The Smith Family Adventures

We had to say goodbye to Uncle Greg and Auntie Shaina on Tuesday. Having so much family in town made the week such a whirlwind, and it was sad to say goodbye. At least we’ll see them again in November, so it wasn’t goodbye for too long.

On Sunday evening we had the whole family over to our house just to hang out. It was fun having both sides here at the same time. Elias and Simon had pretty much all of their closest family in the same yard. Elias had quite the spectator section at his baseball practice in the backyard.

Monday evening we got to see Uncle Greg and Auntie Shaina again for dinner at my parents’ house. My mom had also been hinting at a surprise “activity” for a few weeks, and we were all very curious as to what it could be. It turns out, my parents have been secretly converting all of our old family videos from VHS to DVD, and they presented us with our own copies of the first batch. We watched some highlights as a family and had a blast laughing and laughing at how weird we were as kids.

Tuesday morning we got to say goodbye at a nice brunch. It was fun to see them one last time before they left for the airport, but it was bittersweet.

We love you Uncle Greg and Auntie Shaina!

Our Spokane family left on Tuesday, as did Grandpa. We had a lot of fun in the last couple days of their visit. Elias asks if his cousins will be there every time we load up the car to go somewhere, and I have to constantly remind him that they are in Washington.

We got to celebrate Audrey’s birthday while she was here. She really wanted a pinata, but the place where her birthday party is going to be in Spokane won’t allow them. Auntie Erin bought one here in Oregon, and we decided to let the kids have at it in the backyard. All four of the kiddos had a lot of fun. Simon didn’t really know what he was doing, but he did make the bat have contact with the pinata, which was fun.

Elias and Audrey both had some pretty powerful swings. The pictures don’t show it, but they both helped demolish the thing:

The four kids just weren’t able to give the pinata a good enough whack, so Nathan took a turn. In two swings he had a huge hole ripped in the bottom, and with that, candy would fly out with almost every swing the kids made. It was quite exciting. Near the end, we let Nana take a whack at it. She finished it off for us.

Here is the birthday girl, proud of her pinata:

On Monday, we went swimming at Nana’s pool. Both boys had a lot of fun with their cousins one final time.

It doesn’t really matter what we do, though. These cousins just love being together:

Yesterday we got to spend some time with Uncle Greg and Auntie Shaina. We went to the Rose Garden for a picnic, which was a beautiful setting as always. Mostly though, we were just happy to be together.

After lunch we took the chance to walk around the gardens for awhile. Elias was very excited to smell all of the flowers, and show his favorites to everyone.

Simon had a good time too, although you can’t tell it from any of the pictures. He was a little upset that we made him stay with us rather than run off wherever his desire took him.

This was a popular flower!

When we got back to my parents’ house, Simon took a nap, and then we decided to go play outside in the backyard. Elias loves the little pool. A bunch of us waded or got in the pool with him. Some of the men sat out in the shade.

Uncle Greg decided to put on his swim suit and have some fun. Elias somehow convinced him to do this a lot of times:

Simon did enjoy the pool for a little while, but wanted to get out and play at the water table. Auntie Shaina joined him.

We are having such a busy week with so much family in town on both Nathan and my side. But our hearts are full and we wouldn’t trade it for anything!

We’ve been having a blast this week hanging out with our cousins, Auntie, and Grandpa from out of town. Elias and Simon absolutely adore their cousins, and each minute of play time together is precious.

On Wednesday, we met at the park to play on the playground and in the fountains. Although Elias and Simon didn’t run through the fountains in glee by any means, they did have a good time. Most of the time they just stood back and watched, but they did enjoy the water for a bit in order to cool off.

After the park, Simon took a nap, and everyone came over to our house for a birthday party. Elias has been excited for the birthday party for a long time. Sonya turned 4 years old! Simon had an excellent time rolling the ball with Sonya before dinner.

After dinner we sang Sonya happy birthday…complete with a Frozen cake!

Simon and Elias were entranced by all of the girl toys. My little ponies. Magnetic Frozen”paper dolls”. Fairies with like five different dresses, matching shoes and purses. It was all new territory for the boys.

Elias helped by passing Sonya each present as she was opening. He was certainly exhibiting first child tendencies, telling her what to open and when. It was quite cute.

On Thursday we had more of a relaxing day. Everyone came over to play in our backyard all day. I set up the water table and the sprinkler and the kiddos had a lot of fun. I have to admit it has been a lot of years since I have run through a sprinkler and it was quite exhilarating. Here are Sonya and Elias posing during their fun afternoon.

