove all the way out from San Antonio.

It had lots of cool stuff. The girl's favorite room was probably the dark/light room full of light up exhibits.

After a few hours at the Thinkery, the adults were getting hungry so we went to Torchy's Tacos. The Nielsons had told us it was good and I was not disappointed. We couldn't stand to part from the Moss family so we all drove to Round Rock Donuts. Jules loves donuts and had wanted to try RR Donuts for a while and their glazed donuts are my favorites.

We went back home and I napped while Sadie made flower arrangements with Michelle. You may notice the Sadie close to Michelle in lots of the pictures. She is so excited to get a new aunt and Michelle is very kind and patient with all the attention.

That night Mimi got out some bubbles for the girls to play with and we all had fun until we realized we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

My poor girls have never had mosquito bites before and couldn't be convinced that some day they would stop itching and burning. I had to give Sadie Benadryl to get her to sleep.

Wednesday morning I got up early for a 5 mile run. Then I met up with Carolyn and Whitney who were talking on the trail with Millie. Mills started getting real fussy so we turned around to go back.

Camille wanted me to carry her, which was just much too hot, so Carolyn and Whitney walked back to get the car and came back to get us while we waited in the shade. I think that is the sweatiest I have ever been in my life. 

Back at home we changed into swim suits and went to the Parker's pool. The girls worked up the courage to jump off the rock wall into the pool.

Sadie did some more swimming sans puddle jumper.

Lou bonded with the Parker's dog while she ate lunch. She especially loved their dog, I think, since she is so small. 

Then we went for an early dinner at my personal favorite, Chuy's. I am still offended that every member of the Nielson family elected to order a salad or soup, while I ordered some fried tacos. And of course I drank a bunch of the world's most delicious Diet Coke with lime. After dinner that night we returned to downtown Round Rock for Music on Main. Courtney works for the city and saved us good spots on the grass. This is also when we finally got to see Uncle James! He worked his long ER shifts the first half of our trip.

The upbeat Cuban music lured my girls up to dance and luckily Uncly Tylo was there to dance with them.

One of Courtney's co-workers bought the girls some bubbles and glow wands. It was so kind.

Daniel took the older girls over to his favorite local shave ice place, Kawaii ice, which Camille loved.

I got myself an oreo milk shake to beat the heat. 

Aww, the first photo of the whole Nielson family. Too bad I am 5 inches shorter than the closest family member.

On Thursday we got going early so we could play at the park before it got too hot. The Play for all Abilities park in Round Rock is so cool.

It has a miniature town, complete with a grocery store, school, library, car wash and houses.

The playground part is also very fun, along with a couple big sand boxes and lots of swings.

Millie happily ate some snacks in her stroller and showed off her big blue eyes.

Daniel and Tyler ran to the park from the house so once they arrived Carolyn and I left to walk the trail back home.

We ran into this little friend on our way. He had busted his way out of the fence. 

After lunch and naps we drove out to Coco and James' beautiful new house in Leander. They have a neighborhood pool and splashpad, which was basically empty, so we got some more good swimming. Sadie got better and better at swimming under water.

 Carolyn took the girls back to Round Rock while the Nielson kids and spouses went out on the town.

  We hit up our usual, Hopdoddy, for some high class hipster burgers and fries, followed by some Amy's Ice Cream. We returned to the Ainsworth's casa, where I promptly fell asleep

Friday was a big day because we were going to hang out with James and Coco's nieces on the Ainsworth side. Sadie had really bonded with several of them at the wedding last year and she was very excited to see them. James and Courtney both only have nieces, so it was little girl heaven between the 8 of them.

We all met at the Quarry splash park, which is just as fun as we remembered it.

Elise spent much of the time maliciously spraying unsuspecting people with water. She got me good lots of times.

Sadie ran around obnoxiously dumping buckets of water on the adults that were nice enough to not get mad at her (Tyler, Whitney, Daniel, James- you will notice she knew better than to do it to me)

This cute girl enjoyed sitting in shallow water and splashing here and there. Any real sprays of water landing on her produced tears.

James' dad generously brought us all pizza and various sides.

Elise devoured 10 slices of watermelon. No exaggeration.

Before we headed out Mimi brought out a few packs of Skittles and all the little girls went crazy.
That afternoon Carolyn, Courtney and I got some great pedicures. We also got some more Round Rock donuts since it was National Donut Day. Duh.

Sadie had been begging to play golf out on the course behind the Nielson's house in the evenings after the course is closed, so we let her stay up when the other girls went to sleep. She loved it.


On Saturday we drove down to Austin for Bubblepalooza, a bubble-themed kids event.  My favorite thing was the bubble suits.

The girls were supposed to run around and bump other kids but Elise opted to sit down in it and call it a house.

It was very cute, but extremely hot and humid. My cousin Madelyn and her family met us up there.

Sadie happily posed with Coco and James and then refused to be in a picture with me. We tried all the bubble stuff and then left to get lunch at Home Slice Pizza. The eggplant pizza was mighty tasty.

That afternoon the girls played with a rocket sprinkler and on a slip-n-slide in the backyard. Elise struggled with the slip-n-slide a bit, but Sadie finally got the hang of it. Lou stuck to drinking the water.

We had an awesome dinner that night and then went to the Round Rock Express game. Sadie and Elise weren't so convinced they wanted to go to the baseball game.

Elise liked it, but Sadie ended up loving it.

