Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Had To Get Away (Vacation Part 2)
I love my cousins. When I was a kid and my cousins from the Pacific Northwest would come into town, my excitement would skyrocket to spaztic proportions. My kids are no different. As an only child, there are no first cousins on my side of the family for K & J. We have wonderful cousins on my side, but we don't see them often enough. Mike however, has five younger brothers. And because it took us three million years after we got married to get around to making actual babies, the girls have cousins that are older than them as well as a host of younger rug rats as well. And just like their mama AND daddy, they worship their cousins. Especially Cayden who is one year to the day older and a boy and knows how to climb up on stuff super high and jump and will happily always agree to be the "monster" and allow them to permanently play the role of princess/puppy/kitty/cheerleader/dancer etc. (I would like to point out that I encourage my daughters to also pretend playing CEO, star athlete, corporate tycoon etc. Katie told me when being CEO means she can wear glitter and sparkles and pink lip gloss she'll think about it. I told her that a CEO could wear glitter and sparkles just not during work hours. So far, it's not catching on and we remain a heavily populated princess household) ANYWAY, cousins are the coolioest. And so is elk hunting with brothers apparently blah blah blah. So our travel savvy foursome found ourselves driving East to the lovely (?) state of Utah where Mike's brother Chuck, my rad SIL Amber and the aforementioned Cayden (aka the super hero), his 3 year old sister Emma and my new little bitty beautiful niece Gracie lives.
Mike ditched us and went up the mountain to go elk hunting with his brothers and Dad. They watched conference, the Steelers game, blah, blah, cold, snow storm, blah, full moon, blah, too cold and bright to produce good hunting, blah and blah and then he came back to Chuck and Amber's. Meanwhile, Amber and the kids, my other SIL Faith (married to Ken living in North Carolina) and her daughters Sariah and Chloe, my MIL Marilyn and my entourage spent four happy days hanging out and doing things geared to the awesomeness that IS cousin time. Basically, they ran around Amber's house destroying it and screaming in delight. We attempted to tire them out at the bouncy place but their energy knew no bounds. We went to the Mayan and watched the cliff divers, the girls went to preschool and ballet class with Emma one day, we cooked and hung out and lunched at delicious Bajio and Blue Lemon. I cooked my Julia Child chicken. We laughed and went to Rodizio and got caramels from Trolley Square and just hung out. Amber let me drive the whole time because you know...my freakishness? I was thankful and relieved. Mike came back from hunting early because it was so cold so we got to spend time with the boys as well. Funtastically fun. We had the best road trip and we rocked out to my new stereo in which you can plug an IPOD. 2,000 + songs of rocking out and singing at the very toppest of our lungs.
Great times with my great little family. We have fun together for which I am the most thankful of all.
Mike ditched us and went up the mountain to go elk hunting with his brothers and Dad. They watched conference, the Steelers game, blah, blah, cold, snow storm, blah, full moon, blah, too cold and bright to produce good hunting, blah and blah and then he came back to Chuck and Amber's. Meanwhile, Amber and the kids, my other SIL Faith (married to Ken living in North Carolina) and her daughters Sariah and Chloe, my MIL Marilyn and my entourage spent four happy days hanging out and doing things geared to the awesomeness that IS cousin time. Basically, they ran around Amber's house destroying it and screaming in delight. We attempted to tire them out at the bouncy place but their energy knew no bounds. We went to the Mayan and watched the cliff divers, the girls went to preschool and ballet class with Emma one day, we cooked and hung out and lunched at delicious Bajio and Blue Lemon. I cooked my Julia Child chicken. We laughed and went to Rodizio and got caramels from Trolley Square and just hung out. Amber let me drive the whole time because you know...my freakishness? I was thankful and relieved. Mike came back from hunting early because it was so cold so we got to spend time with the boys as well. Funtastically fun. We had the best road trip and we rocked out to my new stereo in which you can plug an IPOD. 2,000 + songs of rocking out and singing at the very toppest of our lungs.
