What a whirlwind. We left camping with my parents and headed straight to Mike's parents' house to have a visit with his side of the family. Again, the kids enjoyed seeing their grandparents and other family, and had fun playing with their cousins.
Playing in the backyard: Quincy put two swings together, and I think he was much happier than with just one swing:
We brought our tent up and all the kids had a backyard camp-out with Mike and his Dad. The kids had fun, Mike and Grandpa were both a bit tired the next day.
Before I met Mike, he played in the horn section of a rock band, and has often shared memories of his good times playing with this band. This band decided to have a 24 year reunion and bring back as many old bandmates as possible to play together again - that reunion was last week and part of the reason for the timing of our visit to his family. Mike had a great time playing with and seeing old friends, and the kids and I had a chance to hear and see a bit of Mike's past: And the kids had more time to hang out with each other:
A few days later we took a walk to a nearby park: Miles and Ally watching a teeny tiny spider:
And of course the pool was always in high demand for the kids:
Nearly two weeks of visiting family and playing hard finally caught up to Miles:
This is turning out to be a summer full of camping. This past week we joined my parents, and camped with them in their camper. Again, the boys loved it.
At the campground is a lake with a small beachfront, swimming area, and boat launch. My parents have some kayaks, which was the favorite activity for Quincy. Here are the boys, working together to bring the kayak paddle down to the beach:
Miles out with Grandma:
Quincy out with Grandma:
Swimming was also a favorite activity, especially for Miles:
Quincy liked swimming too: (if you click on the picture to make it bigger, you will see that Quincy is actually laughing, not crying here)
Miles swam out to the raft (many times):
We went on a few day trips, and the boys spent lots of time visiting with their cousins. Here are Miles and Maddie at a kids activity museum:
Quincy and Maddie making some music together: And playing a bit rougher with Tyler:
And you just can't go camping without having a campfire and roasting marshmallows:
Here are just a few random pictures from around the house.
Miles found a checkerboard, asked us to teach him, and now he wants to play checkers with us all the time:
This has happened a few times, Miles and Quincy playing nicely together on the sit-n-spin:
Miles and I went out to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July. We had a great spot and were able to watch from the back of the van (which Miles thought was very cool): Miles found a tree that he thought was super tall, and made me take a picture of him next to it - see the giant smile, he is so happy to have a picture of himself next to "the tallest tree in the whole world.":
While camping, we took the kids to Dutch Wonderland. This is an amusement park, but geared entirely towards children. There were several rides that we could go on with the kids, but only a few rides that were really geared towards older children/adults. There were probably about a half dozen rides that Miles was not big enough to go on. The kids loved it. Miles has completely and totally gotten over his fear of rides, and went on all of the rides, many of them two and three times.
One of Miles's favorite rides was the rocketship because it had a gun and he could shoot his brother!?!?!
Another favorite was the bulldozer (the slowest kids ride ever) because he could lift and lower the shovel.
One of Quincy's favorite rides was the hand choo-choo train (even though he had to mush his face against the wheel well to reach the hand holds, and even then he went painfully slow, so we gave him a little help):
And the old time cars, the bumper cars, the pony rides, the roller coaster, the log flume, the twister, the tilt a whirl . . . let's just say they enjoyed all the rides...
Here is a nice clip of Miles in action on the frog hopper ride: And Quincy loved it too, in fact he laughed the whole time his first time on it:
Miles has definitely overcome his fear of rides. Here is his first roller coaster ride.
Along with the rides we also got to see some cool shows. We saw a Thomas the Tank Engine show, and two diving shows "The Frog Prince" and "A Dragon's Tale". Here is the big finale from "The Frog Prince." 70ft in the air into 9ft of water. Notice the green frog through the hole in the ceiling.
Showing a rare moment of brotherly love:
Playing with their souvenirs, Quincy is so excited to have his very own mug now: When all was said and done the family had a great time. Now we need some rest from our vacation.
Miles had fun trying to catch fireflies, then of course, Quincy had to try as well. Here are a few video clips of the boys trying to catch the fireflies.
We call this one Kung Fu Miles:
Here is Quincy, although we only get to see his back:
And another one of Miles, in this very short clip, Miles has caught a firefly, and yes, he is giving it a kiss:
The campground had some seesaws at the playground that Miles just loved. He liked doing them best with Quincy, and although (as you will see in these clips) Quincy seemed to love the seesaw, after the first day on the them, he never (despite Miles asking him a million times a day) wanted to go on them again. Here they are, seesawing:
