Amy and Ricky celebrated their 10th anniversary in February. I can't believe they've already been married that long. They decided to celebrate by taking a trip to Yellowstone National Park by themselves. They asked if we were available to babysit the kids and I arranged to make the time. It helped that they went over Labor Day weekend so I didn't have to take any time off work.
They came down to our house on Saturday, then Andy took them to the airport in their Suburban. It was nice to be able to use their car while we had the kids since then we didn't have to move the car seats or wonder how we would fit all the kids in our car.
One of the things the kids like to do at our house is watch movies and eat pizza and ice cream. So I made pizza for supper and then we watched
Cinderella and had ice cream.
Another thing the kids liked to do, especially Katy and Joanna, was to dress up in the play clothes. And Chase had dinosaur on the brain. He was constantly talking about them or pretending to be one.
On Sunday morning, I got them ready for church and took them all. Katy went into the toddler nursery and walked right in without a fuss. When I went to pick her up after church, she looked like she was having a good time. Our church nursery, though, is a very fun place - with lots of interesting toys and activities. Joanna went to Sunday school in Kira's class even though she was a year older. They had fun together. Chase sat in church with me. He did well until near the very end when his 7 year old boy legs just couldn't stay still any longer. He was stretching them out and being very patient but if it had gone much longer, I think he would have exploded!
After church we had lunch, then I lay down with Katy for her nap and Andy took Chase and Joanna back to church to play in the gym. Dawn and Kira met them there and they ran off their energy and had a ball together. Andy had bought 2 bikes for the kids so they had fun riding them around as well as playing with balls and games in the gym.
We had tentatively talked about going to the shore with the kids, but it rained on Monday (Labor Day) and the forecast for Tuesday was not much better. So we came up with an alternate plan: Chick-fil-A! Dawn and Kira met us there again and the kids played there for an hour while Dawn, Andy and I just enjoyed some quiet time. Oh, there were some moments when we had to get involved, but most of the time, they just played and played. Someone at Chick-fil-A had a very brilliant idea when they designed all their restaurants with the indoor playground.
After lunch, we took Chase & Joanna to Dawn's and left them there to play with Kira all afternoon while Andy and I took Katy to our house for her nap and some quiet time for us. When Katy woke up, the three of us went to Dawn's and let them play some more. The rain had cleared up and they were able to play outside by the time we got there.
I don't know why these photos are sideways and I don't know how to change them. If anyone has any clues, I'm open to any advice you can give me. (The sideways photos were taken with my iphone.)
On Tuesday morning the rain had cleared up but we were thinking it would be too much to drive all the way to the shore for the kids to be in the car all that time, then later in the car again when we took them up to Lancaster. So we came up with a different plan.
We met Dawn and Kira at Laurel Acres Park where the kids played in the play area for about an hour and a half. It was pretty humid so with all their activity and running around, they got very hot and sweaty. So that was a good segue to a neighbor's pool to cool off.
We had quite a shakeup at the pool. Chase & Katy were in the above floater together, just tooling around the pool, when all of a sudden Katy jumped out. I guess she thought she had little swimmies on, but she didn't. Chase yelled at us. When we looked his way, all we could see of Katy was the top of her head and her hands flailing under the water. Dawn jumped in, clothes and all, she still hadn't got her swimming suit on, to rescue Katy. She held her up and Katy didn't even splutter. She must have been holding her breath, but we estimated she must have been under for at least 15 seconds. She was a little scared, and we told her she couldn't do that again, but she seemed to be fine. Whew!
We didn't stay at the pool very long because we had one more thing scheduled to do with the kids. We all went to our house to have lunch, then Dawn and I and all the kids went on to the Bouncy Place in Cherry Hill where the kids bounced for 2 hours. Andy stayed home to rest and recuperate before the trip up to Lancaster. I was so amazed at the energy level of the kids. How do they continue to keep on going? Are they running on Energizer batteries? It's just amazing. Fortunately, at the Bouncy Place, Dawn and I could sit on the bench and just watch the kids, it was actually pretty restful for the adults there but opportunity for the kids to jump and run to their heart's content.
I took some pictures of them sliding down the slides but they were going so fast the pictures were nothing but blurs.
All too soon it was time to return the little darlings to their home. Actually, Tuesday afternoon we drove them up to Lancaster County to Ricky's parents' who were going to take care of them the rest of the week.
As fun as it was to have them, I have to admit that it was also exhausting. We're not used to having 3 kids with that much energy. They were good and obedient and fun, so there were no complaints there. And we were happy Ricky and Amy had the opportunity to get away by themselves.
A few more pictures of our time:
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| On the neighbor's trampoline |
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| Katy the monkey |
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| Loving PopPop! |
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All in all, it was a fun time with the Chase, Joanna & Katy.
