Cousin Fun

The kids have been having such a fun time here in Texas with their cousins!

Friday afternoon Melinda took us to "Safety Town" in a neighboring town's fire station.  I was expecting something where the kids climbed on fire engines and stuff (and there was a fire engine they could sit in), but it was so much more!  They have built a literal little town, with 4 blocks of little buildings, crosswalks, stop signs, cross walks, roads, etc, and they have 15 of those battery-powered jeeps for the kids to drive.  So the kids sit through a little presentation where they are reminded to stop at the red lights, stay in their lane, drive courteously, and so on.  Then they get to drive around this little town for 15 minutes.  Micah and Drew were too short to actually be the drivers, so Micah rode with Grace and Drew rode with Anna.  Faith was by herself, as were Emily and Elia.  The girls had so much fun driving!  There were definitely some boys who treated the whole thing like bumper cars, LOL, but it was a great program.  The girls would have loved to drive longer!

And of course there's the pool in the back yard.  The kids have been in there several times a day each day except yesterday, when we had stormy weather from tropical storm Bill.

The pool is big enough for all the kids, and it's set up just perfectly for a wide range of ages.  On the far end is a large flat "sunning" area, which is perfect for Drew especially to splash around in.  He and Micah also like to play in the "hot tub", which is not actually any hotter, but has a bench all around it so it is not too deep.

They also have a bunch of fun floatie things, like this airplane.  Micah has really loved this little ring.  In that, he kicks around the pool wherever he wants to go.  I will be glad when he learns to actually swim, though--hopefully by the end of this summer.  He's on the "junior swim team", so essentially he's having swim  lessons for June and July.  Of course, he can be not so cooperative, and the water was pretty cold in VA before we left, so he hadn't made any great strides, LOL.  But hopefully when we get back . . . he and Drew are both really enjoying the water here in Texas!

Faith and Elia are 2 peas in a pod!  They have such similar personalities.  They are so funny!

Poor Verity was not an initial fan of the pool, even though she was surrounded by her doting helpers, Anna, Caleb, Faith, and Elia.  When Caleb and then Luke held her, she was happier.  The next day I went in the pool too.  I held her at first and then put her back in her little boat, and she was okay with it then.  She was so cute in her little Winnie the Pooh suit and sun hat!

Drew has been really enamored with an alphabet puzzle they have here.  These are his favorite letters, along with an actual carrot because who knows why.  You will notice they are all food pictures--nuts, jelly beans, waffle, ice cream, carrot--and then "footprints".  The first time he did the puzzle, he called that piece "chocolate milk", so I guess in his mind, it does go along with the whole food theme.  Now the footprints piece is missing, so hopefully it will show back up again.

Tuesday night after dinner the younger kids and I headed over to a local park with Melinda and the girls.  It had a really nice playground, with lots of things to do, so it was a good way for the kids to burn off extra energy, since they hadn't been able to swim a lot that day either.  Yesterday they couldn't swim at all, and we really noticed a difference in how wound up and bouncing off the walls all the kids were last night!

Grace called this an "action shot".  At the base of this pole a little frog lived, the discovery of which caused great excitement.

Here is a picture of all the cousins except Nathan, taken right after church on Sunday.  We parked and as I came in the door, I told everyone I wanted to get a picture--but the girls had already started changing in to their swim suits!  I told them to change back into their church clothes for just a few more minutes, LOL.  The 5 girls really look like they are all related.  They all went to a local vacation Bible school this week in the mornings, and when Melinda would walk them all in, everyone thought she had 5 girls close in age, and commented on how busy she must be!