For Christmas each year my sisters and I try to give my mom an "experience" gift. Because Mare was in east Asia for a year and just got back in July, we thought the best experience would be a lowish-key weekend all together. My sisters and I made our proposals for the weekend and ultimately Akron won out (who knew, right? :)) so the troops made their way to our house for a fun-filled weekend of cousin-and-aunt-and-sister-and-mom-and-grandma time :)
I didn't tell my kids about the weekend until about 3 hours before everyone was due to arrive (and if you have kids you understand why!) and for the last agonizing 30 minutes they stood on the porch watching for their cousins!
We spent some time at the Akron Zoo and the kiddos loved it! They loved the slide through the otter exhibit and somehow we were pretty much the only ones there, so they were able to go up and down as much as they wanted (which, in case you were wondering, was a lot).
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| Sweet Lukey Luke |
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| "Baby J" aka Jacob |
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| Maya, looking far too grown up... |
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| ...much better :) |
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| After some minor issues involving the rope bridge which ended with "taking a break" and my encouragement to set a good example for the little kids because she is the oldest, Maya protested, "but I don't like being the oldest!" Sorry sweet girl, it's your lot in life ;) |
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| Jacob and Luke took it on like old pros! |
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| Touch Tank! |
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| They were all SO excited to ride the carousel... |
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| ...until it actually started moving! |
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| Jacob really did enjoy it, despite his pensive face here :) |
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| I love this one ~ I was trying to get Jacob at the end of the tunnel, and Luke decided he would like to be in the shot! |
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| It's much faster if you ride on Grandma's lap! |
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Michael's trick for getting the kiddos to smile at the camera ;)
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| All dressed up and ready to go to church on Sunday morning. Mary, I swear Jacob was making the exact same face in every single one of the pictures! |
