Week 25 kicked off
wonderfully – still on vacation, still with our friends in town, and a week of
amazing times ahead of us! I mean, really, what could be better?!
Monday was our Stillwater
day! We were all up, one by one getting ready, and piled into the vehicles.
After a quick stop at Target for some picnicking goodies, we made the drive to
Stillwater. We spent the majority of our visit at Teddy Bear Park. The kids
played and played and played the day away. The oldest is probably quite beyond
the Teddy Bear Park age, but he helps the other kids play and does a little
cliff jumping still, so I don’t think he was too miserable. We had lunch, took
some pictures and hung out for a while. After we had all sufficiently played,
we made our way down into town for a bit. Dawn did some main street shopping
while the rest of us hung out by the river for a while. We watched the bridge,
dipped our toes in the high river and walked along the boardwalk. Finally, we
all met back up at the vehicles, and hit up the Ice Cream parlor on our way out
of town. Nelson’s Ice Cream – so cheap, and you get WAY too much ice cream. It
wasn’t super busy, but you don’t ever just get in and out. We sat, sugared up,
chatted...Eliza bounced from one of us to another, making sure to get a taste
of everybody’s ice cream. Smart girl! Such a fun day. Finally, we hit the road,
back home. Of course, it was rush hour, but luckily traffic wasn’t too
horrible. We got the girls ready and were off to base/softball, while Eliza
stayed home with our friends. They made dinner and hung out, we all sat around
and ate when we arrived home, and then settled in for the night. Whenever our
friends are here, we end the night watching a few episodes of the last season
of “The Walking Dead”. They don’t have cable either, so they have to wait for
Netflix to release the season. So, instead, they just watch it while they’re
visiting. It’s become a quirky little tradition of their visits.
On Tuesday, everybody
was up bright and early. We all showered, ate, got ready, and we were off for
the day’s event. Tuesday was Valleyfair day! Valleyfair is basically our
equivalent to a Six Flags. Christian doesn’t do rides, and with the girls being
so young we haven’t taken them, so I haven’t been to Valleyfair probably since
I was in high school! I was so excited for the day, especially because we were
going with our friends and I would actually have people to ride the rides
with…and, they have a nice new waterpark and a pretty big area for the smaller
kids now, so there was going to be plenty of things for everybody to do. Then,
of course, just my luck – I was hit with a monster migraine. On Valleyfair Day,
pretty much the worst thing possible. Between the ride noise, the music, the
screaming, the sun, the heat, it was just terrible. I took a few doses of
Excedrin and drank lots of liquids, eventually pretty much getting rid of it, but not before it pretty much
ruined by day. I went on 2 rides with Olivia, played in the waterpark for a
while, and spent the rest of the day watching everybody else have fun. SERIOUS
bummer! Hopefully we go back next year, and hopefully I’m feeling better! Even
though my day wasn’t too great, the girls had such a blast. In the end, that’s
all that really matters. They went on every ride they possibly could, they each
went on a bigger ride, and Olivia went on a rollercoaster. They were beyond
excited. By the time we got to the waterpark, it had gotten a little chilly
out, so that wasn’t so much fun. The big girls still had fun, playing in the
wave pool and going down the lazy river, but Eliza did not want anything to do
with it, so she and I lounged while everybody else played. She is nowhere near
the waterbaby the other two were, that’s for sure. We ate lunch there amidst
the riding fun, and then hit the road when it started to rain a little bit. In
the end, we were there for about 8 hours, so that’s not too shabby! We picked
up some dinner on the way home and were all pretty exhausted by the time we
settled in. The kids were off to bed, one by one and we continued our Walking
Dead marathon to end the day.
Wednesday was a bit
more low key. We got off to a slower start, but once everybody was up, ready
and fed, we were off. We stopped at the Mall of America, just to take our
annual photo and have some lunch. After that pit stop, we were on our way to
play some mini-golf with some groupons we purchased. Of course, as soon as we
arrived there it started raining. UGH, just our luck! We waited it out for a
bit, but it was obvious that the rain was not going to let up. So, off we went.
