Our Visit To Texas

About a week after we got back from our San Francisco trip,  we left for a month long vacation. Our first stop was the great state of Texas to visit my family. My mom had already left for her summer in Minnesota but my dad and grandparents were all there for us to visit. 

No one in my family knew that I was pregnant, much less 8 months pregnant, so it was a whole lot of fun surprising everyone!

Poor Mason. He is a terrible car traveler.

 He doesn't sleep and if he does it is for about 20 minutes and he wakes up screaming and continues screaming for the next hour or so. If he is in the car for more than 30 minutes he tells us "I all done!" for the whole rest of the trip. It's lovely :)

Also, it's not a road trip unless someone throws up. Anyone else have that same issue?! Sweet Ellie got sick and threw up  somewhere in the middle of west Texas. Luckily I have cat like reflexes and caught it all in bag... that could have been one miserable road trip had I not. 

We made it after two long days in the car and thoroughly surprised my grandparents first, and then after my dad with my big ole belly. My grandpa was the best though. Neither of them really noticed my shirt I had made or the belly since they were playing with our kids but when they finally

 did grandpa said, " I just thought you had gained some weight! I thought you looked good!" Ha!

The day after we arrived, we went to my 10 year high school reunion. My friend, Alicia and I had been joking with each other in the weeks prior to the reunion about showing up in matching athletic shirts and shorts since that's probably how most people would remember us anyways (we played sports together). So when I went to pick her up at her house, we both busted out laughing that we were basically wearing the same thing and totally did NOT plan it. 

So here we are in our semi matching attire in front of the venue. I love this girl! It was soooo fun getting to hang out with her for the 2 weeks we were there. 

We had at least one activity planned everyday we were there so we kept busy playing with friends. The kids loved the Spar Water Park in Sulfur, Louisiana. It is so nice that Ethan is old enough, and a good enough swimmer, that he just ran off and played with the bigger kids and rode the slides, so I could focus on keeping the littles from drowning. :)

My friend, Brittany's little girl made sure she was part of the picture too. She is so cute!

Alicia, Kayla and I took all our kids to Kayla's parents lake house on Sam Rayburn Lake for a few days. We had 7 kids all together and 6 of them were 4 and under. It was pretty chaotic but of so fun!

Alicia and her two kiddos rode with us on the way home and like I said, it's not a road trip unless someone throws up! Her sweet little Avery threw up all over herself and the car seat. And it smelled so bad. Ethan was dry heaving in the back. Luckily, we had a whole lot of water bottles in the back that Alicia used to clean it up as well as she could on the side of the road. We had to ride with the windows for the next 2 hours to keep the other kids from complaining (or in Ethan's case, throwing up himself). We had a pretty good laugh at the craziness of it all!

We spent lots of time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Sims and tried to eat lunch over there everyday. They are such sweet people. 

It's not a trip to Vidor unless I get to play some volleyball with a few of my old high school buddies

We had planned to go to the Safety Fair at Claiborne Park one day so I packed up the kids, and hauled them all there pushing a big old stroller with already tired and whiny kids. I swear it was at least a million degrees  with at least a million percent of humidity. By the time we walked from the parking lot to the fair, I was completely drenched in sweat. I'm sure I was a sight to behold.  

The kids got their face painted, 

and Mason got his arm painted with a Texas flag, 

and then about 5 minutes after this picture below, Ethan ran to a trash can and threw up. I felt so bad for him. So after a total of 15 minutes there, we trekked all the way back to the car, sweating bullets,  and headed home. Oh well. It was worth a try, right?!

When Ethan was throwing up, I was amazed at all the kind people who brought over water bottles, ice packs, misters, etc. to try to help. I just love southern hospitality. I really miss that out here in the west. The people are nice here but it's just not quite the same. 

Dad came to all the activities we had planned that he could. He was quite the trooper to hang around with us! He went to the Kids Fest Fair with us and bought us all tickets to the circus! What a good grandpa, right?!

The kids LOVED the circus! Well, except Mason who cried the whole time because he was exhausted. But he eventually fell asleep about half way through. He would have loved it though. 

They especially really liked the pre show activities and even got to participate in quite a few!

Behold the most expensive popcorn I've ever bought. I figured it was about the experience rather than the money. 

This was after the show on our way out. The kids were seriously the perfect ages for the circus. I was actually really impressed with it myself!

I should probably mention that Justin was gone the whole 2 weeks we were there. We dropped him off at the Houston airport to do his work travel thing. 

Don't feel too bad for him. He went to places like this....

Yeah I know. Rough right? :) He traveled to Rome, Spain and Croatia. I had to laugh when he sent me this in an email, "I am so jealous you are going on an exotic vacation [to Sam Rayburn lake] without me, while I am stuck in Europe."  

What's funny is that he probably wasn't kidding. He probably would've rather been with us :) That's how you know you travel a lot.  

I was lucky enough to go out to lunch with my dear friend, Jamie, sans kids! Thanks dad!

The second week we were there, it rained pretty much the whole week. All day, every day. At first the kids were so excited to play in the rain, since we don't get a lot of it here in the Phoenix area. 

But after a day or so, they were sick of it! They couldn't go outside and play and it foiled some of our fun plans for that week. Welcome to Southeast Texas!

On one of those rainy days though, Alicia and I took the kids to the Bounce Zone for a few hours. 

Great grandma and grandpa Sims took us to Sams Club and royally spoiled our kids. They got so many books and fun things for them and then topped it off with gigantic ice cream cups for each one. Our kids were in heaven. 

Grandpa loved feeding Mason his ice cream and Mason was a happy and eager recipient. 

These pictures below are out of order, they are mostly from the first week we were there but right now it is too much effort for me to move them all.

My dad rebuilt this super awesome go kart for Ethan and Ellie to drive around out back. How awesome is this?!

They LOVED it! Luckily my dad put a governor on it to stop it from going super fast so it was definitely kid friendly.  

Mason wanted to be outside all day, everyday. He loved the kitties, the dogs, the grass, the dirt, everything. He did not love the mosquitoes so much though. 

He especially loved the dogs..

Ellie and Mason loved helping grandpa out with the chores everyday. They would help him feed the kitties and gather up the eggs from the chicken coop. 

There were sometimes just a few casualties with the eggs. 

The end of our 2 week stay in Vidor came and it is always hard to say good bye to these two very special people. I'm so glad that my kids are getting the opportunity to know them. 

I had to include this picture below... I just love everyones faces...even Ethan's :)

My dad was a super trooper to drive this crazy fun filled van all the way up to Minnesota (about a 19 hour drive!). Justin was flying in to Sioux Falls, South Dakota from Europe so my dad helped us travel up there. Luckily the kids didn't do too bad. It could've been much worse. 

Coming up, our week stay in Minnesota!