Summer Vacation - Visiting

For our summer vacation we planned to go back to my parents house and get some more use out of our Universal passes, but we also wanted to get the boys to the beach.  We were planning to split our time about in half, starting at my parents and then going to Ormond Beach.  Then I found out that my cousin Erin and her family were going to be in Orlando the week before us, and were even trying to fit in a visit with my parents and grandma.  I was going to miss her by just two days!  I whined about it all evening and Tim suggested that I take the boys down early so that we could see Erin, because he could not take any additional days off of work.  I loved this idea, but there was no way I could make that drive straight through by myself!  Tim booked us a hotel a little over half way down and then I came up with another great idea: the boys and I made a long overdue trip to Richmond to see my friends Anne Marie and Natalie, and each of their new babies, on the first part of our drive.

Natalie and Anne Marie (we're all college friends and they are now sisters-in-law!) each make their way to Northern Virginia every once in a while, so I see them when they are up, but I had not met either of Anne Marie's girls or met Natalie's youngest yet and had never been to Anne Marie's house.  The timing of their babies being born within days of each other and some health concerns for Anne Marie had me desperate to go visit them, and this trip, driving right past Richmond anyways, was perfect timing.  So my and the boys vacation turned into a full two week trip!

Sunday morning we got on the road and drove to Anne Marie's.  We arrived around 10:30 and I was so excited!  I got to visit with Anne Marie, hold baby Audrey and watch Lydia play while the boys made themselves at home checking out all of the cool toys.  Lydia is an absolute doll and every time she came into the room she had on a different pair of shoes, usually someone else's, and had a different purse on her arm!  Audrey was as sweet as can be!  About an hour later Natalie, Steve, and their three arrived!  Teagan is a perfect little sweetie too, I loved all the baby time!

Lydia cracked us all up by wiggling in between her sister and cousin when we attempted to take pictures of the babies!

When we left Anne Marie's we stopped almost immediately for lunch.  The boys needed to get their wiggles out after being on their best behavior around the babies!  The rest of our days drive went smoothly and we checked into the hotel around 8.  We were all asleep within half an hour!  The rest of our drive on Monday was easy too.

Tuesday morning we got up early because Erin, Chris, Jayce, and Hannah arrived about 9 am so that we could squeeze in as long a visit as possible!  Timmy was playing with legos when they arrived and Jayce joined right in.  Hannah and Tyler did not take much longer to warm up to playing.  The Keith's had just wrapped up a trip to Disney World and Hannah particularly enjoyed seeing all of Dad's Disney cells and toys.  We had fun hearing about their trip and comparing our favorite parts of the parks, catching up in general, and watching the kids play so easily together.

After lunch the rainy morning cleared up long enough for us to get the kids in the pool and they all had a blast!

The Keith's stayed for 4-5 hours and that was such a treat!  Since staying with Chris and Erin in Scotland (pre-kids) all of our visits have been crammed between other family commitments while we both happened to be in Ohio, usually around Christmas time which is frantic enough!

Both of these visits were fantastic and would have had me giddy on their own, having them just a day apart left my heart bursting!  It was so awesome to spend time with some of my favorite, hardest to get together with, people!  And an awesome start to a great vacation!