"When traveling with someone, take large doses of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee."
-Helen Hayes
This post will mostly center around a trip to Freeport, TX (motto: “Fun Happens Here!”) this weekend. But before I get to that, I thought I would share some pictures of Ashlyn and James learning how to play together in a new way. James is now able to communicate “yeah!” when he wants to say yes to something, which has opened communication up quite a bit. In this way, Ashlyn was able to ask James if he wanted to race in the living room, and after an excited “yeah!” off they went, back and forth, back and forth. Most of the time Ashlyn had won and was racing back before James could get to the halfway mark. James didn’t care, he simply turned around and happily went back to the starting point. We’re curious to see what new games will be invented, it should be fun!
The trip down to Freeport was as good as you can expect with two small children. Neither slept long enough, Mom was constantly doing things to keep them entertained, and Dad drove a separate vehicle because we had too many people traveling with us to fit all in one (the kids rode with the Grandparents because they have a DVD player in the car). The first night was fairly uneventful. We ate and took the kids to JT and Nancy Joe’s house to sleep. It was there that Ashlyn found the new love of her life, the sit and spin. We don’t know how she does it, but she spun for 10 minutes straight without getting dizzy. I got dizzy just watching her.
Great Grandma Doodle’s 90th birthday party was a lot of fun for everyone, especially the kids. There were toys, footballs, a large cake, slides, swings, balloons, other kids, and more cake. There was a good turnout for the party, you could tell that a lot of people think very highly of Great Grandma Doodle.
The after party was at Leo and Elaine’s house. I’m fairly sure the noise that ensued with all the kids in one house is why they Aspiring was invented. The kids didn’t seem to mind the noise, I’m guessing the massive cake intake caused a sugar high that resulted in temporary hearing loss.
When we woke up the next morning, Ashlyn went straight to the sit and spin toy. This time she thought it would be fun to take James along for the ride. While Ashlyn can somehow spin for hours without getting Dizzy, James cannot. The pictures below are in sequence to demonstrate how James reacts to the spinning compared to Ashlyn. No children were injured during the taking of these pictures.
We rounded out the trip with some family pictures. I made sure to get a picture with four generations of girls: Great Grandma Doodle, Grandma Wolfe, Mom, and Ashlyn.
It was a great trip, and I know I can speak for everyone in my house when I say, “It was so much fun, we’re going to be early tonight.” Happy Birthday Doodle!!