Colorado Trip - Phase 1

We are in Colorado right now for a "family reunion" vacation! We left early Saturday morning for a 9:20 flight to Colorado Springs. All was going well until Addyson barfed up her cheerios and OJ all over herself. This is only the second or third time she's ever thrown up in her life, so I was quite surprised. We pulled over, got her cleaned up and she seemed fine. Her explanation when I asked what was wrong was "My tummy was rumbling" and "I said Ralph, now it's Hallie's turn!" Ha- apparently she wasn't feeling too bad!! We continued on our way and about 10 minutes later Hallie poked Addyson in the eye really hard and Addy had a major crying fit and wouldn't open her eye for a while. All is fine now with the tummy and the eye, but it was an interesting start!

The flight was good, nice and smooth and on-time which is nice. Addyson and Hallie both did really well on the plane and we were there before we knew it! The fun started once we got there. The girls (or Ryan and Stewart for that matter) have never met my grandma (my dad's mom) and so we were going to meet her and visit with her for the day. Two 2 year olds and my grandma aren't exactly a match made in heaven, so we knew it would be interesting. We got to the retirement center/nursing home and the girls just wanted to run down the halls screaming and getting into things. My grandma was afraid she was going to get kicked out of her home for the last 22 years! But really, what do you expect from the 2 year olds! After lunch I decided to try and put them down for a nap in her apartment and after an hour and a half of wrestling with mainly Addyson, I gave up. Addyson is not used to sleeping with anyone else in her bed and so she kept playing and tickling me, "honking" my nose and giggling, which was keeping Hallie up as well. So, we got them up and took them outside to play.

The evening part was the intersting part because both girls had not had naps and they were a little restless from being cooped up all day and us constantly telling them to be quite, don't do this, don't do that, etc. My grandma reserved a really small room off of the retirement center dining room for 25 people to eat pizza in (by that time all the rest of the family had arrived and were joining us for dinner). To say the least it was a little crazy! The girls were running and chasing each other under the table, sitting on all of the residents walking chairs (and getting bad looks from the staff), screaming, trying to escape from the room, etc. AHHH- it was a lot more stressful than it sounds!! We finally left and went to the hotel and it got even worse! Addyson was SOOOOO BAD! She has never been that bad before. She was being one of those toddler that deliberately tries to do the wrong thing. Everything she knows she is not supposed to do- she wanted to do it. Since the 3 of us were in one hotel room, Ryan and I had to go to bed early so that Addy would go to sleep. We blew up Addyson's mattress and fought with her for umm, about 2 hours for her to go to bed. I was so exhausted at that point! I think it was just a super long day for her and with no nap she was at her worst! She finally went to sleep and woke up at 6 AM, which is 7 Texas time. We were the first ones down for breakfast......

Now, we are here in Colorado and she has been acting a lot better. Yesterday we drove up to Crested Butte where we'll be for the next 7 days. It is absolutely beautiful here and I'll post pics later! Just wanted to give a little update on our trip so far!

4th of July Party!

On Saturday we had a 4th of July party at our house. It was a lot of fun and we hope to have this be an annual tradition at our house! Everyone came over around 4:00 and the kids played outside, swam, etc. Everyone had a good time! Here's a pic of Addyson before the party:

Addyson and Parker enjoying the swings

All of the kids minus Kallie (she was upstairs playing in the playroom)

Reid, Brennan, Addyson, Hallie, Parker, Brooks, Bosten, Karson and Kayleigh

Swimming!

Water balloons!


Sweet Katie!

This was a small preview of the fireworks we did. Everyone turned into little pyros lighting things on fire! At one point Ryan thought it would be a good idea to put a firecracker in a container not specified for that particular firecracker and it exploded about 15 feet in the air sending Ryan's brother Dustin running for cover. It also set off a fire in the field adjacent to our house. Ryan put it out with a beer. Nice.

Our neighbor across the street put on an hour long firework show which was awesome to see. We were right across the street and so we had the best seats in the house! We can't wait to do it again next year!!