The one with all the spiders

On Friday we took the crew to see Black Widow and we all liked it, except we missed Alli there reminding us who everyone is and telling us how they all fit together. 

These two are thick as thieves. They love doing art and come up with games and plays together. 

This was for one of their plays. Delaney was being a spider and we thought her costume was so creative!

Amy, Sandy, Kristi, and I have played Skull King almost every night. Surprisingly sandy won the first game, but I’ve been the winner since then. It’s been so fun! The kids had a minor fiasco that night. They unzipped one of the poofs and one of them sat on it and sticky light weight poof innards went everywhere. They are hard to sweep up because they fly all over. They all worked together and the drama level was medium low till about halfway through when it skyrocketed to medium high. 

The puff filling was eventually pcked up and mostly returned to their puff.

At home in NY

The NY crew are still moving in, so on Friday we kept them company as they unpacked and put things together. 

Sandy and I ran into town and then she bbq’d dinner that night.  

Silly pictures were taken by all. 

We caught up and played games. 

The kids explored and played and made messes. 

Their yard is amazing and we played outside for a long time. 

Adi loves taking pictures. 

Everyone loves Howie, but Howie doesn’t love everyone. 

Delaney is convinced we need a chihuahua. 

Everyone got along pretty well. 

Also the weather has been so mild and nice!

On the road again

Tuesday was the worlds slowest day. We didn’t have a lot to do to get ready and the day just seemed to drag on. I got the girls all re-registered for school. Ms. Lorrie is a rockstar and helped us out so much. The missionaries came over and Matt helped them get their car washed as he washed and dolled up the jolly green giant. The Aina’s came over for a late visit and the girls milked every last minute of it. The love each other!

Wednesday was our big day. After a rocky start we headed out at 9:30. 

Papa brought donuts and everyone got 2 because vacation day!  

Then papa Matt waved as we left L-town for northern adventures. 

First stop - 6 Flags! 

We stayed from 11-3 on the ride side to make it easier to get right back on the road. 

Alli met us and we explored parts of the park we still hadn’t been to.

Adi is bit into trains right now, so the train ride was a must. 

My partner. 

Alli was behind froggie here. 
We all enjoyed the Penguin ride and the girls love the little kid land.

Delaney drove me and I had to ride in the back so she could be a proper chauffeur. 

Frankie let Alli sit next to her. 

And Adi cruised solo. 
Our last ride of the day was the log ride and we finally managed to get Frankie to ride it with us. That wasn’t the smarted thing though because then we were damp the rest of the day. Oopsie

At 3 we followed Alli up to Baltimore and the girls got to see her cute apartment and give loves to T-baby. Alli made us lunch and we played a quick game of Codenames. And then we were on our way to NY. 

All of our stops did make the day feel pretty long even though it was broken up. By the end I was real ready to get there. 

But it was a beautiful and easy drive. Adi sits up front now and she’s learning to be a good co-pilot. We listened to a cute book she picked and everything went smoothly. 

We rolled up to the newest Croton’ites house just after 9. Sandy had a yummy meal for us and we toured the house. Everyone is abuzz with excitement!

Back home

We listened to church in the car and really enjoyed Anna and Brother Cox’ talks. Bro. Wiest had asked Adi to talk about her experience at girls camp, but we obvi weren’t able to make it. We found this fun telephone booth when we filled up our tank in Virginia. 

And like moths to the flame, we had to get pictures. 

It was an easy drive and we got home around 4. Our plants missed us. We unloaded the truck - so fast with bigs - and then Alli and papa came over. We taught them Skull King and I had to learn to be the scorekeeper. I’m not sure I did it completely right, but if I was wrong I was consistent. And I won. 🤗

Today we did laundry and vacuumed. Packing for a trip to aunties is SO much easier than packing for a trip to the beach, so we did a lot of playing today too. The girls played dress up complete with makeup. 

She kills me. 😂

I donated my third unit of blood this afternoon. I like the Mechanicsville Fire Dept because they serve Amish donuts when you’re done. I had the exact same experience this time as last. Apparently my veins run diagonally to what most peoples do, so my girl searched for my veins forever and got verification from her supervisor before she poked me, then searched some more. Then after she poked me she had to get help to find my vein, just like last time. It wasn’t too bad and I felt fine after, so yay for me. One more unit will get me to half a gallon. 💪🏻 

Sweet home

Today was more of the same. Christian was more nervous today than he was yesterday, so we kept our visit brief again. Jeanne and I were able to pick up the wife and precious baby of Christian’s basic training bestie. They flew out from California with the same zero expectations we had. 
We finished up with our soldier around noon and hit the road for home. We didn’t get much time, but we made the most of it. 

