The Cope's Visit...

Can't remember if I posted this...the boys meeting in the airport!!

Thursday:

                We had an earlier start this morning.  Carlie and Mark went running while I got breakfast for the kids and got them ready for the day…doesn’t seem like a fair trade, but it worked.  We hung out until Keegan’s gymnastics class then on the way there we thought how fun would it be for Aiden if he got to do the class with Keegan?  So when we got to the gym we got it all set up and can I tell you boy oh boy they had more fun than ever before!  We did give the teachers nice warning about the boys (that they might want to wrestle/fight rather then gym…and it was preferred by us that they were made to focus on the gym part not so much on each other!) They did great, there was only 1 time the teachers had to turn into referee from teacher but the boys responded and focused well.  They ran…jumped, rolled, flipped, ran, walked the beam, ran, jumped until we thought they would fall over…but that energizer Aiden wasn’t fazed, ha! 

                                           After class we came home for a quick lunch and then back out again to show A Denise the Menace Park and the beach close by.  These kids went crazy!  The boys ran off together playing…Carlie and I were so glad that they’ve gotten to the age that we don’t have to follow close behind protecting and refereeing…my only issue was I still had to do that with Grissom…or did I??  I got this brilliant idea.  I told Ella I’d pay her $1.00 if she’d ‘babysit’ Grissom.  This worked out great.  Carlie and I got to hang out on the sidelines watching all of them meanwhile Grissom got to play wherever he wanted cause Ella was his shadow and Ella was so busy with Grissom that she did think twice about the boys playing without her!  Everyone won this day!!  After a few hours of playing we noticed the boys; Keegan mostly and even Aiden was starting to show signs of stopping or at least slowing down (Yes…another goal met for the day!) so we decided to walk down the street just a little to the McDonald's (Yeah…my favorite place…she says REALLY sarcastically) to stop for ice cream!  It wasn’t a super hot day, but the sun was shining and it was a nice 63 degrees so the ice cream was a real need!  After that we crossed the street and walked about 2 minutes and found the beach.  One Mark and I wanted to go to at one point we’d just not thought about it.  As we walked towards the water on the sand I knew it was over…I knew the ride home was going to be a nudie one…and I cracked up when I heard Carlie tell Aiden in all seriousness to just get his feet wet and that was it…it made me think about the many times we went to the water’s edge with that thought in mind!  Carlie and I sat in the sand enjoying the nice sunny day it only took a good 3 minutes before Grissom fell over in the water…

then Ella came running tattling on the wave that got her wet…we glace out to see both the other boys pretty much laying in the water and splashing each other…there was NO stopping that funness!  So we sat back and laughed at them!  We were thankful that our kids stayed in the freezing water until it was time to leave unlike the little boy next to us who got out of the water he fell in and then rolled his entire body in the sand…I laughed at him and looked right at his mom who was trying with all her might not to lose it with her sand covered son!  What was really funny was Grissom with his diaper.  Because we weren’t planning on letting the kids get wet in the ocean we had nothing to help us which means no swim diaper for Gris.  As you watched him go from dry to wet you noticed he’d gained significant poundage in his back end…in fact it looked at one point as if his diaper still completely attached to him was dragging in the sand behind him as he walked!  I told Carlie it reminded me of a huggies swim diaper commercial awhile ago.  When this family is at the beach and the baby goes into the water all of a sudden the entire ocean is sucked up leaving the other families there without any water to play in.  Then it goes back to the baby walking out literally dragging the normal diaper behind him just like Grissom was! Ha!!   It didn’t take the kids too long to be too cold to play any longer so we started the long wet walk back to the van.  This is the busiest and one of the main crosswalks in Monterey…what a funny sight yet entertaining to see Keegan and Aiden walking together to start our circus crossing…like boys bumping into each other then laughing when the other almost falls.  Next seeing Ella walking close behind singing as loud as she could not paying much attention to anything…Carlie and I holding Grissom’s hands on either side to help him walk faster…we basically held him up so we could book it across but Grissom thought it would be funny to ‘air walk’ the entire time and at this whole event Carlie and I about wet ourselves!  So did the people parked along the crosswalk waiting for us to pass, Ha!!  Imagine it…its funny! 

                                 So we’d crossed the street so now the only dilemma was how to get the kids home without soiling their seats for our next outing.  Nudie was the only way!  When we got to the van we came up with a fast system all clothes off except for undies until you get IN the van then the boys took off undies got buckled quick and covered themselves (well at least that what we told them to do).  Ella kept her panties on cause she was sitting on the leather…Grissom got a new diaper but otherwise sat nudie too!  Check it out:

                                After this dinner was actually a nice and quiet one…the kids rested to a movie and went to bed a little early!!  Yea!!  Carlie did a great job staying up with me until 10:30 or so!!  Way to go Carlie!!  It was SO nice to just relax with her and chat about life! 

                                                     Friday was our ‘BIG’ planned out day! 

Mark was off work so he and Carlie started off with a run.  Then we headed out for the day…we walked past the Seal Beach.  It’s funny both Mom and Carlie had the same reaction as they walked up to the fence they both didn’t see what the big deal was until they saw the ‘rocks’ on the beach had tails that moved!  The seals blend into the sand so well that you can’t really see them until they move then when you finally see them you notice that you can’t see that much beach because there are SO many seals! We stopped long enough to check them out then walked onto show Aiden and Carlie the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium.  The kids got a kick out of showing Aiden all the things they love there…and I got a kick out of teaching Aiden and Carlie (and re-teaching my kids) different facts and tid-bits that we’d learned while we’ve been out here.  We also all really enjoyed watching the huge Kelp feeding.  Aiden liked seeing the diver with all his gear on in the water feeding all the fish!  We had lunch here…then headed to the Nestlé’s store for ice cream…but wait it gets better…onto the movie theater to see, Dat, Da, da Da….CARS 2!!  Oh what fun we had!!  The kids were SO exhausted that I think they would have fallen asleep during the movie but the movie was just too fun!!  We ended our day taking Carlie and Aiden out to our favorite Pizzeria, Me & Ed’s!! 

What a fun LONG end to our fun time together!!  Carlie even put the kids to bed while Mark and I went on a Date!!  AWESOME!!

                Saturday we woke up just in time to get heading to the airport!  It was sad to say good bye!  Grissom cried for quite a long time…Mark and I knew we needed to do something fun…so we hit a nearby mall and had some ‘Mall Hiking’ time!!  I even slipped a few birthday gifts under the stroller before Keegan had a chance to know what happened behind his back, Oh Yeah!!  Go Mom and Dad!!