Weekend in MD

Last weekend, the kids and I took a trip to MD to visit and attend a reunion at the pool I grew up going to. It was a great trip with a very rocky ending.

We left last Thursday morning - Waylon stayed home a little longer in the morning to help us get out and the trip was amazing. The kids were perfect the whole way. I was a little nervous about travelling with them by myself but they were great. Having the DVD player in the van really helps out with Noah but Kylie was great, too. When we were about a 1/2 hour away, Noah said, with a big sigh, 'We're never going to get there.'

We arrived around 3:30 or so and visited with Grammy and Papa for a while before Aunt Leah arrived.... this first picture is a good snapshot of the weekend. Noah and Leah were buddies!! When she walked in, he went running into her arms, so excited to see her. :-)





Shortly thereafter, the Normans (our good family friends) came over for dinner and (another!) birthday party for Noah. Since my parents didn't get to come to Noah's birthday party down here, they threw him one there! :-) My mom got a cookie cake and decorated it with the characters from Toy Story 3. He was excited.



Max was born just a few weeks after Kylie! Adorable!



Noah and Papa playing with his new truck.



My mom got Jill (Max's mom) a push toy and Noah loved the box. Papa pretended to 'deliver' him to us. :-)

Max and Kylie

Some of the 'kids'.... Dan, Diane, Jill, Max, Noah, me, Kylie

(Katie, Keto, Waylon and Leah are missing from this shot)

Friday we had a relaxing morning at the house and just played outside in the water - it's been so hot!!!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this shot of Kylie.

Leah got in on the sprinkler action.

Kylie had fun watching

A cute one of Noah - our kids are pretty darn adorable, huh?? :-)

:-)

That afternon, my friend Tina came to visit with her 'new' baby Ethan. It was so nice to meet Ethan and catch up with Tina also.

I love this picture of Grammy and Noah - looking at pictures on the computer. Grammy's back has been out since we went to the beach. She's feeling better but found out this week that she has a herniated disc. We are hoping she'll keep feeling better.

Kylie started eating a lot more 'real' table food while we were there. She really likes it!

Friday night was so fun! I left the kids with my parents for the night and went down to my sister's place in Georgetown. I got to meet a few of her friends and it was lots of fun!

While we were gone, my parents had lots of fun with the kids!

Leah and I got back around lunchtime and relaxed at the house for a bit before the reunion at the pool.

Leah downloaded some games for Noah on her iPhone and he had a blast playing them.

Noah never took a nap that afternoon and I didn't push it cause we left for the pool around 3:15 or so. It was so nice to see so many old friends. I think pretty much every day of my summers from age 11-19 were spent at this pool. I played there, swam on the swim team there, and worked there. Here are some of the people who were at the reunion. Everyone had so much fun and we already have plans to make next year bigger and better.

The kids loved the pool and we hope to be able to go more when we visit.

It was surreal sitting in the baby pool with Katie and Brian. I played here with them growing up and here we are with our kids!!! Crazy.

Katie and Abbey with Kylie - Abbey showed up in the same bathing suit as Kylie! It was so funny! Katie and I were inseperable in middle school so it makes sense that we chose the same bathing suit. :-)

Although Noah loves the water, we've had some trouble getting him to put his head under and jumping in. Out of the blue, he decided he wanted to 'swim' in the baby pool! He dove under over and over again. It was great!!! He'd go under and then jump up and wipe/smack his face. :-) He was very proud.

He also wanted to go down the slide - this is in the 12 feet deep water! He wanted to go off the diving board but I talked him out of that. It would have been hard to 'catch' him. Maybe next time we'll try that.

Both kids were exhausted. Here is Kylie playing with my necklace. She does this a lot and I love it cause it's the necklace that Waylon got me for Christmas that has a charm for each one of my kids.

This was hilarious. When we were leaving the pool, I put Noah in the car and we stopped to talk to a few people before leaving. When I walked back to the car, he was asleep - before I had even turned the car on!! I carried him inside and into his bed, took off his bathing suit and put on his pajamas without him even waking up!!! He was exhausted and it was only 7:00.

Sunday was another nice day at the house - after a quick trip to Target and Toys R Us. My mom couldn't resist shopping for a few things for the kids! My friend Ali came to visit after we got back - I didn't get any pictures of her with us!! :-( She's getting married in October so it was fun to catch up and hear about all the plans.

My mom got Kylie this new toy - she can eithet sit on it or push it and she's getting really good at taking steps behind it. It won't be long!!!!

Some other cute pictures from the day. Katie came back by that afternoon to catch up a little more and it was really nice.

Noah and Kylie are really starting to play together - which is good and bad! They are having fun but Noah is starting to get frustrated when she takes his toys or tries to play with what he's playing with! :-)

I like this picture also... she's sitting on the chair I used to sit on when I was little. Here is Noah sitting in the same chair when he was just a little older than Kylie now.

Saying goodbye to Aunt Leah

More playing. :-) Kylie just thinks Noah is the funniest thing in the world!

Love this one of Grammy and Noah!

Now... the trip home. My car started acting up on Sunday so before we left Monday morning, my dad took it in to his mechanic. There were some problems but the mechanic thought it would be fine to drive home... apparently not. It was already a pretty long drive. We left around 10:30 or so, stopped for lunch around noon and had to stop again for a potty break around 3:30 or so. It was already a slow trip and when we got back on the road, we hit some bad traffic. I had to wait almost an hour just to get off the exit to find a detour. When I finally made it around the traffic, the car started acting up again. I managed to drive it a little father but when I was about an hour from home, it overheated and I had to pull off. I made it off the exit but there was no place to stop so we were stranded on the side of the road.

Waylon immediately jumped in the car to come get us and the highway patrol came out to stay with us until he got there. By the time a tow truck got there and we were able to leave, we had been waiting for 2 hours (and still had an hour to drive home!). I gave Noah any snacks I could find in the car but no real dinner and Kylie just had 1/2 of what she normally eats for dinner but some extra formula. Then the tow truck driver said he had to follow us to the dealership where we had it towed so we had to go over there to drop it off. Poor Noah didn't have 'real' dinner (if you call a McDonald's hamburger eaten in the car 'real') until after 9:15!!! We finally made it home and got the kids in bed around 9:30.

Every day my kids amaze me but that day, they blew me out of the water. They were so good and patient and well behaved. They were both done with the day by the end but still so good - it was an 11 hour trip when all was said and done. I think that's a record...

Despite the ending, it was a really great weekend!! Thanks everyone for making it great.