Summer Adventures 3

For the sake of going in chronological order: Andrew finally got a new pair of shoes. I never see him when he's wearing these so I didn't realize how worn out they were and he's not the kind of person to say anything about it. They were so sad looking when they finally got to retire.

At the end of July, we headed to Spokane to visit Wilson and Co. Since the drive is over 14 hours with no stops, we decided to take a detour on the way up by going to Lassen Volcanic National Park and spend a solid two days driving up. It was an AWESOME detour. The visitors' center was super cool and had fun things for the kids. We walked and drove through some beautiful views, got to slide down a hill covered in snow, and play in Helen Lake. We also saw some mud that was boiling so rapidly it looked ready for the pasta to be added.

All set for the many many hours of driving ahead

Yup, that's a big ol' pregnant belly. Glenn baby number 3 is on the way! (Hence the acquiring of a minivan.)

Lake Helen was gorgeous!

On the way out, Matthew threw up from all the winding roads and change in elevation. It wasn't that much and we just cleaned him up as much as we could then kept going. Just before we got to our dinner stop, he threw up big time and got it all over his zebra and blanket that he sleeps with. I had to wash them in the sink at chipotle and hang them in the windows to dry. It was nasty, but we needed those to make it through the whole day of driving the next day. Because we took longer in Lassen than we had planned, and all the extra stopping for throw up, we had to stop 2 hours short of the town we were aiming for. I called around and found a hotel with a vacancy and a crib for Matthew. When we got there, around 10 or 11, they gave us a pack n play with no pad/mattress for Matthew's crib. Uhhh.... he can't sleep on top of these metal rods. They looked for the mattress but couldn't find it so we ended up padding it with a whole bed's worth of extra blankets. Luckily he was so deeply asleep that I changed his diaper and put on his PJs without him waking up, so I think he was too tired to notice.

The next day it was really sad when we finally got to where we'd intended to stay the night before and it was 10am. It should've been 8 when we left there! Oh well, the rest of the drive wasn't too bad, but we were all pretty restless and ready to be there.

We were so excited to arrive! The kids ran around and played with Nate and his toys. Amy was very thoughtful and fed us grilled chicken, fruit, and salad which was a welcome change from having car food for two days. We bathed the kids and put them to bed while we stayed up and chatted a bit too late.

Saturday we went to the base to play on blow up slide/jump things. They don't have open jump on Saturday, so we couldn't do that, but luckily there was an awesome playground and the kids didn't care at all about the change of plans. They played their hearts out until it was time to go home for lunch and naps. The grown ups chatted during naptime (well, Andrew slept) and then Wilson got home! He'd been off doing some training. After the kids all woke up, we played in the backyard, watched Abby do tricks, and played with bubbles. Then we went to Cafe Rio for dinner and I felt like I was in heaven. I miss Cafe Rio so much. Those tortillas?? Yummmmm We stopped at the pet store to get some treats for Abby since she had to spend so much time outside while I was around (Sorry, Abbs) and the kids had a blast checking out all the different pets. Then we played games (anomia, farkle, a card game that I don't remember the name of) and Wilson and Amy did a late night run to Coldstone for all of us. Delicious!

They have 11 o'clock church, so we got to have a nice, slow morning. Adaline and Matthew had so much fun in nursery. At one point I stopped by to check on Adaline and she did NOT want to be torn away from the song/activity they were doing. She was super engaged. Adaline got to hang out with the grown ups for nap time because 2:30/3 is a little late for her to be going down for a nap. She did surprisingly well and I was pleased with my decision. More games for the grown ups plus brownie cupcakes once the kids went to bed.

His tired face makes me laugh

On Monday we went to a great (heated!) swimming pool with a fun lazy river and a play area with slides/etc. After lunch and naps, Nate woke up feeling sick. Poor guy.  We still went to Riverfront park like we'd planned, we just left a little later. We played on the slide and rode the carousel with the Reeves, then they headed home to start dinner and get Nate to bed. We took a couple more spins on the carousel, got a snocone, walked over to the waterfalls, then came home for pizza. While Andrew and I put our kids to bed, Amy and Wilson got us all Twix frosties (!) and we played games, of course.

