(This is a picture heavy post because we had so much fun and there were so many good photos and memories!)
Every other year, my brother Marcus and his awesome family come to visit
us in Minneapolis. We treat this week like a vacation for us too,
trying to get as much time off of work as possible and as many fun
activities in with them as we can! And this year's visit was super
special because we got to meet this guy:
Jack!
Can you handle the cuteness?
Jacob Andrew, or Jack, is our newest nephew/cousin! Marcus and Amy have been on a long adoption journey so we are so excited for this little guy to be a part of their family. He was born May 15, and it was SO hard for this auntie to wait almost 3 months to meet him! And the week we got to spend with him and get to know him was fabulous.
Jack meets his cousins
Jack and Uncle Steve
NOT to be left out or forgotten is our favorite Evelyn. Oh, were her cousins excited to see her and play with her all week! One of Grace's favorite things to do when Evelyn is here is wear matching outfits (since she doesn't have a sister to match). They were super cute all week!
Monday was a pretty relaxing day. Steve worked, the kids played, and Marcus and Amy and I chatted and hung around the house all day. Pretty much a great day. We topped it off with a walk in the evening down the street, where lots of cute hand holding happened...
...and "Ring around the Red Sign"
Tuesday was a day everyone was excited for - "BEACH DAY!" We packed lunch and some drinks in a cooler and headed to Elm Creek Beach which is actually a chlorinated pond (so no nasty MN August lake water, yay!)
All the kids were smiling just as big as Henry was all. day. long.
Jack was super chill and got to hang out under the big umbrella all day as not to sunburn that baby soft skin. He did get to dip his toes in the water, but he was pretty content with
Mom/Dad/Auntie/Uncle holding him all day.
One last splash in the water before we left late in the afternoon
We didn't do much Wednesday during the day because our big plans were in the evening. We ran some errands and took a bigger walk with the kids. As you can see Jack was super pumped for the stroller ride. (seriously, can he get any cuter?!)
RUN, kids!!!
(burn some of that energy)
Throw rocks kids!!!
(but in the pond, not at each other)
Wednesday evening was "birthday night." We went out for a "birthday" supper at Red Robin (yummm!), and then came home to quick change into pj's and open gifts. Marcus and Amy didn't mail birthday gifts throughout the year, but decided to bring them with since they knew they would see us. This was awesome and it turned out we had birthday gifts for all of them too so it was a giant party. We started at the beginning of the calendar to determine who opened a gift next, and Carsten was pretty happy his birthday was January 1 so he could open his gift first!
Thursday day we don't have many pictures, but it was our guys/girls day out. Steve and Marcus went golfing in the morning (just got 9 holes in before it started raining!), and Amy and I braved the downpour to go thrifting and shopping in the afternoon. And the kids? They had tons of fun playing with their new birthday gifts, watching TV (which they had been too busy playing all week to do), and having tummy time with Jack.
Thursday night we all went to Grace's summer band concert. She is in 5th grade and gets to start band this year. She picked the flute and took lessons for 6 weeks with a school district band program. At the end of the 6 weeks all the students got together and played a concert for their families.
There she is! Good job Grace!
Friday (stick with me!!! Only a few more days!!!! I promise we are almost done!) Steve had to work again, so the rest of us headed down to IKEA and the Mall of America. Our first stop was the Hanna Andersson store to do some returns and a little clearance shopping. (and of course getting measured by the wall.) We planned to hang around most of the morning, and a bit of the afternoon, but to head home well before the evening rush hour.
BUT. Our plans changed when Marcus was handed two Nickelodeon Universe (the big amusement park in the center of the mall) passes by a random lady who said to enjoy them with "his boys" (Willem and Carsten were sitting on a bench by Marcus as he fed Jack his bottle). We thought they were just 2 ride passes and told the kids we would spring for passes for the rest so they could ride the carousel. When we were trying to buy tickets though, the employee who helped us told us that most rides were between 3-5 points a ride, and these passes had 96 points each, so we shouldn't have to buy any more.
WHAT?
Marcus, Amy and I looked at each other for a bit, and then quickly changed our plan to forget traffic and let's GO ON ALL THE RIDES!
It was a fun gift to be given.as a parent. Not just the rides themselves, but the extravagance of saying YES to any and as many rides as the kids wanted. When you have four kids that is not something that we are able to do hardly ever. So thank you dear lady, for this special gift!
The kids had never been on roller coasters before, so Auntie Amy started them off small with the kiddie coaster.
Then Uncle Marcus took them on one of the big coasters, which they were happy to do again with me! (OK, so it was also fun for us adults who hadn't been on amusement park rides in forever! We had a blast!)
We took turns hanging with Jack or Henry and Evie depending on what the rides were. Jack was coo-ing at me here! Could not be any cuter!!!
We took Henry and Evie on a lot of rides for them, but I don't have any pictures of that as most of those rides Henry was holding on to me for dear life - the boy wasn't crazy about all the rides.
After the roller coasters and some of the other rides, the kids were brave and decided to go on this ride with Uncle Marcus. This was before the ride started. How fun, right? It is the kind of ride where it pulls you up and then drops you really fast and does this over and over. Yeah, I don't know why any of us adults thought this was a good idea, but we paid for it later as all the kids were terrified and crying during, and almost lost their lunches and popcorn afterwards. We decided to be done soon after this (we still had like 36 points left!), and we ate supper at the mall and headed home.
That was one EPIC Fun Friday that none of us will forget.
Saturday was another play day for the kids, and Marcus and Amy packed up to leave the next morning. We also had pizza and the kids watched a movie while we played board games. We played a lot of games that day which was super fun. We also made time for cousin book reading sessions and group hugs before bedtime.
Sunday morning saw our guests ready to take off. But not before a cousin picture...
...and a family picture, though.
Thank you so much Marcus, Amy, Evelyn and Jack for coming to visit and staying for one fun and awesome week. We love you so much! (and really missed you after you had gone!!)
The only drawback to their camp was that it was from 8:30 to 4:30 at a college campus 40 minutes away from our house. Those times meant traffic to and fro was thick and the drive was almost always an hour. This photo was of the pretty sunflowers blooming on the side of the road. And I was able to take it because the car was standing still in the traffic.
