Home again, home again

We got home Monday night from our eleven day trip to MA. My sister Molly got married on May 30th and we flew up for her wedding and my sister Susie's graduation from high school a week later. I don't have any pictures as we didn't bring a camera, but tons of pictures were taken by various family members, so I will post my favorites when I get them :)

We had a wonderful time! The girls were flower girls and Jack was the "ring master" (the girls were apparently more familiar with that term than with the title "ring bearer"). The wedding was perfect and absolutely beautiful! We loved getting to spend time with the extended family members and old friends there too! I will post more detail about our trip with the pictures, but we managed to spend lots of time visiting with family and friends and swimming in the hotel pool. Megan learned to swim all by herself in about 10 mins - at least partly because she had watched her cousins (actually 2nd cousins, since she only has one 1st cousin and I don't think he swims yet since he's about 7 months old) swim without floaties at the hotel on the Cape. We were able to visit the Children's Museum in Boston with Rob's sister, Kate. Rob and the kids stayed home from the graduation as we thought seats were limited, but it was so neat to see Sus graduate! She is the last of "our generation" in our family to graduate from high school. That sounds kind of weird. Susie was Kylie's age when I graduated. Megan will be the next to graduate from high school in our family - and that sounds really weird!!! At least it's a decade away, although I know that decade will fly by.

We flew back on Monday night. This time around we tried a new tactic; rather than flying non-stop, we set it up so we had a layover about half-way through each way. On the way out it worked perfectly. The second flight was even delayed for about 30 mins so we had time to get dinner and the kids had more time to run around and get energy out. The way back was a bit less perfect. Our first flight was delayed and delayed. We were supposed to have a two hour layover, but by the time we took off, we were told we would be landing about 30 mins after our second flight was scheduled to take off. Mid-air they redid the route and managed to shave 35 mins off the flight, meaning we landed in O'Hare 5 mins before our second flight was scheduled to leave. Christy checked the flight status on her iPhone and discovered it was running 12 mins late and was leaving from another terminal. We jumped up the second the plane parked and Christy scooped Beth up and grabbed Kylie's hand and I, holding Jack, grabbed Megan's hand and we ran. Rob was a little bit behind us, but he caught up and took Beth. We made it as the last few people were boarding. Yay!!! All of us had only carry on luggage, but we checked it at the gate in Providence all the way through to TX so we wouldn't have to run with it. The luggage didn't make it onto the plane that night, but they delivered it to our house the next day.

It was wonderful to visit, but it's nice to be back in our house too :) Here's a few stories from this week ~

School is officially out, so Meg is home full time now. She has gone out of her way to help out around the house. She and the other kids all loaded the dishwasher on Wednesday completely by themselves. I tried to subtly go through and adjust things so that they were in positions they could actually get cleaned, but I was very impressed with all their work :) ~


I discovered a wonderful new way to keep Jack occupied when I am at the kitchen counter - sticking him in the sink with the cold water turned on low. It originally started because we had watermelon for dessert one night and he was COVERED in watermelon juice. Fortunately I ordered the "washable" brand of children, so I stuck him in the sink to clean him off. He had so much fun, I let him play there while I cleaned up dinner next to him.


A super cute shot of Jack's wrinkled nose grin :)


Megan decided today to eat her lunch upside down. I made her sit back up, but took a picture first :)


Beth dressed up as a baker today. She took an deflated swimmie and somehow stuck it on her head. It was so tight it made her hair stick out over her ears. Then she found a kid's apron and set to work making "cake" in her little play kitchen. I tried to take a picture of her, but she ran away. I asked if I could take one for Nona. She said NO. I asked if I could take one for Molly, Susie, Kiki, Travis, Great Grandma, Kate, etc. She said NO. I asked if I could take one for Papa. She came right over and even posed for him, so Dad, that face is for you! :)