She had lots of questions and got very competitive. Daniel and I took the younger 2 girls home after 5 innings and Sadie stayed with the rest of the adults.

Sadie got spoiled with some treats and lots of adult attention. Towards the end of the game she said the other team was just working harder than the Express. She spent a few hours studying the game program on the long drive home. She has now been asking to go to a Salt Lake Bees game.

We got up early Sunday morning to start our drive. Everyone somberly helped us pack up and head out. Mimi and Paco let the girls each pick one Polly Pocket house and 2 people from their collection. Those Polly Pockets provided hours of entertainment on the way back to Utah.

We stopped in Albuquerque for the night. The girls were very excited that we ate at a restaurant (Red Robin) and went swimming in the hotel pool. We got upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite which allowed us all to get a great night's sleep. 

Home has never looked so good when we pulled off our exit from I-15. 

Unfortunately, our yard all died while we were gone, but we all happily crawled into bed that night. 

That Swing Set Life

I have been on a hunt for a swing set since last summer. The biggest problem was that Daniel didn't want a swing set. I went and looked at lots of swing sets and eventually wore him down.
I finally found a great used one and I told him it would come apart in just 3 big pieces to be moved. Unfortunately, once we got to the house with some of our neighbors to start dismantling, it didn't come apart so easily. Daniel had to go to the house 2 times to get it all taken apart and brought to our backyard. Then he had to spend another evening with our friend Casey putting it all together. Oops.

I hope Daniel would tell you it was all worth it. The girls all love it.

Having the swing set means that we spend a whole lot more time in that back corner of our yard. This is the view from that corner. It is awesome.

Camille either swings in her baby swing or crawls around on the smaller play set. One day she almost fell asleep in the swing.

Most evenings we head out for a little while after dinner so the girls can all get their swing set on.

 Sadie is getting slightly more daring in trying different things, which I am encouraging of. Although, tonight she fell from about 4 feet up and landed directly on her nose/forehead, so that was a bit of a disaster.

McCall, ID

 For Memorial Day weekend we met the Cottles at my aunt and uncle's cabin in McCall, Idaho. We took an extra day on either end of the holiday weekend so we had a good 4 1/2 days of fun (not counting the driving time). For years we have been saying that we should just meet somewhere between Portland and American Fork for a vacation. McCall is just about that. It was a 7 hour drive for us and a little longer for the Cottles. We chose McCall and then found out my dad's brother had a house there and he was happy for us to use it, free of charge. It was wonderful. 

We packed the trip full of fun stuff. 

On Saturday morning Lexie and I ran a couple miles in the beautiful scenery. That's the thing about McCall- every place is a scenic view. Tons of lakes, forest, and mountains all around. 

Then the men took the 3 older girls down to the lake while the babies napped. Elise loved picking all the dandelions. We kept a glass cup full of her "bouquets" the whole time.

When Camille and Wembley woke up we brought a picnic down to the lake. A trend you may notice in the pictures is Sadie harassing Nick. She wanted to hold his hand or sit on his lap constantly. He was very nice and let her do it most of the time. 

Later that day we went on a hike. Lexie thought she read there was a lake at the end of the hike so we set out in search of a lake. We never found that lake, but we had a great time. Daniel and Nick pushed over a few trees that were downed on the trail and Elise did plenty of whining/holding up the group.

The next day after some morning naps we went to some hot springs about 20 minutes away. They were more like a warm bath, which was slightly disconcerting, but the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand around it. The girls continued to play in the driveway for a while when we got back. 

Monday morning Lexie and I went on a longer run. She said she wasn't feeling great and couldn't get a good breath in. She found out when she got back home she had walking pneumonia. Ha. Daniel and Nick decided if we were going to run they wanted to also, so they left for a run when we got back. 

After lunch Lexie and I took the girls to the lake again. After about 45 minutes it started pouring, which was the only rain we saw all trip. We tried to stick it out and hoped the storm would pass, but after 20 minutes of huddling under towels/trees we gave up and went back to the cabin.

That night we headed to downtown McCall for dinner. We hadn't anticipated that a lot of places would be closed for the holiday, but we found a delicious pizza place. Afterwards we had some massive ice cream cones, but the girls were all shivering because it was slightly cold outside.

 

Mills and Wems mostly fought over things when they interacted. Whenever Wembley was eating in her booster seat on the floor Camille would come over and take her food. 

Multiple times they both pooped while Wembley was in her booster and Camille stood and held onto the tray. 

 

 The cabin was perfect for our needs. The bigger girls all shared a room and then the couples each had their own bedroom/bathroom with their baby. When the kids went to bed we played cards until the early morning hours, just like old times when we all used to live in the same apartment. We ate our dinners out on the covered porch. Below you can see Millie's "feed me now" face. This comes before she flexes her whole body and yells. 

 Who doesn't like looking back on embarrassing bath pictures?

 Just a little horse shoeing

We blocked off access to the stairs so the babies just crawled around the living room. 

 Tuesday morning we got up and cleaned up. We brought Briz back to Utah with us to stay with her grandparents. On the way home Tuesday we stopped at Chick-fil-a for lunch and Camille was being adorable. This is a typical face she makes, when she purses her lips like this.

It was a great trip. We all missed Holland since Elise didn't have a playmate, but Brizzy and Sadie did a decent job including her. Now we are ready for the adults-only Nielson/Cottle trip in 2016, wherever that may be!

My Big Girls

These two......

they fight like crazy

they play like crazy

I love them like crazy