Summer Road Trip '12 -- Part Four

After our quick jaunt to Ohio, we continued onto Indiana. We spent a few days in Bloomington, exploring a little, but mostly soaking up good times with friends.

We also celebrated Rhys's TENTH birthday while in Bloomington!  It was pretty special for him to spend his birthday with his best buddy.

The next day, we had to pack up and begin the trip home. After a photo shoot, some donuts, and some final farewells, we hit the road again.

Griffin is 7!

We spent Griffin's 7th birthday in Corpus Christi with three other families.  Our original plan had been to go camping at Inks Lake, but with Avery and Maya suffering from seasonal allergies, we found ourselves in need of a Plan B.  After much discussion, internet searching, and countless phone calls, we settled on a beach trip. We rented condos and mixed up the children and parents so that the kids could spend the nights with their best friends.  So really, we had a multi-night sleepover at the beach, complete with learning to surf, lots of boogie boarding, cooking hot dogs and s'mores on the beach, and tons of pool time too.  It was a completely wonderful trip, and we headed back home feeling exhausted, sunburned, and content.  We feel so lucky to know these families that we all enjoy so much.

Birthday sundaes.

On the last morning, we decided to have an April Fools Easter egg hunt.

Avery's Birthday Flashback

Now that all the Christmas excitement is over, I have time to go back and post about all the fun we had celebrating Avery's birthday!

On the actual day of Avery's birthday, she woke up to a room filled with balloons.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize just how much helium balloons lose overnight, but she got the idea.  :-)

Avery is such a ray of sunshine in the morning!

We invited Mamar and Carolyn over for Avery's birthday dinner (Linah, Nonnie, and Poppie couldn't make it).  We had pizza and cake.  Yum!

Avery is a very...ahem...special girl.

In lieu of a birthday party, Avery opted to go with her best friend (and birthday buddy) Maya to San Antonio for a girls weekend. Maya's grandmother lives in San Antonio, and was so sweet to host the four of us for the weekend. We had a wonderful time, and I can't remember the last time I've laughed so much -- mostly at our crazy girls.

We started the weekend downtown at the Mexican Market.

Not quite sure what to say about this one....

Getting a caricature.

The resemblance is uncanny, doncha think?

Then the girls got (temporary) colored streaks put in their hair!

Next, we went down to the Riverwalk.  The trees were lit up beautifully for Christmas.  We took in the sights for a while, then we got on a boat for a dinner cruise!

The next morning, we woke up slowly and lounged around for a while, playing some games and just chatting. For lunch, we went to Green, a fabulous vegetarian restaurant.

We wrapped up the weekend with a stop at the Tea Garden.  The girls were in rare form.

We did manage to rein them in to get a couple of decent pictures.

But after that brief interlude of sanity, the girls were back to their "normal" state of madness.  There happened to be a limo parked in front of the tea gardens (presumably for a couple that we may or may not have interrupted during a proposal).  The girls, of course, jumped at the opportunity to pose on the red carpet.

Happy birthday, you crazy girls!