A Raleigh Trip!

Since David was going to be out of town leading a Missions Trip, I decided several weeks ago to keep the rest of us occupied with a little trip to Raleigh! It had been TOO long since we visited Beth and her family and I couldn't let the summer go by without a trip before school started back up! We left after karate lessons on Monday night and got there around 10:30 pm. The kids woke up BRIGHT and early Tuesday morning and were SO excited to see all their friends! :) Beth and I got to run together before Anthony left for work which is ALWAYS fun (well, not the run part of it - that was really hard. but SO fun to get to do it together! We do have a race in November that we are training for after all!!) We left midmorning to walk down to their neighborhood pool!

All the equipment needed for our little "walk" down to the neighborhood pool :)

We practically had the pool to ourselves! The only ones not pictured are me and Caleb - we were taking the picture :) What a GREAT time we had! The big boys were all playing mario (they were pretending to be characters from the mario video game I think), the girls were playing with the mermaids and princess dolls, and Caleb was showing off his swimming skills to Mrs. Beth! Fun fun! We enjoyed lunch there and then headed back home for some good afternoon naps!

After nap time (and some GREAT conversation with Beth), the girls were back up and ready to go back to their play world! :) They LOVE playing babies together - it is hilarious to listen to!

Addison and Callie. BFFs for sure! :)

Our older boys (Harrison and Josiah) both really enjoy drawing - Harrison had a great idea to turn on a TV show, pause it, and then try to draw the characters. They loved it (and are both VERY good artists! I was impressed!) Oh - and we got to see Harrison's new glasses! He just got them last week! Josiah was very interested since he had just come from the eye doctor on Monday telling him glasses were in his future too!

The younger boys were enjoying some Mario Kart :)

When we were getting ready to leave for the pool earlier that morning, we couldn't find Jacob's crocs anywhere. He was SURE that when we arrived on Monday night, he put them by the front door before going to the bathroom. But they were nowhere to be found. After looking everywhere, I finally told the boys I'd give them a dollar if they could find them. Later on, Beth found Harrison like THIS at the front door - he had the flour out and said he saw this on TV - he was dusting for footprints! :) Is that hilarious or what??

Addison showed us her P90X moves that she learned from her daddy :)

We had a delicious dinner and then dessert that Beth made for us. Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake! It was GREAT! We both have a few boys (namely Harrison and Josiah) that do NOT like mayonnaise. So imagine their surprise when, as they were gobbling up their cake, they heard what the secret ingredient was! :) Hilarious. (It's a very famous southern recipe for those of you freaking out. Mayonnaise is really just oil and eggs - so you can replace those with mayo in a cake recipe just fine!)

The boys were STILL working on theories for "who stole Jacob's crocs" after dessert. (it ends up that he left them at karate class on Monday night - got in the car with no shoes! that boy!)

We had VERY special plans that evening! Every Tuesday night during the summer, there is a little rodeo in Raleigh. Last summer when we came to visit, we were on our way to see the rodeo and the heavens opened up with a HUGE downpour. It knocked off power and everything - the rodeo was cancelled (obviously) and we had some VERY disappointed children! This year the weather was much more cooperative and we were SUPER excited!

They had bull riding (8 seconds is a LONG time!!) and barrel racing (Callie LOVED seeing the cowgirls!) - what fun!

The boys were totally enthralled.

Then they let all the kids out to try and catch a calf that has a ribbon tied to its tail. Our kids went out there (they are sort of in the middle of the line up) and were SURE they were going to catch the calf!

Total chaos and totally hilarious watching these kids chase around after this calf!

Then they got to stay out there for the funky chicken dance! Our kids had no idea what they were doing and really just ran around like crazy people - it was hysterical!

One of the barrel racing cowgirls gave Jacob this coozy! :) He was excited to get a free prize!

Poor Caleb. He woke up from his nap and wasn't quite right. He was warm and sat in my lap the WHOLE rodeo. Every now and then he'd point to the horses - he loved that - but was so quiet. I knew he wasn't feeling right. Poor thing. We had a great time though - love these little small town family nights!!!