Trip of the Summer 3

Our flight to Austin was long. But Mimi was there to greet us at the airport. Tom/Paco had Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery less than a month before we came so I was slightly nervous about us creating chaos in their home for a week and a half. The surgery involves having electrodes placed on your brain connected with a neurostimulator that is implanted in your body. While we were there Tom's doctors were still adjusting medications in conjunction with the electrode stimulation, so basically, he was still recovering and we were there to "help" :).
Plus, Tyler and Whitney drove in for our visit. So we had a full house.
Daniel arrived a few hours after we got to Tom and Carolyn's.

He and Millie promptly napped/snuggled together. Details on the rest of the day are fuzzy for me. Millie ran to Sonic with Mimi, but it seems like, if there are no pictures I have no memory. 

The next day the big event was swimming in the neighborhood pool. The girls were not over the excitement of hanging out with dad. 

Plus, Daniel can do things like throw them high in the air.

 Millie enjoyed the kiddie area. 

Saturday morning's activity was Mt. Playmore, self-touted as Central Texas' biggest and best indoor playscape. Playscape is Texas speak for playground. It has taken me this long in our marriage to realize that Daniel uses that phrase for playgrounds/swing sets because it is a Texas thing and not because he is just weird. 

It was a massive play structure. This picture includes maybe 1/6 of it? Can you spot Sadie and the awesome uncle who crawled around with her? Could this picture of Lou and Coco be cuter? Only if  there weren't netting in the way. It seemed fun at first for adults. Then we all discovered it was like 80 degrees in the playscape and it was hard work to crawl up, around and down things.

 One of the many reasons it is so fun to visit the Nielsons is that they are all willing and excited to do activities for our kids. 

Millie was very hot and cold with it, but in the end liked it. Although, she probably spent as much time in the arcade with Paco and Mimi as she did in the playscape. She never had any tokens, she just climbed in and out of the rides.

She also spent a good amount of time on Snapchat with Courtney.

Don't worry, with all these fun outings we still fit in plenty of play/book time at home with Tom and Carolyn's toys. 

That evening Mimi arranged yet ANOTHER birthday celebration for Sadie. My sister Alicia always  hated having a summer birthday because we were frequently traveling on her special day, but Sadie got hooked up on our trip.  Especially considering we already went to Disneyland this year for Sadie and Elise's birthdays.

We went to the neighborhood pool and ate pizza and cake.

 Kid-throwing and poolside cheer jumps ensued.

Sunday was church and hanging out at home with a tasty family dinner. Carolyn caught a cute picture of the girls after church.

 Sadie did lots of crafting (AKA gluing tons of stuff together) and some coloring. This Nielson family portrait is pretty awesome. 

Monday we headed out to Blue Hole with Tyler and Carolyn. It is a swimming hole outside of Austin with a slippery rock slide. Apparently usually water spills over the stone wall to the left behind Tyler and Daniel.

Sadie was skeptical when we arrived, but soon changed her tune. 

 Camille had a meltdown so we didn't even last 2 hours there. It was too bad since Sadie loved it. Elise would have been thrilled to sit in the shade with the 2 sleeves of Ritz crackers we brought. Do all kids pack away Ritz like mine? I never buy them because they are gone immediately.

While Millie napped at home some of the girls got our nails done. This is Sadie's fingers and toes with my toes. The flowers on Sadie's toes lasted for over a month! 

Just a shot of my kids in what they think is the play room.

 Millie continues to love Ruby, even if Ruby doesn't return it. Camille is not bothered by growls or barks, which is good in some ways, but bad in others, since she doesn't pick up on it when Ruby wants to be left alone. Usually an adult needs to be close by so they can intervene when Ruby is done with the pesky 2-year-old. Ruby only enjoys Camille for her food potential. Camille likes to sneak Rubes food from her plate as well as dog treats from the pantry. 

Millie helped Mimi bring Ruby out for a potty break or something and ended up doing a little photo shoot. Goofy close-mouthed smiles included.

Then the whole fam went to Chuy's for their amazing Diet Coke, and some food. I don't take food pics- I take Diet Coke pics. I don't know what Chuy's does, but their soda is just better. 

 Per usual, Camille sucked creamy jalapeno dip (it is both delicious and spicy) off of chips for a while.

She also prettied James up with some desperately-needed lip gloss.

 The older girls happily colored some pictures.

 Elise and James had a stare down. Elise loves to joke with Uncle James. I have overheard her telling several friends about her Uncle James who can scream like a girl and his favorite color is brown. She thinks both of these facts are hilarious.