We had the dad’s drop us off at IKEA to do our annual IKEA shopping. They don’t
have an IKEA nearby, so she always has a list of things to snatch up before
they head home. Of course, I always find a few things while we’re there as
well. Once we finished up, the guys came by to drop off a car to us, while the
teenager watched the kids, and we stopped back across the street at the Mall of
America to do a little shopping. Minnesota doesn’t have a sales tax on clothes,
and there were some pretty good sales going on, so she did some back to school
shopping while we were there. I needed to get the girls some summer clothes,
but just couldn’t find too much. I did get a couple pairs of shorts for Olivia
and a shirt for each of the girls, but that’s it. I spent the day awaiting some
ball cancellation e-mails because of the rain, but they never did show u. So,
we had to cut our shopping trip short and head home. We got the big girls ready
and were off to their games…again, Eliza stayed home with our friends and they
made dinner (I could get used to that!). Again, we settled in back at home, had
dinner, sent the kids off to bed shortly after and watched our show. It was
becoming painfully obvious just how fast this week was going, and you can only
block that harsh truth for so long…
Thursday was a
pretty fun day. Like yesterday, we slowly got up, fed and ready for the day,
one by one. We packed up another picnic, stopping at Walmart for a few final
necessities, then spent the day in Bloomington at Hyland Park. It was a HOT,
HOT day out there too! We had lunch and then let the kids loose in the park.
They ran, they swung, they climbed, they ran through the misters. They were hot
and sweaty and beyond exhausted by the time we wrangled them in and piled back
into the vehicles. I swear, we always seem to pick the hottest day of their
visit to go to Hyland! Eliza started getting pretty crabby today. She had been
doing SOOOOOO well all week. Hanging out in her stroller, watching everybody
else having fun, not a care in the world. Today though, she was not having any
of it. She’s developing a BAD rash and seems to be teething pretty badly. My
poor baby, I seriously hate teething with a passion! She took a snooze on the
way home, which took longer than it should because we hit the start of rush
hour (in the worst area of the city, of course). Once home, we gave the girls
baths, cleaned them up and got them ready….tonight Dawn was taking our annual photos.
This year we just wanted pictures of the girls, so we skipped the family
photos. Christian stayed home with the boys and Dawn brought her little girls,
Brooklyn, with so she could snap a few pictures of her. I found out that the
Landscape Arboretum had free admission on Thursday evenings, so I thought that
would be a great place to do them. Of course, as I mentioned, it was SO hot
today, and that continued, so it was pretty miserable trying to keep up with
the girls and get them to cooperate. And, to that point, they really did not
cooperate AT ALL! I expected Eliza to be a little difficult. She’s a baby for
goodness sakes. But the other two were making me so angry. Olivia was making
the most God awful faces I’ve ever seen in my life – she wouldn’t give a real
smile, kept sticking her tongue through the hole in her teeth and just wouldn’t
listen. Amelia REFUSED to smile, complaining that she didn’t feel good – even
though she was perfectly fine, all day long. Eliza was all over the place and
would literally do the opposite of everything you tried to get her to do. Dawn
was of course quite patient with them, but we were both pretty much at our wits
end by the end of the session. I’m sure she’ll be able to put together plenty
of wonderful final products for us, but how frustrating! By the time we got
back to the van and loaded in, we were all so hot and sweaty and just plan
exhausted. ICK!!! While we were gone, the boys did start setting up the pool,
and it should be done tomorrow, so the girls will be pretty excited about that.
We picked up dinner on our way home and settled in for the night. Dawn got
right to editing, in hopes of finishing up before she leaves on Sunday, so she
was basically set to be stuck to her computer the rest of their visit. What an
exhausting, sweaty day!!
Years ago I captured the picture below, on the left. It was perfect timing, and one of my all time favorite pictures. I had them recreate it to today. Love!
Friday was a pretty
slow day. Which, was really quite perfect. We were all running in slow motion,
all morning long. The Dad’s ran to Walmart for some pool chemicals and cleaning
supplies while the rest of us got ready for the day. Finally, we were off to do
some family bowling with another groupon that we purchased. We bowled, ate some
lunch and hung out for a while. Again, Eliza was pretty crabby and miserable,
which gets pretty frustrating, but the other two really had a blast bowling.
They used to get bored pretty quickly when we’d go bowling, but they actually
seemed quite interested this time around. Once our time was up, we made our way
back home for the night. We finished filling the pool and the dad’s started
putting up the shed! That was super exciting – I had no idea when we’d actually
get around to that, so YAY! Tim loves to build stuff, so he was pretty much in
heaven, and basically took that task over while Christian finished up the pool.
