We spent a fun couple days in Sioux Falls this past weekend as a pre-Birthday celebration for Cashel, in lieu of a big birthday party.
(And as an aside, I can only thank Jesus for the fact that Cashel actually CHOSE a weekend in Sioux Falls over a birthday party, because the Lord knows this mama could not have handled preparations this year!)
We took off Saturday morning around 10:15am and drove straight there. The boys were pretty giddy to not be spending another weekend hanging out at home and were extremely well-behaved on the 90 minute drive there :)
We decided on Cracker Barrel for lunch right as we got into town, which I'd like to think was a great move, but upon walking into the little country store part immediately turned into one of those things nightmares are made of: An almost-4-year-old and a 2.5 year old running through a store filled with breakable stuff. We finally got seats, though, and the food was good, and the service was good, and the boys ate pretty much nothing but vegetables and a few bites of mac & cheese.
We were so thankful that we were able to get into our hotel room shortly before 1pm, and pretty much immediately changed into our gear and headed down to the pool. Kendrick's reaction here about sums it up: Pure excitement mixed with "OMG IT'S COLD!!!" haha :)
Mark and I learned very quickly to just jump in the deep end to save ourselves the pure agony of the gradual freeze. But we also spent a fair amount of time just dangling our feet in the hot tub (which was incredibly hot) to warm up a tinge.
The boys had a blast pretending there were sharks in the pool, and Mark and I would pretend that our arms or legs were stuck in the vents because the sharks were biting them off, which made them squeal and then laugh and laugh and laugh :) Here Kendrick is saying, "Oh! Oh! There's a SHARK over there!"
Mostly, though, the boys just loved to sit on the edge and kick and kick and kick and splash all over: Especially Kendrick.
After the pool time, it was nap time, and we settled the boys down with a show on the tablet.
I was able to run a couple errands while the boys napped, but by the time I got home, Cashel was ready to open another present :) We let him open two of his presents while we were in Sioux Falls: some Crocs for this summer (and the pool), and a set of Magformers, which I've heard really great things about.
Afterwards, we had a little pool and pizza time with the Grabers at the hotel, then visited for a while, letting the kiddos run around screaming and jumping off things in the hotel room. (And yes, it was as crazy as it seemed. haha) So then, as any normal person would, we pumped them full of sugar (birthday cupcakes) for good measure ;)
These two are only about seven months apart, and they had a blast playing together, even if we could hardly get them to stand still long enough to take a picture :)
It took this guy all of about 3 seconds to lay claims on my new Nathan water bottle again. What a goofball :)
It's a tough job being these boys' Daddy, but he handles it well.
We got to bed a little later that night (Kendrick didn't conk out until close to 10pm!), but we were up by 8:30 for the day and hit the pool again after breakfast for one last hoorah.
We checked out by 11:45 and enjoyed a yummy lunch at Outback Steakhouse, followed by a short stop at TJ Maxx and then the mall to let the boys run off some energy in the play place before heading home.
We also stopped to see Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jess in Worthington on the way for a short bit before getting home around supper time.
It was a fun weekend, even if this Mama is ready to retire from birthdays altogether at this point :) We're excited to celebrate our little guy on Tuesday, which is his actual birthday! It's hard to believe it has been four years already, but he's certainly growing before our eyes, and we know we can't (nor do we want to) make it stop. I guess that's just how parenthood goes.
