Big Kid Day

When my parents secured their travel plans to stay with us for Spring Break, one of the things Lehr and I planned to do was take the older kids out all day and do things that are a little harder for us all to do when we have Ruby with us. Once Grandma and Grandpa arrived, we let Eli and Maddux help us pick some things to do that day.

We started out at the skate park; both Eli and Maddux skate boarded. It was a beautiful morning, so we stayed longer than originally planned, but no one was complaining. Eli even shocked us by trying something very new, all motivated by himself! He rolled into the pool, unassisted! The first time he came down, Lehr was there to catch/steady him, which he needed. But then he realized what he did wrong and how to change it, so when he rolled in the second time, Lehr didn't touch him. Then he did a third and fourth time and went back and forth up the sides a few times. On the last one, he fell pretty hard (he wasn't wearing knee pads), but after a short break he was back out there.

We stopped for a quick smoothie and then drove to our favorite mountain biking spot. We go there often enough, but I usually just hike with Ruby while they ride. This time we all got to ride. Eli ate it on the BMX trail, causing him some pain, but all in all, it was a great ride through the trails and on the BMX section.

Lunch was next on the list: we stopped at a pizza place to share a quick pie before hiking. We didn't hike very far...maybe 2 miles...but we did get down to the creek. This is something we do with Ruby a lot, but she is not big enough to sit on the rocks in the creek yet.

The kids started talking about playing tennis while we were hiking back. We grabbed our rackets and went to the courts in our neighborhood. (Let it be known that none of us actually plays tennis, so this was to be mostly a chase-the-ball type of activity.)

Finally, we were all exhausted and dinner was on our mind. We knew we'd have to go to the house quickly to clean up, but we didn't want to upset Ruby by letting her see us after being gone all day only to leave again. The kids were amazing; they even conspired with each other to put on their new clothes from Grandma and Grandpa for our date out. We went to Grindhouse for our favorite burgers, and even let the kids share a milkshake.

Such a fun day....it was really cool to be able to hang out with Eli and Maddux and focus all of our attention on them. We definitely will do this again!