Aunt Lala and the cousins arrived on Monday afternoon. I was so excited to see them!! I had gotten Reid so pumped up that he almost couldn't take a nap ;) They arrived and got settled, and once Reid was awake, we took off to go to the boys' favorite park from last summer. But much to our dismay, the playground was completely taken apart as they'd begun renovations. It was a bummer, but the good news is that it should be totally renovated, including covered areas by the splash pad, by this summer. So instead, we headed down the tollway to another neat playground in Plano. They boys ran around and played for about 15 minutes, Ben asking to explore down a sidewalk trail. But it was Reid and Alex who took off into the woods for a spur of the moment hike. Playground? Who needs it?? Hiking? Yes, please! So off we went, through the mud and all. The boys had so much fun that we ended up hiking Tuesday and Wednesday, too, at their request!
After a fun-filled afternoon of hiking and playing in the backyard, it was time for a traditional bath picture, or ten. I never did get all of them looking and smiling, but the ones we snapped were priceless!
No, that's not anything gross in the bath water. I found bath fizzies at the store and thought it'd be fun for the boys. We went from yellow water (yes, it totally looked like pee) to green water to purple water. Great fun!
It was so cute the second morning when I went in Reid's room...usually he will say, "Hi Mommy!" or "See Daddy!", but this time he was jumping to get out of bed and yelling, "COUSINS! COUSINS!! SEE COUSINS!!" I could barely convince him to go potty and wash his face before he was bolting down the stairs to see them. We attempted to go to the Grapevine aquarium (and Legoland was just across the mall) to use the buy one get one free coupons I'd gotten at school. "Madhouse" doesn't really begin to describe it, so we opted out after seeing the line to get in, which was at least a 2 1/2 hour wait. No thanks! We walked around some to see if there was anything else fun to do. There was a very cute carousel, so we all paid and hopped on to take a ride. I think Reid and Alex enjoyed the Disney-like teacup more than anyone!
Then it was on to Cici's Pizza for free kids' lunches (more coupons from school) and fun at the video games. Reid loved the claw machine (maybe it reminded him of that scene in his new favorite movie, Toy Story) and carried his five "treasures" all around. Home for nap time, then we went to Town Lake Park in McKinney to feed the ducks. Of course, we ended up veering off the pavement onto an unpaved trail to hike before having to herd everyone home for dinner.
On Wednesday, when we asked the boys what they wanted to do, we weren't surprised at all when "hike!" was the answer once again. We packed the boys some sandwiches and grabbed Subway for ourselves, then it was back to Arbor Hills park in Plano. This time, we bypassed the playground and went straight for the hiking. I was a little worried Reid would poop out pretty fast at the rate we were going, but he went strong for two hours. The boys were so funny--they even took turns on picking the trails, yelling, "This way!!" Our little hikers in front of a pretty red bud tree:
My little Energizer bunny ran out of steam quite suddenly and fell behind everyone. It seemed like everyone was beginning to run out of steam, so it seemed to be time for lunch. We were looking for a nice, big rock or something we could sit on, but nothing was quite right for us adults. As we searched, everyone got a little more whiny. I even had to pick Reid up and carry him for awhile, several times. Then we stumbled upon the most perfect lunch spot...the beautiful lookout (complete with covered area and a bench) where you could see all around the entire park, and even way down into Plano. It's still hard to believe this park, with its streams, hills, valleys, plains, and woods, is in the middle of a suburban city.
Everyone was pretty tired after all that hiking (even Laura and me!), so it was a pretty quiet ride home. We were surprised that no one fell asleep in the car. Laura was kind enough to stay an extra night so that Jason and I could go to the Muse concert. A sub of his had gotten us tickets, so we met everyone at American Airlines Center, enjoyed a nice meal at Victory Tavern, and headed over to the concert. I'd never been in a suite before, so that was neat, too. We had a great view of the light show during the concert, as well! The opening act, Screaming Sarah, was about as good as the name sounds (bad!). But Muse put on a great concert!
In the meantime, Laura managed to coerce two of the three boys into the funny little mustaches I'd gotten for them (Reid was not on board)...which was perfect with Ben's Darth Vader mustache shirt.
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