Great times with my great little family. We have fun together for which I am the most thankful of all.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
All I Ever Wanted...(Vacation Part 1)
Well ya'all, it's been a while since I posted. We have been a busy little foursome, coming and going to various parts of the country. South Carolina was first on our list in late September. We boarded a plane in San Francisco, a red eye all night flight if you were wondering, and jetted our way to the East Coast landing in Jacksonville. Our vacation was in Charleston, SC. Oh...Jacksonville isn't near there you say? Don't worry, we rented a van and drove and drove and drove after flying ALL NIGHT with two 4 year olds until at last we arrived at our beautiful vacation beach house on Isle of Palms in South Carolina. I did not make these crazy travel arrangements. My darling husband, El Cheapo, planned out our itinerary. Apparently he saved a lot of money by turning us into Zombies. I called our travel plans "The Meeker Family Vacation - Vampire Edition" because all of our travel was at night. I'm funny that way.
Anyhoo, we joined wonderful, amazing, kind, funny and generous friends from Mike's residency. There were five families in all. Matt, the fun single friend who is stationed in SC and was our coordinator and hostess with the mostest, Amelia and her baby boy Nathan (too cute) who was without her husband Dustin due to him being deployed in the desert (suck), Teresa and Aaron and their two darling little girls and Brent and Ingrid with their two little girls. It was a little girl festival plus one baby boy. We had this awesome and huge beach house with a pool, spa, plenty of room, a huge kitchen and entertaining area just a block from the coolest family beach with warm water, loads of seashells, perfect sand for castle making and little waves that were just the right size to gently knock over 4 year olds and produce squeals of laughter.
We got babysitters two nights of our trip and got to go out as adults which was so so so fun. We took a two hour walking tour of Charleston which was so amazing and then dined on fabulous seafood. Then, another night we went out for French food (yum) and enjoyed dessert on the roof of a historic hotel overlooking the harbor and lights of the city. Mike and I made fajitas one night and we hung out and visited. All of the boys played golf one day and the girls went to the spa the next day for massages and pedicures. We got to spend lots of time playing with the girls and they just had a blast swimming, going to the beach, doing art and playing with the other kids. Brent cooked an amazing breakfast, Matt's sister (the artist) did a painting class and art show with the kids and we loved the humid weather and heat.
It was a perfect vacation balanced with grown up time, family time, girl time, guy time and reconnecting with friends that we love and shared the hardest three years of our lives with. After too short of a visit, we drove and drove and drove again to Jacksonville, boarded a plane and flew to San Francisco where we stayed in a hotel until the morning and drove home.
The girls were amazing travelers. They slept on the plane rides and were happy the whole time and loved making new friends and getting time with the 4 of us. They decided they LOVE vacation time.
Stay tuned for vacation part 2 where we go to Utah!
Anyhoo, we joined wonderful, amazing, kind, funny and generous friends from Mike's residency. There were five families in all. Matt, the fun single friend who is stationed in SC and was our coordinator and hostess with the mostest, Amelia and her baby boy Nathan (too cute) who was without her husband Dustin due to him being deployed in the desert (suck), Teresa and Aaron and their two darling little girls and Brent and Ingrid with their two little girls. It was a little girl festival plus one baby boy. We had this awesome and huge beach house with a pool, spa, plenty of room, a huge kitchen and entertaining area just a block from the coolest family beach with warm water, loads of seashells, perfect sand for castle making and little waves that were just the right size to gently knock over 4 year olds and produce squeals of laughter.
We got babysitters two nights of our trip and got to go out as adults which was so so so fun. We took a two hour walking tour of Charleston which was so amazing and then dined on fabulous seafood. Then, another night we went out for French food (yum) and enjoyed dessert on the roof of a historic hotel overlooking the harbor and lights of the city. Mike and I made fajitas one night and we hung out and visited. All of the boys played golf one day and the girls went to the spa the next day for massages and pedicures. We got to spend lots of time playing with the girls and they just had a blast swimming, going to the beach, doing art and playing with the other kids. Brent cooked an amazing breakfast, Matt's sister (the artist) did a painting class and art show with the kids and we loved the humid weather and heat.
It was a perfect vacation balanced with grown up time, family time, girl time, guy time and reconnecting with friends that we love and shared the hardest three years of our lives with. After too short of a visit, we drove and drove and drove again to Jacksonville, boarded a plane and flew to San Francisco where we stayed in a hotel until the morning and drove home.
The girls were amazing travelers. They slept on the plane rides and were happy the whole time and loved making new friends and getting time with the 4 of us. They decided they LOVE vacation time.
Stay tuned for vacation part 2 where we go to Utah!
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