3 weeks in 3 days

Bill called me Monday, June 29th, from work. The conversation went something like this...

Bill: you know the hiking trip that my cousins are doing in Redding, well, I really want to go. Will you drive with me?

Me: Oh, you mean the trip I told you to buy a plane ticket for 2 months ago...well, I'll have to drive back up in 2 weeks for the Claycamp campout.

BIll: (pause)

Me: I guess, (sigh) the kids and I (sigh) could just... stay up there for the...3 WEEKS! I don't know, that's a long time.

(Let me clarify, it was 1 cousin and 1 brother and 1 uncle... "cousinS" did sound better.)

I had 3 days, more like 2 1/4 days to pack for 3 weeks when I initially thought I had 2 weeks to pack for 1! Talk about crazy. But then again, I'm getting really good at crazy. And truth be told, I think I like it.

I made plans to stay with loved ones for the next 2 weeks with the 3rd week being my family's campout on the coast. We left Thursday afternoon at 3 after Aaron nearly drowned in a friend's pool. (Little boys who can take off their floaties, and who are daring to a fault, cannot be out of your site at the pool for even a second! That's all I'm gonna say about that. He was attempting to do the same thing the very next day!!! ARGH!) Bill dropped his car off at the airport where he'd be flying home to on Monday the 6th (thanks to "flex" days), and we picked him up there.

Bill drove the entire 12 hours except for when we dropped him off at his dad's house, for the hike with the "cousins" and I drove the extra 45 min. to my dad's at 3 in the morning. Bill told the kids to keep me awake...after 20 min, I told the kids, "Okay, I think that's enough, thank you." 

The kids were fantastic. We could not have asked for better travelers. Not ONE SINGLE COMPLAINT THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE CAR! (And no Papa T., not even an "are we there yet?") Considering the time of day we chose to travel you'd think they slept alot, not really. But whenever they saw a bunch of trees Aaron would yell out, "We're at Papa's house!", even if it was only 2 hours into the trip. Aaron continues to amaze us with his ability to pee every hour if not 2 or 3 times per hour. We got so good at roadside pee breaks that nobody was even getting out of the car, not even Aaron. (Let your imagination work on that one.)

I was thrilled to have good timing, if nothing else. My brother, Garrett's son, Logan was having his 5th birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's Friday morning. We surprised him with our arrival. (I had called Kristi, his mom, Wednesday, to RSVP to the invite she had sent just for fun. She thought I was being a smart alec, but was excited when I explained what was going on and that we would actually be in attendance.)

Logan the Birthday boy and Livi.

We had dinner with the Michiels (Bill's mom) Friday night. Luckily Tiger's family was visiting from out of town due to the 4th. My kids adore their 2nd cousins. We went swimming in Grandpa Bob's pool and had great conversation, along with a meal from Mom that didn't disappoint.

Bill's cousin Katherine, Aaron and  our nephew Josh

Bill's cousins Charles and Mary Katherine. 

Livi and Charles really had a thing going. After dinner and dessert, Livi, Aaron and Josh put on a magic show for the older "kids" and Great Grandpa Bob, Tiger's dad, complete with 

"number guessing". It was GREAT! Grandpa was smiling and laughing. Something he hasn't done very much of lately.