This is My Forties

Grandparents!! :D  HOORAY!!!  Anytime grandparents come out you know it's going to be a fun time.  A time full of hugs, doting, and spoiling grandkids and their poor battered-down parents ;)  We had such a great time with Gpa and Gma B! Did you know the National Zoo in DC is free?  I didn't.  It's just sitting there smack dab in the middle of town like a mall, but it's a ZOO.  Awesomesauce.  It was actually a nice warm-ish day!  We saw a butt-ton of animals and the kids were so enamored with the zoo that they completely skipped lunch and hardly complained.  We were able to provide a few granola bars and cookies, but I was still pretty impressed with them.  Tristan was an absolute angel .  He's been ultra super amazing lately.  It's like a switch suddenly flipped and he's a grown child now.  I promised them we'd be back again soon with our friends to explore even more, especially considering their stellar behavior....

The next morning we enjoyed an early breakfast of french toast and sausages. I took the boys for a little nature hike while the guys were off buying gear and we found a turtle. We also found a Killdeer nest Once they got back and the poles were assembled we got the kids out to the pond for some fishing with grandpa. Each of the boys caught several perch and one big bass.  They had a blast!!  They also got filthy so their bath happened before lunch. The rest of the day was pretty laid back... getting everything ready for the Lake!  Grandma made her lasagna for dinner because she loves us ;)  We fell asleep to the smell of slow cooked brisket ::drool:: Our first day at Horseshoe Bend Park, which surrounds Beaver dam and lake, was nice and quiet.  There was so much to unpack and prepare... getting the boat and jetskis into the water, parking the campers, unloading bins full of goodness, getting everyone fed, making beds.  Plus we had taken ou...

We stuck around at home all day Wednesday and I took that opportunity to get all our laundry and packing done.  Great Gpa and Gma B drove (for 4 hours) all the way up to see us.  We were planning on detouring to go see them, but their trip saved us 8hrs of drive time.  Thanks so much again for making that drive, Audrey!!!  We had lunch and dinner (Kim's homemade lasagna ::drooool::) together, just visiting and enjoying each others' company all day.  It was fabulous! :) Kim and I took the kids outside a few times, but it was still really cold and windy so we had to tough it out in small chunks of time.  Of course the boys didn't care at all.  It surely helped that Grandpa ran out and bought them all fleece-lined hoodies. Bryant and Josh escorted GGpa and GGma to their hotel while Kim and I got the boys turned in with "Yogi Bear" in their room.  We warmed up the DVD player for ourselves to watch "Bridesmaids".  The TV...

We arrived at Grandpa & Grandma B's farm a little after 8pm, not too far off our target time.  They had cooked up a fabulous dinner for us and it was waiting on the table.  It's always amazing to have home-cooked food in my book.  All kinds of goodness.  I believe I thanked Kim at least 4 times :)  We were riding with a huge lightning storm the last hour which made for an interesting drive.  The weather continued to worsen.  It got outrageously windy, bitter cold, and the lightning never seemed to stop.  I tried to get a picture, but I gave up once I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. After dinner the kids retired to their room to watch "The Cat in the Hat" while we all talked at the table.  None of us stayed up too late.  Poor Kim had to wake up at 4am-ish so she headed to bed a bit earlier than we did, but we weren't too far off.  Josh and I are now convinced we need to buy a memory foam mattress top because that bed was ridi...