Family Vacation: Downtown Greenville

We woke up on Day #2 of vacation in beautiful Greenville, SC. Alex spent one weekend a month here for five years in the Marine Corps. I came with him some weekends and would just hang out in Greenville. I LOVE Greenville. My one requirement while we were visiting the Midgetts besides just being with them was that I wanted to head downtown and be downtown Greenville for a bit. So, we got up on Wednesday morning and we headed downtown. The kids were going to play in the waterfalls and the adults were going to just be :)

 

These two were inseparable.

A family photo!

WHAT?

We never get family photos!

When you're the best of friends.....

I don't know what I would do without her....

So beautiful.

I admire Niki as a person and especially as a mom.

The four babes ready to play in the water!!

Check out Sawyer's hands on his hips!

He killlllls me!

The waterfalls are outside of one of the hotels in downtown. It's a little area down by Falls Park where people are expected to play in the water. There are even benches for the adults to sit on and watch. CLEARLY the waterfalls were loud. Check out my two :)

It was cooooold.

 

AH!!

Parker is a lot like Sawyer. He gets overwhelmed at times. I love this picture of him and Alex hanging out.

I love this one...

Now he is ready....

And Niki came prepared. Cups for everyone!!!

Naturally we had a man down!!! Gavin had a cut and some blood BUT he was a champ and it stopped bleeding PRETTY quick!

Watermelon!!! YUMMMMM

These kids LOVE them some watermelon :)

How cute.

There is a train theme at the waterfalls. It was so cute!

Niki is always prepared!!

When in doubt, give them all a bit of a sugary treat and all meltdowns will end.

 

They love each other :)

CHEESE!!!

This tired boy decided he needed some daddy snuggles instead of playing with the older kids.

My two boys...

As we changed under the bridge (like some real creepers) we encouraged Sawyer to take a pee outside. He did awesome. Peed all over that rock!!!

Gavin and Charlotte were so proud!

ANOTHER family photo!!

After we were done with the waterfalls and getting changed, we hung out in Falls Park and checked out the ducks.

Next to the sign that says that we aren't supposed to feed the ducks, we fed the ducks.

Feeding the ducks. I should have gotten a sign in the picture.

This one wasn't scared at all.

Charlotte was trying so hard to pet him!

It's a stare down!

 

We shall call him Ephriam and take him home and pet him daily.

I did a little photo session of Niki and Parker. As in, I took a bunch of pictures in a 45 second time span. These were my favorites.

This one just hurts my heart....

Who's sick of these family photos??

Had I known we were going to be doing so many, I would have worn something a bit more becoming :)

My handsome sunkissed boy.

Still trying to grab Ephriam.

A boy and his Daddy.

It's seriously love. They didn't need us. Just each other. It just warms my heart more than anyone could know.

Time to head back to our friends' house for lunch and to pack up for the next leg of the trip...

 

We had lunch. We got packed. Sawyer pooped on the potty for the first time. And then we headed off to Columbia to see Adam and Adrienne.

 

It was the best 21 hours. We love visiting our friends. They make us feel at home. They are family. There is family that you are born into and family that you choose. We choose them. We love them. Thank you for the best night, Niki and Ty. We love you so much!!!!

Family Vacation: Seeing The Midgetts!!!

We had a fabulous trip to South Carolina planned for our summer time. Since Austin and Ashley were getting married on July 4th, we planned a trip around being able to attend their wedding. On June 30, 2014, Gigi took the kids for awhile so I could get the car packed and finish doing any odds and ends that needed to be done. The kids came home and we did dinner and baths. Alex finally got home around 8:30 and we were able to get on the road by about 9 pm. We headed for South Carolina! We drove to Lexington, KY that night. We took the Taurus because it has such an expansive trunk. We got a $100 set of little TV's for the car. The kids were in heaven. We were packed in tight but we had adequate room. We found a room at a somewhat dumpy hotel in Lexington. They only charged us for part of the night because we didn't get there until 4 am!!! When we woke the kids up to go into the hotel, they were both crying. Charlotte was almost hysterical. Poor baby....

 

We slept until about 8:30 am (so four hours of sleep) and then we got up, got ready and headed toward Greenville, SC. We got to Greenville at about 4 pm. We were so so so excited!!! It'd been a YEAR since we had seen these babes!!!!

 

Our four kids. How beautiful are all four of these kiddos?????

Parker and Gavin.

I have missed these two faces.

Our youngest two.

Sweet, cuddley, CHILL Parker Reed.

They all started wrestling right away. Go figure.

Thank goodness Niki has a massive master bedroom!

All four of them. Sawyer and Parker, Charlotte and Gavin.

Gavin. I have missed his energy. His spunk. His sweetness. I've just missed him.

 

Hahaha.

The four crazies....and Alex. They all played so so well together. No one would ever know that they don't play together every single day.

HAHAHA!

Those baby blues...

That look....

THAT LOOK.

That's his pooping face. HAHA

It's a good look.

Sawyer was a little bit intimidated by all of the chaos in the bathtub. But these three. They were good. They loved it.

That's a bath tub full of water and full of fun!

We had a delicious supper. Niki is an awesome cook!!! Instead of us all going downtown and fighting the kids, we stayed at Niki and Ty's house and just hung out. Tyler had to work late. He finally got home and was able to spend some time with us. He was so excited to see Charlotte and Sawyer together. Last summer we stayed with them for two nights and he loved spending time with the kids then. We were so happy he could be home with us for awhile.

 

It took forever to get the kids to sleep. New place. New excitement. Friends everywhere. But they finally went to sleep. Alex and I were exhausted. We finally went to sleep and slept AMAZING.

 

Niki and Tyler are THE BEST hosts. I mean, they gave the entire Master bed and bath in their house. They slept in shambles on the floor!!! (Or in their spare bedroom. But still.) Such an awesome evening and night. The things we could do if we lived near each other again. Oh how I miss them...