Greeley

There is nothing like a summer road trip.  We set off on our trip to Greeley, CO at about 2:00pm We drove up to Valeries and had dinner with her and her family and picked up my dad who had flown to Austin a few days earlier. then my dad, Rocklond, Knoxx and I all drove in my Toyota Sequioa for the next 18 hrs.  

We drove all night so that the kids would sleep. they did this and we were able to make it to Greeley at about 2:00pm the next day. 

 We went to a little beach in a neighboring  town that was really cute and fun.

I got a lot of good pictures of the kids. 

we all had fun building in the sand

My dad and Knoxx chose to sit in the shade most of the time. 

Another day we went to Chuck-e-cheese.   Rocklond, Asher and Bridger had worked hard over the last few weeks to fill up their achievement cards to earn free tokens. 

 the boys had a great time. 

Asher and Rocklond got along Super well. Here they are building a train they put the blankets on there all by themselves. 

My dad had learned several songs to sing for his grandchildren just for this trip here he is entertaining them all one night. 

On Saturday we got to go to Bridgers 2nd birthday. no birthday would be complete without my parachute making an appearance. 

the kids also played other games as well

Then the kids made little boats and raced them down a stream. 

next was the pinata. Emily had filled it so full of candy. I don't think Bridger was too happy about his fire truck getting smashed to pieces by hungry children. 

then opening presents

and finally the CAKE.  I made this one very simple with just regular frosting and a cake mix cake. it turned out really good and almost all of it was eaten at the party.  

I probably have about ten pictures of this cake. sorry I downloaded the one that is sideways. 

the boys all had so much fun doing everything together

It was so much fun to get to see how the cousins all interacted with each other.   our heavenly care free trip came to a frustrating end when Knoxx was inconsolable at church on Sunday.   we let him sleep off some of his pains once church was over but it soon became quite clear that we needed to get home.  with the help of some Tylenol he slept most of the way home and then went to the Dr. the next morning to discover that he had two bad ear infections.  

The drive home was really long.  I didn't have my dad's help to keep me awake all night but I did ok and we made it home.   

the boys had been fairly good travelers the whole time.  and we made it home just in time to pick up Viktoriia from the Airport.  

Viktoriia is our foreign Exchange student form Ukraine. she will be living with us this school year. more to come about her later.