Home Again

After spending two weeks at my mom's, we came back home...but with some more visitors! Rachael and Bryce came back with us. We were all so excited and with good reason!Bryce was able to go to Bauer's karate classes with him. He was a little nervous at first but about halfway through the first class he worked up the courage to go out on the floor. He and Bauer got to work one-on-one with one of Bauer's instructors. I think Bryce was having a pretty good time...and then they let the kids do flying side-kicks!It was the first time they'd ever done it in the class so Bauer was pretty stoked about it, too! They had to run across the whole mat and jump in the air to kick the pad and try to knock the instructors over! That pretty much sold Bryce and he looked forward to the classes for the rest of the time they were here!Rachael really wanted to go to the zoo while she was here, but I didn't really want to. In my humble opinion, you can only go to Potter Park Zoo so many times before you want to start screaming and pulling your hair out...and I reached that point a couple years ago! But, Meijer was hosting a zoo day and it was only $1 to get in and free parking so I decided to appease Rachael and we went.I have to say that we did have a pretty good time. The kids had fun and we went early enough in the morning that it wasn't too hot. By the time we left it was getting pretty busy and starting to warm up so it was perfect timing.And, of course, we had to introduce Rachael and Bryce to the MSU Dairy! Mmm-mm! She loved it so much (and who doesn't) that we had to go back a second time.We also met our brother, Tim, for dinner. It was the first time Bryce had met Tim and he didn't really know what to expect. We got to the restaurant first and Bauer and Bryce started talking about how they were going to tickle Tim when he got there. It went on and on and on and I even pretended to call Tim on the phone to tell him what the boys were going to do. It was so funny! Then Tim walked in the door and the boys' eyes got as big as saucers and they sunk down into their seats... Needless to say, Tim didn't get tickled.We took them to Jumpin' Jax, too. I've been keeping track of all the fun things that I would want to take them to do if they ever came to visit us again! (The last time Rachael and Bryce were here was 4 years ago!) We played and played and played until even the kids couldn't play anymore!Castaway Cafe! We were pretty much all over the place...And, the splash pad! We had playgroup at the splash pad one day so we went early to beat the crowd. Bryce loves the water so he had no problem "diving" right in! Bauer played around the perimeter and Cadance stayed pretty close to me. (My kids are so predictable!)Unfortunately for Cadance, I'm determined to turn her into a water baby so, since she wouldn't leave my side, I picked her up and ran through everything with her, making sure her eyes and ears were protected. She didn't start screaming so that's already an improvement over where Bauer was at her age!