Cousins are so much fun! I’m so glad the boys get to see their cousins as much as they do, and that they get along so great. But we wish we could see them even more often!

Today we took our Spokane relatives and Grandpa to the zoo. It was another beautiful day, and although the zoo was crowded, we got to see a lot of animals! Here are the kids having fun at some of the exhibits!

Then, Elias gave Simon some pointers on driving the jeep:

After exploring the cheetahs, we went out to the concert lawn for our picnic, just in time for the bird show. It was pretty warm in the sun, but the kids weren’t complaining. They were having fun! We got to see four birds in the show.

One of the birds we saw was a vulture. The zoo has trained the vulture to accept donations from kids and place them in the donation box. Audrey, Sonya, and Elias all wanted to try this so I just had to get a picture. Elias was pretty nervous about it, and the zoo lady had to pretty much force him close enough. But hand it to the vulture he did!

After handing the donation to the vulture, Elias got a magnet with the vulture’s picture to commemorate the experience. He ran back to show it to Grandpa.

After we were done on the lawn, we went to explore more of Africa. Audrey and Elias were very excited to pet the goats.

By this time, Simon was super tired, and I wanted him to fall asleep in the stroller so that we could go on having fun. I gave him his pacifier thinking it would help him fall asleep. Usually at home, the only time he gets his pacifier anymore is in the crib. I thought that this was an ok exception since I was trying to get him to fall asleep. Simon was fighting sleep, though, and wasn’t having any of it. While we were up on the platform looking down at the gazelles, Audrey informed me that Simon had dropped his pacifier. As I began looking for it, a feeling of dread hit me. That dread was confirmed…Simon threw his pacifier down into the exhibit. I am going to have nightmares about reading news articles about gazelles who choked or died from pacifier obstruction. Don’t judge me too harshly. Every parent who has dealt with pacifiers knows that you can’t really control what your child does with them. But I do have some guilt about the whole experience.

About this time, Elias started saying he was tired and wanted to go home. I couldn’t deal with two whiny kids so we decided to head home for some rest. Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home. Elias ended up napping for almost two whole hours.

You know you’ve done good if this kid falls asleep in the middle of the day!

We had a blast at the zoo. There’s another one for the books!

Our vegetable garden is producing. I know this is not a rare thing. Tons of people are posting pictures of their gardens and their harvests on facebook. But there is something special about picking your own vegetables and eating them. I just have to share ours too. Last night after we got home from the beach, Elias helped me pick a few of our vegetables that were ready to be harvested. We got some cucumbers and a carrot. Tonight we got to eat them in our salads!

By the way…if anyone knows anything about pumpkins, I might have a few questions for you. I am pretty freaked out about the pumpkin plants in our yard right now!

Yesterday Nathan took a vacation day off work, and we packed up to head off to the beach with our visiting family. The day was pretty darn near perfect for the Oregon Coast. Clear blue skies, slight breeze, temps in the 70’s. With the breeze it got a little chilly so we needed jackets, but we had a blast!

After a little bit of play and a picnic on the beach, the kids wanted to go check out the ocean. Audrey was the only one brave enough to completely submerge herself. Elias and Nathan had fun jumping in the waves. Simon was very excited to go explore the ocean. Here you can see in a hilarious series of photographs what his experience was:

Poor Simon. The tide knocked him over, and I just took a picture of him crying and went off to cheer on Elias. Auntie Erin took pity on him and gave him some comfort. I do feel a little bad about it in retrospect…but he needs to learn to appreciate the ocean…and auntie was there to give him some love.

Here are Nathan and Elias jumping the waves:

After a good while in the ocean, we were all frozen. So we went back to our “camp” to warm up. We made an Elias burrito:

All of the kids loved playing in the sand. They dug big holes, built castles, buried each other, and all sorts of other fun sand play.

Then it was time for kites! Elias and Simon have a cow kite, and Audrey and Sonya have a cat kite. We had them both in the air, and the kids took turns flying them. Elias let go of his kite twice. The first time, the wind wasn’t too strong and it was pretty low to the ground so I chased after it for about twenty yards while carrying Simon who giggled the whole way. The second time, though, the kite took off and made it all the way over the Mo’s Restaurant building before a kind beach-goer grabbed it with his dog ball-thrower thing.

We had a blast at the beach. The Oregon coast is always fun, but what made it even more special was being able to spend the time with Grandpa, Audrey, Sonya, and Auntie Erin!