The Wild and Wonderful of It All

I haven't posted in a while because we have been so busy. My dad had the day off on Thursday so we kept ourselves busy for the morning and then after Ellis' nap we went to the "sprinkle park." Emmy and I took the boys here last year and Ellis loved it but he wasn't walking yet so all summer I have been waiting for when we could take him back. In my opinion it is one of the greatest places on earth. It is free for adults and only costs one dollar for kids. Usually it is packed but we went around 4pm and there was almost no one there. At first Ellis seemed really unsure and wouldn't even get his feet wet but Pappy helped him get warmed up and after that you couldn't catch him if you wanted to. He loved it and didn't even mind when Michael poured a huge bucket of water on his head.
Friday morning my mom, Michael, Ellis, and I got up, ate breakfast and we were out the door for WV. The boys each had a book and they kept themselves pretty busy with trading books and eating snacks and were good throughout the entire trip. We got to Ironton and they were begining to get restless when Michael spotted a moving train. It was our saving grace and thank goodness it was really long. We spent forever trying to catch up with it and when we finally did there were three diesel engines. If you know Michael at all you know exactly how loud he was and what his face looked like. Ellis was sitting there kicking his feet for all it was worth and screaming ding ding choo choo.
We went to Mam and Pap's first and had tons of visitors while we were there. Unfortunatley I didn't get one picture of Ellis with his namesake great grandparents because I was Papaw's offical potographer. I guess they will have to share their pictures with me this time. After an afternoon nap and a snack we went over to Aunt Raree's for pizza and a swim. Ellis really surprised me in the water. We have played in his kid pool a ton this summer but the only time he has been in a big pool was in the hotel on the big move. He swam with Trevor that time and seemed really unsure. That was not the case this time. It was a constant swim to the steps, over to the side and jump back into the pool. Molly finally went to the store down the road and got him some swimmies because he didn't want anyone to hold on to him. He was a fish the rest of the night.
By the time we got to Peepaw's to sleep he was worn out and I think he was asleep before I even got out of the room. Its hard to say who is his favorite at Peep's but I think that Stitch may be pulling ahead. Ellis sat on Peep's lap and gave the dog an overload on the treats.
After lunch it was back to Mammaw and Pappaw's for a little tractor and bike riding time. Uncle Terry, Aunt Lisa, and Trevor (the cousin) showed up to play for a while and then share a large Jim's spagetti dinner with all of us.
We packed up the car after dinner, set the boys up with a popsicle and we were on our way home. This is where it got funny. For those of you that know Huntington we were driving the curves just barely in sight of Hal Greer Blvd. when Michael thought he could pull one over on mom. He started saying "oh mom I'm so hot. I wish I could rest but I'm just to hot. Are you hot? I think I would feel better if you just went straight." By this time we can see Baskin Robbins and Michael can read the arrows on the road and knew that if mom stayed in the left lane that she would be turning to get onto the interstate but if she got over into the right lane to got straight we would be headed straight for ice cream. It's pretty hard to talk mom OUT of 2 scoops of chocolate and peanut butter so we were in the parking lot before we knew it. So this is a picture of Ellis finishing his popsicle so that we could put his shirt on him to go in and get some ice cream.
We returned to the curb where there are many pictures very similar to this one of Emmy, Bryce, and me having a little chocolate and peanut butter of our own. The shirt was again taken off and I assure you this was a great idea. This was the begining of the ice cream. The end took a huge handfull of wet wipes and I'm still finding dried up dribbles. I guess that the sugar really hit Ellis because he never fell asleep and by the end of our trip my mom and I were singing rounds of row row row your boat, the itsy bitsy spider and Ellis has a cow on his head. We were nearing the driveway and had gone through all of the people we could think of and every animal on the list when it became "Steve has a bike on his head" and never really changed after that.....needless to say I'm not looking forward to the shock that it will be to Ellis tomorrow when we have to let him in on the secret that we won't be living with his plalymates Steve and Nana Kelli anymore. I'm really praying that the tractor sheets and airplane/digger quilt work!