Like we have done for almost every 4th of July I have known Mike, we traveled up to see his family. But we usually travel up to Connecticut to his grandparents house but this year, we instead went to Pennsylvania to his parents house instead. We all live far apart (we live in NC obviously, his brother lives in Seattle and sister lives in PA as well) so it is rare that we can all be together for 4 days. As you can see below, it was quite a crew with lots of little ones!
But before we made it, we first had to travel on the airplane. Maddie's second flight and I believe Ella's 10th. Luckily, we flew on the 4th and our flight was empty and we got an extra empty seat for Maddie. The flight was only about an hour and overall, she did great. She was all over the place but at least she had her own seat and no one in front of her to kick.
Ella, on the other hand, is a breeze to fly with these days. She gets so excited and then just settles in and watches a movie. Her movie of choice this trip, Angelina Ballerina.
Mike's sister, Aunt Kelly as she is known, just moved about 30 minutes from his parents so we split time between their house and his parents. When we first arrived, all the kids (4 boys and our girls) settled in and played together.
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| Maddie was napping and missed this picture |
Ella absolutely adores her older cousins, Andrew and Connor and they love to play games. So, she played games with them all weekend, the favorite one, Guess Who. We must get this game asap, she loved it.
We spent time at Aunt Kelly and Uncle Ben's pool. While the big kids were mainly jumping off the stairs and diving board, the little ones enjoyed being tossed in the air.
Pinterest has gotten the best of everyone and Grandma found this fun creative idea for shirts for the kids. It was a two man job trying to get Maddie's hand print on her shirt. Shirts on the kids in the pic below.
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| Just talking over world issues with Grandpa |
Andrew and Connor are into every sport imaginable and if Ella wanted to hang with them, she had to be part of the game. This time, hockey! Let's just say Mike was in complete heaven with all the sports and games going on.
You can tell these three are definitely cousins, they looks so much alike.
After completing a Woody puzzle, Ella and Connor had to check to see if they were taller than Woody. Check, they are taller.
Fireworks time! We didn't make it up late on the 4th with flying and small babies so on Saturday night, Grandpa found some old sparklers for the kids to watch and they loved watching every minute of it. Uncle Tyler though was a little more worried!
These three little munchkins are only three apart and had fun playing together as well.
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| Movie time with Daddy/Uncle Mike before bed |
Grandma really wanted some family pictures since it is rare for all of to be in one place at one time but unfortunately, we picked the hottest part of the day on the hottest day. I swear it felt about 150 degrees out there but we gave it our best attempt. First, wearing the shirts they made and trying to not squint at the bright bright sun.
We tried playing a little bit at the park after the photos but as you can see from Maddie's cheeks, we all got really hot and headed back into the safety of air condionting.
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| Can you tell the girls were over taking pictures at this point? Thumb in mouth for MG and E with a half forced smile. |
And back on the plane and heading home bright and early.
It was a great trip and great spending time with family that lives all over the country. And of course, cheers to the USA. Now, let's hope we don't have to fly again anytime soon!
