Greta Visits Eau Claire

Reflecting on a fabulous weekend from September  . . . (and finishing the post I started the week we returned)

Our lives have been busy since the start of the year and we are reluctant to wander much on the weekends. The weekends are when we get caught up on laundry, house cleaning, dishes, work for work, and most importantly time with the girls.  This past weekend though we made an exception and headed to Eau Claire. Why the exception?  Nick's Uncle Dave, Aunt Nancy and his dad's cousin Kathy were visiting.  We haven't seen them, or met Kathy, in ages (the summer we got married) and were eager to catch up and have them meet Lilly and Greta.

What did we do?  We hung out, talked a lot, admired Lilly and Greta, and willing adults humored Lilly and played doctor.  A lot of doctor.

Here are some photos from the weekend:

Lilly drew a car on the drive down

 We left on Friday after school.  Lilly was a trooper and did great on the drive down.  Greta, not so much.  I am loving the new van with enough room for me to comfortably sit between them and keep Greta from screaming the entire way.  Of course I would prefer to have a baby that travels well, but since I don't, it is nice to be able to help entertain her.

When we arrived at Nick's parents' house, Lilly and Nick had some spaghetti.  Uncle Dave made his first mistake with Lilly and ended up having to make up for lost ground the entire weekend.  It was a long time ago but what I remember is he had said something to do with spaghetti police coming.  This made a tired Lilly very sad and resulted in tears.

Making a witch with Grandma

Construction family (everything that comes as more than one
is a family for Lilly)

She was having fun, I swear.

There is a greenhouse/landscaping business in Eau Claire that does celebrations for the different holidays.  We've painted pumpkins there in the past, as well as done an Easter egg hunt.  This year they upped their game and added a "petting" zoo.  I say "petting" zoo because you couldn't actually pet the animals.  But they had a zebra, which is you've never heard a zebra sound, it is pretty crazy.  Also a tortoise, a dingo (I refrained from making a dingo ate my baby jokes while carrying Greta), a kangaroo, a donkey, and hedgehogs that stayed hidden the entire time we were there.  Oh, and a few baby goats as well.  We met my parents there, enjoyed the beautiful weather, and were reminded that we like living in a small town.  The place was well attended, but not super busy, but Nick and I were overwhelmed by the number of people.

Painting her pumpkin

Checking out the tortoise

Uncle Dave enjoying time with Greta

Playing doctor

Aunt Nancy playing doctor

They went out for a walk

Grandma and Greta

Playing hopscotch with Uncle Dave

Driveway art

Crazy rides in the cozy coupe

Greta's turn to drive

Chatting

Using a real stethoscope

Raking leaves

Dance moves

We had a wonderful time and the weekend was really too short.  It was great catching up with everyone and Nancy and Dave really seemed to appreciate beyond words the chance to meet Greta and Lilly in person, who they have only known through the blog.   It was great for me to get to spend some time with some of my avid readers in person and get to know them better.