This picture makes me laugh. Wilson and I are chatting while playing with the little ones, Adaline is in the background playing on the play structure/in the fountain, and Andrew is watching her, but looks like he is just creepily lounging on his stomach in the kiddie pool.

Cousins causing mischief together. It was so fun to watch them play. When you're only 6 days apart, you have to be best friends.

She's starting to be less shy and makes friends everywhere she goes.

Matthew hated the carousel the first time-it went way to fast for him and he didn't like his horse going up and down. We sat out for the next round, but then I remembered that there are stationary animals too, so he rode that the next time and loved it.

We haven't found any snocones where we live so this tasted like Heaven! 

Haha she really didn't want her picture taken.

Tuesday-Nate still wasn't doing well so the Glenns ventured to the Children's museum on our own. We got there just before it opened and it's in a mall so we walked around a little bit. Adaline and Matthew were both in such good moods and being silly running around and copying each other. It was one of those great moments where we just kept thinking about how awesome they are and how lucky we are to have them in our family. The museum was amazing and had a million fun things to play with. There were more than a couple times that I found myself playing with the stuff myself while the kids were doing something else. After naps we decided to stay in and played for a bit then watched Aladdin. Then the grown ups ate an entire peach cobbler with ice cream and played more games. Win.

Pushing around a baby in a shopping cart

She asked me to go to the dr station, put on the white coat, and wrap up her broken ankle

The next morning Andrew and I got up at 5 and were on the road by 5:40. Pretty impressive! Since I was driving we made great time for the first half and then we switched drivers and made good time the rest of the way. The kids did SO well!! When we stopped for lunch, the kids and I played tag, tickle fights, hide and seek, and hung out in the grass outside while Andrew waited for our food. At first we were disappointed that we couldn't find a restaurant with a playplace, but we both thought that this ended up working out better. By dinner we just went for subway because we were so tired of eating fast food all day. We made it home right at 10 which had been our plan. I'm still shocked by how well the kids did and that we actually were home when we had planned to be. They didn't even watch a movie which we brought as back up. They entertained themselves with books, napping, chatting with each other, and listening to the awesome CDs I found at the library. They had 4 or 5 disney songs and then a 15-20 summary of the related story. Adaline was a huge fan. We had so much fun visiting Amy and Wilson and they made our stay so comfortable! We had a blast and already can't wait to visit them at their next place.

Adaline told us jokes in the car. This is how they all go: "There were two ____ in the oven. One turned to the other and said, 'Oh man, it's hot in here.' Then the other one said, 'Ah a talking _____!' hahahaha" What a goof ball

We spent the day after we got home in a daze from all the driving, so on Friday we made sure to get out and go to the park. Andrew gets home early on Fridays so we also had dinner at the pool (because they have grills we can cook on and we don't have one). It was a little too cold for swimming so we had the whole place to ourselves and it was the perfect weather for lounging outside.

They are either best friends or worst enemies.

Making friends with some kids on the other side of the gate

 Saturday Andrew had soccer and they won! After the kids' naps, we started the 2 week journey of buying a car. Not my favorite thing-but we had to start sometime. Before we left, I'd told the kids that they could swim once we got home. We took longer than I expected, but since I'd promised, I stuck to it. Andrew went over to the pool with them while I made dinner. Then I brought it over for them to eat and then I even let them swim a bit more afterward. After taking baths, they made it to bed only an hour later than usual so I call that a win.

Some random pictures from the past week or two:

All Adaline talks about lately is ballet. Most mornings she wakes up and asks, "is it ballet today?" The thing is, she isn't signed up for any ballet class, she just wants to take one SO badly. I plan on enrolling her eventually, I'm just looking for the right one.

