fish, sand, family and fun

After an 8+ hour drive from the suburbs of Chicago to Erie, PA we have been enjoying Kenyon's old stomping grounds and the people he stomped with. Pop Pop and Hunca Munca always make our visits so special for the boys. Although we don't get back here very often, the boys don't ever forget it.

Kenyon's mom Lila works at the local library, and every year she gets all the boys a t-shirt from the latest reading promotion. She passed them out when Kenyon's cousin Devin and her daughters came over for a visit.

Here are all the cousins sporting their new t-shirts. In the back are Elisa, Hunter, Mariah, Sauce. In the front row are Nora, Rufus and Squirt.

Pop Pop said that it always rains when Hunca Munca turns on the sprinkler to water the garden. He was right - so they took out all the umbrellas and went for a walk in the rain.

Here we are - what a crew!

For the last couple of years, Hunca and Pop Pop have done treasure hunts with the boys, taking them all over the peninsula and sometimes on boat rides across the bay of Lake Erie. Last time we had a frog theme, and this year it is a pirate theme.

We have three scurvy pirates waiting for their treasure hunt this afternoon. They have gotten quite comfortable in their pirate gear though.

Last night we had homemade pizza made by some expert chefs. Delicious!

In their backyard garden paradise they have a little pond loaded with fish. Sauce spends most of his time with the net trying to catch one. You can't really see it, but there is one in the net.

There is also a little sandbox built just for our boys and this year Hunca and Pop Pop hid sea shells, colored glass stones and other treasures for them to find. There was also a big bucket of colored sand for them to mix in and play with. Why would they ever want to go home?

I'm wondering how many treasures and blue sand we will find when Rufus's cast comes off next Wednesday!

Yesterday we also got to see Kenyon's uncles and aunts when they came over for brunch.

I neglected to blog about the "Midwest Regional Barf Relay" we entered our family in before we got to Erie. Squirt must have picked up something on the plane rides here (active non-walker on confined airplane - yuck!) and was throwing up intermittently in the night when we were at my sister's house.

I was the next lucky participant to yawn in technicolor on Saturday night. Squirt made his last entry about two hours into our drive across the midwest.

Yum, feeling sick and cleaning up puke pooling in the corner of a carseat at the same time!

I started receiving text messages over the next couple of days that my other family members we just left were now joining in the relay. Amelia took the first turn, then Jeff and Eva grabbed the baton and barfed all Monday night. Little did they know that my brother in-law Terry was doing the same.

Sorry guys.