On Monday, my buddy Patty braved the 9.5 hour drive from TN with her 4 kids to come visit us. Our house was very full and it made for some very crazy times, but it was also lots of fun too. Here are some of her kids with mine on their first night here:
So with Steven off at camp Tuesday morning, I took Patty and her kids to my typical tourist destination, Kensington Metropark. We stopped at the farm first and the animals all seemed extra friendly. The kids loved it!
After the farm, I took them to the beach in Kensington. I have never been there before which is pretty embarrassing considering it is the closest beach to us! The beach was pretty but the shore is weird. They raked the dirt up in huge lumps so it was kind of awkward and not inviting to sit and play in. However, there is an amazing park right by the beach that my kids absolutely loved. It had lots of fun ropes for climbing on. Unfortunately, Leia and Kate (Patty's kids) were having a rough day and they spent most of their time at the beach throwing fits. Such a bummer for Patty, so we ended up not staying too long.
Tuesday night we got even more company at our house. Tyler's mom's friend Michelle was in town for work and we had her join our crazy full house (along with her coworker) for dinner. It was so fun to see her in my neck of the woods, she is such a nice lady and we had some good talks. She really helped me to come to terms with Tyler's introvert mother better.
After dinner, I somehow managed to escape the kids and I took Michelle and her co-worker to the nature trails in Kensington Metropark (I bet you would never have guessed I would take her there ;)). They were so in love with everything: the cranes, the chipmunks, the turtles, the lakes, the greens. It was so fun to see everything in their fresh from AZ perspective. It helped me remember just how lucky I am to be living in all this beauty.
Michelle said she is going to try and make a trip out here again and that she would bring Tyler's mom with her. I really hope she does, that would be so fun!
On Wednesday Patty and I decided to keep things simple and we walked our kids over to Milford Central Park. For some reason all of our kids stayed in the little sand area which made for a nice chill time.
Lucy and Ben decided it would be fun to make sand angels...
After picking up Steven from Scout Camp Wednesday afternoon, we all loaded up and headed to the splash park that is in Indian Springs Metropark. All of our kids really seemed to enjoy it. It was super hot in the sun so they were able to cool off in the sprayers and lucky for us adults it was super cool in the shade so we were able to chill with the babies.
When the older kids were done splashing around they headed to a rope maze that was next to the splash park. Unfortunately this is where the outing went sour for my family. Penny was upset about leaving the splash park because she was just starting to get comfortable with being sprayed. Just when she calmed down from that fit, Benny tripped and fell and you would've thought he was near death. He was screaming "Oh my gosh! It hurts so bad! I need a band aid now!" and crying his guts out. It was embarrassingly awful. I had to wait for Lucy & Steven to get out of the maze before I could get him a band aid from the car. The whole thing was just excruciating.
After getting the band aides on him, he was miraculously just fine and they spent a little bit of time playing at the park there before we called it a day and headed home.
Side note: Leia was obsessed with Steven while she was here. She just wanted to spend all her waking hours with him and was not happy about him being at camp all day. She told her mom "I love Steven" her mom asked her: "Like you love your brother Brice?" She responded: "I don't love Brice but I love Steven."
Wednesday night I got to have another escape and Patty & I went and got some ice cream from Cold Stone. It was so nice to catch up with her without 8 kids running around.
On Thursday we had an early morning walk on one of the nature trails in Kensington. The kids were so good (zero meltdowns) and it was so much fun! I had them pose for a picture on a bench (everyone but baby Grace) and then after that they wanted to pose for a picture on every bench that they saw. It was so funny!
After lunch we took the kids to the Huron Valley Rec Center where they have a super fun indoor water park. I had never been there before because it's a little pricey but it was so much fun for the kids and I might just have to take them again. Ben has asked me every day since if we are going there again.
The only lame part was that Patty had to fill out a waiver form for her kids before we could go inside (we had already filled one out when Steven had been on a field trip there) and it took forever! I tried distract the kids from the eternal waiting by taking their pictures and then letting them take selfies...
Poor middle child Ben is always struggling to be in the picture, even when not all of the kids are his own brothers and sisters.
I love how the whole time Patty's family was visiting my kids were totally baby crazy. Anytime baby Grace was left unattended, my kids were up in her face. Poor thing! At least she is so easy going and happy that she didn't mind. Here they are attacking her as we got ready to go to the farmer's market that afternoon:
Thursday night Patty and I were lucky enough to get out again, only baby Grace tagged along with us. We went to my friend Heather's baby shower. It is always fun to get together with the ladies in my ward. We enjoyed some yummy dessert and fun conversations.
Friday morning Patty and her kids left us. It was sad to say goodbye! Now everything is back to boring normal and we are trying to get back into our summertime routine. We still have a whole month until school starts and I am not sure how we are going to survive now that we have no fun plans on the agenda. The boys definitely do a lot of fighting when they are home with each other all day.
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