St. Louis-Visiting the Faulkners!!

Last weekend Cort and I drove with the kids down to St. Louis to visit the Faulkner family. We had an awesome time!!! The trip started out a little rocky (as we anticipated) with the 5 -hour drive down. A certain someone who has become hateful of his carseat chose to only sleep for a 30 minutes and then spent much of the remaining trip unhappy. Mia on the other hand was amused for most of the car ride down with a 75 cent shark I bought at Target right before the trip and also occasionally shouting out "corn!!" at the millions of corn fields we saw. We pretty much drove straight through except 2 bathroom breaks. Those 2 bathroom breaks came within 5 minutes of one another-gotta love driving with an almost 3-year-old! Needless to say, we were relieved when we arrived. :)

Things quickly improved as we had a yummy dinner of pizza and Mia got to enjoy her first "official" sleepover, sleeping in Addison's room with her. It only took a couple of reminders to stop talking and the girls went to bed. We almost chose to leave Cole behind at Lisa and Bob's because he apparently LOVED sleeping in Lucas's room and slept much later than normal both mornings-yay for that!!

The girls started playing together right away :)

Saturday we headed to Lisa's parents lake house and went out on their pontoon boat. It was soooooo much fun. I was nervous how the kids would do on the boat, but they loved it! They both got in the water with us and seemed to really enjoy being in the lake. After some swimming, we all took turns tubing (us with the kids), and had a blast. Poor Cole was so worn out that he literally fell asleep in our arms on the boat the last couple rounds of tubing.

Cort and Mia (these pictures aren't great, it was sooo bright!) Mia and Me

Cole and me

Mia and me tubing

(I know I look like I am hanging on for dear life-we weren't even going that fast!) Lucas, Lisa, and Addison

Mia, Cort and Cole Addison, Bob, and Lucas

Mia hanging out in the tube Lucas

Cole exploring the boat

Mia loving being on the boat

Cort and Cole-getting sleepy

Lisa and Lucas-I love this picture of them Addison and Mia
Me and Cole-sooooo tired!

And he's out!

The girls watching a The Little Mermaid back at the house while the boys napped

That night after we got back Lisa and Bob cooked out for us, the kids did bathtime and stories, and then we went in the hot tub! It was a nice way to finish a great day.

Storytime with Becky (using that Master's Degree!)

And the night before with Lisa

On Sunday the kids had fun playing for a couple of hours before we headed to Monkey Joe's, an inflatable place with tons of jumpies for kids. Cole was pretty worn out so he was not as interested in the jumpies, but the older kids were running wild and having a good time. We left straight from Monkey Joe's to drive back home since it was already a bit in that direction. I am happy to report that the ride back was smoother, although the last hour and a half required a lot of passing back of toys, food and singing. :)

Cole playing at the house

Princess Mia

LOVE this!

And this-is this not typical??
Girls posing and smiling and boys watching TV

Don't they just look thrilled here?-I swear they had a good time! :)

Monkey Joe's-Mia on a BIG slide

And this is what her dress kept doing-hilarious

Cole in the toddler area

Last, hopefully Lisa will not mind me sharing a couple of pics of her family that we shot quick...

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Lisa and Bob for being such gracious hosts-giving up bedrooms, cooking us food, and taking us out on the boat-we had a great time and can't wait to do it again!

And if you made it this far-congrats!! This was a long one!!