Trying to transfer a rolly polly during one of our walks/bike rides

This was kind of a difficult afternoon

Andrew's cousin took us to an A's game and his wonderful aunt offered to babysit the kids! It was super fun and the A's even won! 

Andrew's aunt was also kind enough to watch the kids the next day while we drove to Hayward, almost to San Jose, Fremont, Palo Alto, San Jose, and Dublin to look at some cars we were interested in from looking online. I was really hoping that we would buy a car that day, but it didn't turn out. We were gone so much longer than we anticipated and I ended up with a migraine because I was so tired and hungry by the end of the day. The one good part was we didn't have to drag the kids along and I knew they were having fun and that I didn't need to worry about them.

At church the next day, Matthew threw up ALL over Andrew less than 10 minutes into the meeting. While they were at home cleaning up, Adaline entertained herself for the rest of sacrament meeting my doing my hair for me (since I had obviously forgotten to)

On Monday, we went back to look at the van in Dublin again, fully expecting to drive it home. Well, they wouldn't budge on the price as much as we had expected (the salesman wasn't even trying to sell it to us, it was super weird) and were offering it for the same as another one we looked at that had fewer miles and also included a DVD system. I didn't particularly want the other one, but I figured if we were going to pay that much either way, we might as well get  more car for our money. We were so disappointed/deflated/angry that night and I felt like we were never going to find the car I wanted.

They are always busy checking out bugs and I try so hard not to interfere

Last week I got tired of all of the parks with wood chips, so we made the 25 minute trek all the way to Walnut Creek so that they could play at this giant playground. I love it except for how easy it is to lose your kids among all the other kids and play things.

After Monday night's car shopping had gone so poorly, Andrew did another search and increased the search radius. He happened to find a car that was right on the border of the distance we entered, so it wasn't previously showing up even though it was only in Sacramento. Andrew emailed about the car and, shockingly, got a response with a price quote lower than the one we'd looked at in Dublin (and this one had fewer miles), so it was already going to be worth our time to drive up and test drive it. The car was in better condition than any other one we had looked at and we were so excited!! (We found mold a few too many times while looking in the backseats of the other cars.) My favorite part of this whole thing is that I'd been complaining to my sister and brother-in-law when Monday's trip was unfruitful and she told me about how they emailed around asking for prices before going in, like a used Rav4 that happened to be a Mercedes Benz dealership, and that they bought it even though they didn't love that it was red. Well, this salesman was the ONLY one that responded to our emails with something other than the list price, it happened to be a Mercedes Benz dealership, and our van is red. It's like we were meant to follow in their footsteps. I am loving our new (to us) van and all the space it has. And I have to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who watched our kids while we shopped-you all made our lives so much easier.

This bathroom really cracked me up. I came thiiiis close to not washing my hands because I couldn't find a sink. Turns out, the counter top is the sink-it's angled and has a crack against the wall where the water drains. And yes, I figured it out all on my own and did, indeed, wash my hands.

I am now a minivan mom and I love it even more than I thought I would! There are a couple things we miss about having a Corolla as our family car-like being able to park anywhere-but I'm so excited for our next road trip!

Getting set up for Andrew's soccer game. I sure love these cuties

On Saturday, after naps, we drove over to Walnut Creek to show Andrew where the hospital is, where to park for labor and delivery, etc since he's never even driven past the hospital where our next baby will be born, and when the time comes, I don't want him to be trying to figure it out or for me to be trying to show him. Then we got jamba juice and went back to the giant park. Really, the whole outing was just an excuse to drive our new car, but it was also pretty fun and productive.

Andrew and Adaline's fort building on Sunday

I absolutely adore this beautiful, enthusiastic girl

Selfies in the new car

We got to babysit some of our friends on Monday and I was so impressed by this guy's Jenga skills. After his next turn, there wasn't a single block to choose that wouldn't guarantee the tower collapsing.