Beach Trip 2011

~ Thursday, August 4, 2011

As I mentioned in my last post, when Nathan and Hester picked up Jacob, Kinley and Elyn from our house, they were headed to the beach! They had graciously invited us to come along with them, so Billy was picked up Wednesday evening and we headed out bright and early Thursday morning to spend a few days with Nathan, Hester and the kids on the beach in Gulf Shores! Hester said the way the condo was set up we would have enough beds for Chase to invite a friend along, so Payton joined us on our last trip before school started back that Monday!

We had a fun ride to the beach, as usual when we set out on a long car ride, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast! I got a picture of the three red shirts! :)

Tommy and I enjoyed a nice ride for most of the way down because as you can see Chase and Payton spent most of their time with these in their ears! We could talk about them and they didn't even know it!! :)

We had a great time with Nathan, Hester and the kids as usual! We went out to eat, spent most of our time at the pool because the ocean and beach were covered in jellyfish, but we love the pool! Payton and Chase played racquetball several nights, and Nathan and Jacob enjoyed some putt-putt golf! Us girls all headed out on our last day their to the outlet malls! Chase got a hat, sunglasses, and an Alabama T-shirt! Payton got a pair of sunglasses, and a cute T-shirt and Kinley got a new purse!! :) Chase and Payton kept the kids one night, so that the adults could go on a double date! I got some cute pictures of Elyn when we got home...Hester had her laughing so hard, I wish it was a video! It was too precious!

and here are a couple of pics the morning we left!! I don't know if you noticed, but Chase and Payton planned out their traveling attire ahead of time...on the way to the beach they both had on their red Ron Jon t-shirts and on the way home, they are both wearing their Bass Pro Shop t-shirts!! :)

We had a great 4 days at the beach, we have never been to Gulf Shores before, but it was exactly what we needed before coming home and starting school on Monday!! :) Thanks Nathan and Hester for letting us tag along with you guys again this year! We love you!

4 grandkids for 4 days!! (con't)

~ Monday, Aug 1, 2011

After a fun filled day outside playing all kinds of water games, we had a fun night planned as well.  Elyn was kind too worn out to hang in with us, so we laid her down for the night and while Aunt Chase and I were setting everything up, Grandaddy took all the kids into our room and read them a story. When Aunt Chase and I were ready we told the kids that we were going to the movies!! (Of course Jacob's first question was who was going to stay with Elyn? He's such a good big brother, but I assured him she would be fine!) I explained that we were going to a special movie theatre called the "Worthey Theatre", then we led the kids out into the kitchen where Aunt Chase had the Concession stand set up, I gave everyone their money, and they were able to purchase a ticket for the movie, a bag of popcorn, a drink, and some candy...The kids continued on to the ticket taker aka Grandaddy, then they found their seats in the theatre and waited patiently for the movie to begin...

Our Feature Presentation for the evening was Yogi Bear

We were actually suppose to have a "Drive In Movie Night", but I couldn't find 3 boxes big enough for the kids to fit in, but hopefully we can do that again in the future...my plan was to add wheels and headlights to the box with paper plates, Aunt Chase was going to add their names to the back of the "cars" and our plan was to let them decorate their cars before the movie, but like I said it didn't work out, but we all a great time anyway and since we had a longer night than usual, the kiddos were ready for bed when the movie was over!! 

On Tuesday. we tried heading out early for the park, (it was so hot the days the kids were here, we thought if we went early that it wouldn't be too bad) We went to a park in Hogansville, a park that is usually empty, but it's a really nice park and it has a pavilion for a perfect place for a picnic, so we took our lunch supplies with us!!

When we got to the park, the kids went immediately to play and I headed over to put our supplies under the pavilion...I had barely gotten over to the pavilion when I see Jacob and Billy heading over, so I asked if they were already hungry and they both responded "We are so HOT!" So they got a drink and headed back to play! We got the picnic set up, everyone ate really quickly and we got back in the Tahoe as fast as we could!! I couldn't believe how HOT it was, so we drove around with the A/C on full blast (My daughter in law, Hester calls our Tahoe The Artic Bus, but this day is was so nice!!)

Grandaddy was able to get a few pictures while we were at the park, I had really wanted one of all 4 of the kids together, the park has this cool slide that has 4 slides together, but it was way to hot to make the kids do a "photo shoot", so Grandaddy just walked around and took some pics as the kids played!

Chase was such a big help all 4 days the kids were here, and the kids loved having Aunt Chase to play with...

After we left the park we drove around a bit enjoying the A/C, but Chase had colorguard practice that evening, so we took her to practice, then took the kids to Burger King, so that they could play in the cool, we had dinner then back to get Chase from practice!

On Wednesday, we played games around the house and played the Wii quite a bit, we had to get the kids stuff together because Nathan and Hester were coming in the early afternoon to get their 3 kids because they were picking them up and heading straight from our house to the beach! Brian and Gerie's flight was not coming in until later, so we had Billy all day on Wednesday and he had a great time, beating Grandaddy on the Wii, not to mention a new game Grandaddy started by hitting Jacob and Billy with a little blow up ball! They loved teaming up against Grandaddy!! :)

We had a wonderful 4 days with 4 of our grandkids!! Thank you Brian, Gerie, Nathan, and Hester for letting the kids stay with us!



4 grandkids for 4 days!!

~Sunday, July 31, 2011

Our son, Brian called me (I guess he lost the toss..haha!) Anyway, Brian called a few weeks ago and said that He, Gerie, Nathan, and Hester were all planning a trip together and wanted to know if we would keep his son, Billy, and Nathan's 3 kids Jacob, Kinley, and Elyn for 4 days...I immediately said YES...because of course we love having the grandkids over anytime we can! We have never had 4 of them at once to spend the night with us much less have them for 4 days, but we were excited! I immediately started planning what fun things we would do while they were here, I figured it was best to keep them busy, hopefully avoiding too many "missing mom and dad too much" moments! I have "pinned" several fun things for the grandkids on my Pinterest account, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to use some of those ideas!

Sunday night we went to church and just kinda got everyone settled in...We have a room here at our house set up for our grandkids, we have a crib for Elyn and bunkbeds for the older grandkids.  However since I didn't want the older ones to wake up Elyn too early, we decided it best to make pallets in our room for the 3 older ones! They loved sleeping in the same room with Grandaddy and Mimi and they all layed down easily each night!!

Monday, August 1st we spent alot of time outside, we set up our kiddie pool, a table for painting river rocks, we played outside bowling, and last but not least we did water balloon pinata`, and water balloon fights!!

A good time was had by all!! :)

The Outside Bowling was a Big Hit!! and they were all really good at it!! :)

Water Balloon Pinata`

Kinley was the first to bust a balloon, I don't think she realized the water was going to go all over her! She was pretty surprised! Elyn loved watching them!! :)

Elyn even got in on the water spraying when Billy busted his balloon!

We all had a great time on Monday! It was a really HOT day, and all these water activities were the perfect thing to keep us all cool! :)

**I will continue with the rest of their visit and some more fun things we did in another post!**