 That night we played on the golf course for a bit before bed. Camille was just looking too cute. Lots of pictures of her from this day. She did have to change her shirt after dinner due to a creamy jalapeno mess.

Just an old married couple

Fourth and final installment coming up....

Trip of the Summer 2

Sunday was only church (could 3 hours of church ever accurately be described as only?), a playground visit and some whiffle ball. I always enjoy going to the park at my elementary school, even though it is different equipment than when I attended.

 Will anyone ever tire of me posting blurry shots? Oh how I wish that picture on the right was clear. This slide is really fast. Camille was not prepared for the speed. 

 Papa spent a while playing soft toss with the kids in the backyard. Boston had a drought this summer. I don't think I have ever seen my parents grass dead in the summer. It was weird. 

The next morning we drove to the Providence Zoo.

Will and Lauren are much more knowledgeable about animals than my kids and they were great to educate us a bit. It has been a couple years since my girls went to the zoo.  We took a snack break by this huge tree that the biggest kids climbed. Then Lou and Lauren wanted to climb, but couldn't get up alone. Elise was definitely feeling some hostility in this picture.

Millie wandered over to this bounce house during the snack break and Nana made a big grandma mistake. She paid for Millie to have a turn. It took about 5 seconds for the rest of the kids to notice, so Nana paid for all 5 of them to have a turn. They all had fun but I had to climb onto it to get Camille off.

Camille really liked seeing the animals, when she could find them. Two-year-olds are pretty terrible at spotting things and describing and pointing out locations didn't seem to help much.

After naps that afternoon we went to Castle Island. It is this little island in the Boston Harbor with a beach and playground. Planes fly into Logan Airport right over it. 

More sand and water. The kids all wanted to be mermaids.

We ate dinner at the park and then played for a while.

 The kids ran around and explored the island a bit. There is an old military fortress built hundreds of years ago. When we went to see that at the top of the hill, we spotted this old ship sailing around the bay. Couldn't pass up the chance at this picture.

How John cousins eat ice cream, from oldest to youngest.

On Tuesday it was rainy again so we hung out around the house. I went running down to the Charles River.

  Goodness, I love this view, which was must less spectacular with the rain.

After lunch Carrie and I took the the older 4 kids to the Boston Science Museum. We used our AMSE passes to get in free. Otherwise the tickets were $25 for adults!

At first we didn't think there was a lot for the kids. The dinosaur exhibit was fun and then we attempted to attend the show on electricity. It was one of my favorite things as a kid. They have the world's largest Van de Graff generator, which is super loud and bright. Sadie freaked out right away, with Elise following shortly after. I took all the girls out while Will and Carrie watched the show.

 

We then made our way up to a bunch of kid-friendly activities. These magnet boards with colored chains could have kept the kids entertained for hours. 

 There were not just 1, but 2 different shadow rooms. One with music and colored shadows and the other with the flash that records your shadow on the wall.

 Elise laid on a bed of nails and told me she was playing dead for the picture.

 In the end we way underestimated how long we'd spend there and didn't bring much food. We finally forced the kids to leave at dinner time. We had lots of hanger on that ride home. We also had lots of traffic, which provided this gorgeous photo.

After dinner the kids helped Nana make some cookies, which is always a hit. 

Wednesday was another fun day. We went to Boston Common to visit the ducks and take a swan boat ride.

It is funny that when I was growing up in Boston we never did these things, but this is the second time I have taken my kids to the swan boats. It is super fun to do kid-focused tourist stuff in my hometown.

The swan boats are not super exciting, but our kids are great ages for it. It was very bright on our ride.

Super cute shot of the oldest John cousins

Following that we walked over to Frog Pond.

We spent more time on the playground than the pond, but both were fun.

We realized we needed to get lunch if we were going to have time for Carrie and her kids to get on their flight that afternoon. It was really nice to eat in the park.

The walk back to the car was as fun as usual with Millie the Menace. Elise wanted me to carry her, while Camille wanted to run away from me.

After the Johns left for Kansas City that afternoon I went to one of my favorite childhood parks, which we called the big slide park. It has 2 huge slides that run down the side of a hill.

My childhood friend Meredith met us there with her baby boy Logan. He is one adorable kid. I love that my friends from home are starting to have kids now too. It felt weird to realize Sadie and Elise are older than when I first met Meredith.

On this trip Camille started insisting on longer back rubs. I told her I would rub her back as long as she would close her eyes. She would pretend to sleep until I stopped rubbing her back. No matter how long I rubbed her back, she would open her eyes as soon as I stopped. Little booger. I sent this picture to Daniel on our last night.

The next morning the girls and I woke up bright and early to make our flight to Austin