We drove north to an Alabama welcome center where I wanted a picture with a Sweet Home sign, but it was closed and the road was torn up. Whomp whomp. This Jolly Green is still a champ! And our trusty Thule gives us the extra room we need to cart our beach stuff all across the south. 

We thought about making some fun stops, but Matt wants to get back to work Monday, so we just kept driving. We’d been on the hunt for Georgia peaches and didn’t see any stands until right near the airport. It said there was a peach stand behind the Chevron. It was sketchy, it was all we’d seen so we spent way too much for  peaches and peach cider and peach bread. And we never saw another stand, so I guess I’m glad we did? We drove straight through SC and are staying the night in Kanappolis, NC. The pool is closed, and since that is one of our few hotel stipulations, that is a big bummer. On to our real Sweet Home tomorrow!

FOFO

Christian told us on Sunday that he’d have a base pass all weekend in celebration of his graduating. We went through every option, every airport, Matt flying, me flying, driving back home and flying back, not going at all, and finally decided we’d leave the beach a day early and all travel down to Georgia together. Matt got to talk to Chris for about 5 minutes and I was in a meeting and didn’t even get to, and then we weren’t able to talk to him again all week. We decided that no matter what happened, if we got to see him or not, we had no expectations. We were going to go and make the best of it, come what may.  

He texted around 9 Friday morning and let us know they had revoked his base pass. Whomp, whomp. But he thought we should still be able to see him. We met him at a tiny troop exchange and had to be super covert about it. After a few minutes we all went around to the back of the store and we got to give hugs and say hi. 

It was so good to see him!

He still looks like a little boy playing soldier to me. 

They’d had their graduation ceremony that morning. Christian is last in this row. 

He was pretty nervous that a drill sergeant would spot them or someone would tattle. We hung out for about 30 minutes and then had to say goodbye. 

Jeanne stayed at the hotel to chat with Chris since he had his phone all day and the rest of us headed out to one of USA Today’s 12 Crazy Man-made Adventures. We went whitewater rafting on the Chattahoochee River and it was so fun! We got there just as one group left, so we had 2 hours to kill. Columbus is a super cute little town! The area around our hotel most definitely is not cute, but downtown was adorable. And right in front of our excursion was a cute little park. 

And a fun spray park that we enjoyed cooling off in. 

We were right next to Columbus Universities pretty little campus. 

Those Rays. Going bananas. 

Since Matt had never been to Alabama and we still had an hour till our adventure, we walked across the bridge to Phenix City. 

We put Matt’s phone on the ground for these. 

We could hear someone having a little mental breakdown, so we took some pictures and took off. 

Bye Alabama!

It was over 90° with a heat index of 11 and we had to leave everything in our car so we were hot and thirsty. We got helmets, vests, and paddles, boarded buses and vans and were off! We drove about 10 minutes up river where we were assigned river guides. We got Drano and he was awesome. Matt said it was just like Boy Scout camp, everyone cutting up and with silly nicknames. 

We put off into the river right in front of a big dam. The water felt amazing and was clear and clean. We hit some Class 2 rapids pretty quick and that was fun and just perfect for us since we were all a bit nervous. 

The guides were fun and silly and splashed us a ton, which felt amazing since it was crazy hot. Drano took us around one rapid and somehow got the nose of our raft in the water so the water just poured in on us. It was so fun!

My favorite part was when we got to jump out of the raft and float in the “lazy river.” There was a small current that pushed us along as we floated “nose up, toes up” down the river. I was seriously tempted to drink the water, but just being in it was so refreshing. We floated down to a little shore and got back in the raft, very gracefully, I might add. We were taught what to do if we capsized, including not having a FOFO - a full on freak out. That is Matt’s new favorite saying. I’m fixing to have a FOFO if he says it again. 🙄

We floated 12 and a half miles, mostly calm. We saw lots of turtles, ducks, and even a blue heron. When we were almost back to where we boarded our busses we hit the class 4 rapids. We all had to row in unison and it was amazing and nerve racking and we all laughed and squealed and loved it! Drano and his brother Waffles both work there and their parents had come to see them where the big rapids are, so Drano pulled us over and we watched Waffles raft go through. And they tipped! The whole raft, it was so shocking to me, but D assured us it happens at least once every trip. Adi was sad it didn’t happen to us, but I would have been so nervous! We rescued 2 of the overturned rafts passengers and were able to get them back on their original raft. Then Matt spotted their paddle and said we should go get it, so we all paddled over and rescued that. We’re basically rescuers. 

Everyone loved the trip. 10/10 would do it again in a heartbeat. Columbus is a super cute city and we loved our adventure. 

After that we grabbed dinner and swam at our hotel pool. It was a great day.