Summer Visit With Family

The past few weeks have been busy ones for us!  My parents were here to visit us for about a week and half during the last week of June and the first week of July.  While they were here, we took a little trip down to Bowling Green, Ohio to visit my grandma.  She and Maddie met for the first time that day.

 My aunt and uncle also came over to my grandma's nursing home while we were there, and we were able to see them too.  Drew played Memory with my mom for part of the time.

 Four generations

 During the time that my parents were at our house, Grandma Becka read lots of books to Drew, and Poppie played a new game with Drew, called, "Balloon Lagoon."

 Jim and I celebrated our ninth anniversary that week, and my parents watched the children for us so we could go out and celebrate.  Jim brought home roses for me, and we went out to Maggiano's for dinner.

 Maddie had her four month well visit that week.  She weighed 14 pounds, 15 ounces and was 25 inches long.  She had to get two shots that morning, and she got the ok from her doctor to start eating cereal.  I made her rice cereal, and she ate it pretty well.

 She was more interested in her toes toward the end than she was in her cereal!

That week, we also celebrated the Fourth of July and my mom's birthday.  We went thrifting that morning (Salvation Army had all their clothing half off), and we planned to go out to Rackham for the fireworks that evening, but we had some very strong thunderstorms (with hail!), and Maddie was pretty fussy from her shots, so we decided to just stay home.

 On July 6, Maddie, Drew, and I left for South Carolina with my parents.  We broke our trip up into two days with a hotel stay in Lexington, Kentucky.  We went swimming in the hotel pool that night, and Maddie loved it!  She kicked and kicked!

 Drew liked swimming too, but he is still very cautious in the pool.  Here he is with his swimmy "muscles."

 We had a nice, relaxing week at my parents' house.  My dad has a large garden in the back yard, and he and Drew went out to pick blueberries one morning.

 Drew ate about three blueberries for every berry he put into the bucket.

 Drew also helped make some cocoa krispie treats

 and some homemade ice cream!

 Maddie got held a lot (which she loved!).

 We got to see my sister and brother and their families several evenings.  Here is a picture of the cousins, my two and my brother's son, Ryan.  Because of the age differences, they didn't really play together very well this time, but hopefully, they will play more in the future.

My parents drove us up to Cincinnati this past weekend, and Jim met us there.  We all stayed in a hotel there that evening, and then we came home on Sunday.  Maddie woke up with a bad cough, sneezing, and a runny nose on Sunday morning at the hotel, so we had to take her to the doctor on Monday to rule out croup.  She just has a cold, which I have also caught now, so we are staying home a lot this week, trying to rest and catch up from our busy past few weeks.