Of course, the kids immediately jumped in, even though it wasn’t anywhere near
warm. Crazy kids!!! Meanwhile, I hung out with the cranky baby, got her down
for a nap and did a little cleaning up. Dawn worked on some editing and we
watched some TV. We ended up having a bonfire and some s’mores before bed…which
was pretty much derailed when we realized that Chuy had gotten out and ran
away. Christian took off to find him and Eliza finally reached her crabby
limit, and I had to give up and head inside. I sent the big girls to bed and
finally got Eliza to calm down and fall asleep. We’ve had a couple of
frustrating evenings here, and I’m hoping they don’t last too much longer!
Saturday…oh
Saturday. Our final day with our friends. So sad, so frustrating, so unfair.
But, we made the most of it. We were going to take another stab at using our
minigolf groupons, but we decided to just stay home for the entire day and hang
out together. Have a much needed lazy day. The Dad’s finished putting the shed
together and ran to Walmart to get some groceries. Dawn finished editing our
photos – YAY! And, sure enough we did get quite a few wonderful shots – YAY!
Their oldest, Christian, was rocking the teenager attitude today…he hid
downstairs by himself most of the day, while all of the younger kids played outside,
and was quite snippy with his parents most of the day. I was getting
flashforwards to our future with the girls. With the attitude we already get
from them, I cannot even begin to fathom what it’s going to be like when they
hit their teens. *Shudder* We had pizza for lunch and Christian made a big
taquito dinner. YUMMMMMO! So good. After dinner and cleaning up, our friends
started to do some packing and loading up some of their stuff in their car.
Finally, we settled in for another fire and relaxed for a while before bed
(well, once we finally got the crabby baby to bed). We finished off The Walking
Dead and enjoyed our final evening of hanging out, relaxing together. Of
course, we stretched the day out for as long as we possibly could, but eventually
had to give in and head to bed. So, so sad.
Sunday was a
double-edged sword. It was Father’s Day, so YAY for dad’s, but we also had to
say goodbye to our friends. We were all up getting ready for the day, they
finished packing up all of their stuff, and then we talked them into hanging
out for a little bit longer, and hitting up Perkin’s for breakfast before they
hit the road. So, off we went, to take up too much space in the packed
restaurant! We ate, laughed, chatted, and choked back a tear or two, before
finally saying goodbye. I’m pretty tough…I don’t get really sentimental or
emotional, and I surely don’t show those emotions too often, but it eventually
catches up to me. I know some people think it’s dramatic, or strange to get so
emotional over our friends heading home, but it’s really hard. Dawn and I both
have limited family (that we actually see and talk to anyway), and not many “in
real life” friends that we can depend on and spend time with. For me, I
constantly feel like a 3rd wheel to Christian and his friends, if
not just completely left out while he goes out and has fun with his friends.
I’m left at home on my own, or taking care of the girls, and just really never
get quality time with any of my friends. My relationship with most of my
friends is pretty strained (somewhat normal for moms, I think), and, in my
opinion, became so one-sided years ago that I have just thrown in the towel and
decided I wasn’t going to be the one to always call, always text, always try to
set up a time to hang out. I just couldn’t be that pathetic person begging
people to hang out with me anymore. Usually, it doesn’t bother me…I relax at
home, I play with the kids, I get plenty of quiet time to myself…but, I do get
lonely sometimes. SOOOOO, when our friends are here for their visit, I finally
feel like I have somebody to hang out with, somebody to talk to, somebody who
actually wants to spend time with me. Then they leave, which is sad enough on
its own, and I’m flooded with those lonely feelings again. Which sucks. Ugh!
Alas, life must go on. After leaving breakfast, we stopped at Walmart to pick
up some groceries and settled in back at home. Eliza napped, Christian cleaned
up the garage and the big girls played outside. Christian’s parents and the
girls’ BFF Bella and her Dad came over to grill and do a little Father’s Day celebrating
(my dad is always out of town over Father’s Day, so we don’t really get
together). The girls swam and we all relaxed and hung out for a while.
Eventually, I retreated back indoors to work on some laundry and relax. Eliza’s
rash was still pretty bad, but she was in a MUCH better mood tonight, so
hopefully we’re on the upswing. Tomorrow it will really be back to reality…work,
daycare, and our lives will become MUCH quieter again. It’s strange settling
back into a house of 5 vs. 10!
Christian's Past Fathers Days
Last Day. Tear!
Until Next Week! XOXO
