Sunday, April 21, 2013

...The Middle Few Days...

...continuing our April vacation saga...

On Wednesday, we met up at a playground with Phil's friend from college, Kevin Brown, and three of his four kids.  Aunt Larisa and Aunt Kelly met us too, with their kids, to make a total of 15 kids, plus 2 babies in utero (not me!) and 5 adults.  We were severely outnumbered!

A successful outing with kids must include snacks.

9 out of 15 are looking at the camera, not too shabby.
Phil and Kevin ~ P.O.P. forever!
Xander had to not-so-gently grab all dogs that passed.
He literally kissed his bum.
Left shoe and sock off - always.
Tommy finds a frog/toad/something that hops and is gross.
Maeve and JP could not.stop.touching.
Xander had lots of catnaps in the car, which left a cranky baby most of the time.

We left the playground and headed to the Air and Space Museum in Dulles.

Martin Family Portrait taken by some nice Swedish man.

Kids on balls.

Looking at the aircraft.

Best one.

JP: "Mom, take a picture of that one, it looks like it's from Star Trek"


Andrew: "Maybe I'll be wearing a space suit someday..."

This space shuttle was GINORMOUS!!
 Rosie and her husband Andrew and their 4 kids came to the museum to meet us!  
Total blogger-meet-up for the week = 2.  
Boys
Rosie's John Paul, Xander with his left shoe off (see!), Andrew, Eamon, and my John-Paul

Cecilia wants to pose just like Maggie. 
Maggie wants to take one of the twin girls home. "They have two!  That's not fair!" 
Enthralled by the electronics. 
Eamon with Mary Claire (I think, is that right Rosie?) 

Phil was a big hit with the astronaut ice cream.
Rosie let me hold Cecilia, but didn't trust me with the twins.
Just kidding, y'all know I'm a toddler person.
Maggie, however is totally a baby person!
P.S. How great does Rosie look after having twins 5 months ago?  So stylin!

On Thursday we headed to Pennsylvania to the Split Rock Resort.
The kids played with their awesome road trip "books" that Aunt Larisa made.
More car naps.
We're here!  Excitement abounds!
The excitement stopped cold for me when I looked around the inside and felt like I was walking into a horror movie from the seventies.


Seriously, a hallway of doom.
But, there were smiles to be had when Aimee, Rob and their seven adorable children came to visit that night!
Aimee swore this happy baby boy did indeed have colic.  I saw no evidence.

The boy table!

The girl table.
Xander: "Wait a minute...."
 We ate pizza from the spooky pizzeria at the resort because we were in the middle of the boondocks.  Then we went bowling!

Plaid shorts and bowling shoes - fashionistas in the making.

I get bored watching bowling too, buddy.




John-Paul charmed Aimee's little girl.
Silly face!

Just try to look into his eyes without getting baby fever.
I double dog dare you.

Maggie: "They have four girls, and we only have 3 counting Mom and the cat, so we can take her home".
Hand down the pants, left shoe off, I think Xander felt a little too comfortable around them all.

 The Mama Bloggers and Crazy Toddlers We Chased Around All Night:
Aimee was just as sweet and pretty in person as she is  on her blog.  We've been "friends" for so long, exchanging baby gifts and emails, that it was so nice to finally meet in person.  
Before we left, Francie (who's an awesome 13 year old girl.  Stop laughing, apparently it's possible!) said "I know we just met, but we feel like family!"  
Yes, yes we do.

Blogger Meetup Tally = 3.

Now I have 3 loads of laundry to fold and put away, so the last couple of days of vacation will have to wait.  Can you handle it?  If you think there's too many pictures, just know that I took over 200 during the week.  Ay carumba!



6 comments:

  1. Yeah, now that you mention it, it was pretty spooky. But we had such a great time! Next time, we'll show you something fun in the Lehigh Valley and bring you back to our lair . . . uh, I mean, our house. :)

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  2. What is it with little boys and hands down their pants? Aiyuiyiyyiiyi!?!?!?!

    Looks like a super fun vacation!

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  3. Oh my gosh, the left shoe! I thought you guys were just being funny!

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  4. I can't believe I didn't pass a baby off to you!!! For some reason they were being remarkably calm - even when all the kids were crowded around Mary Claire getting her to hold their fingers! Clearly your kids don't like babies at ALL.

    But Cecilia is way more fun than the babies anyway, and it's a HUGE compliment that she let you hold her - she is terrified of most people but she didn't cry, which basically means she loves you!

    So fun meeting up with you all - John Paul keeps telling us that when he is 10, HE will be "Big John-Paul."

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  5. Wow--meet ups and loads of fun...what a week! It looks like you made some very special memories during your many Martin Family Moments last week! :)

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  6. Hi! I'm Rosie's mom, here from the link she posted to your blog. Your kids are beautiful! And funny! Love the lack of left footwear. (What's up with that??)

    It's been a few weeks since I've seen the twins, and I'm afraid that all the shots looked like Mary Claire. Maybe they were? Because Rosie and Andrew dress them differently, so maybe the pix that you posted really are all of Mary Claire?

    Oh, and the twins are five and a half months old. So Rosie is really just that much postpartum. She's looked like this for a few months. It is enormously unfair. *I* did not look like that. ::raspberries at Rosie::

    Um, so that was more about them than about you. But I know more about them. And your kids really do look like a lot of fun!

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