A Weekend with Mae and Pop

Hey friends! I hope a bunch of you out there are enjoying a longer weekend and relaxing a bit today. Chase and Ryder are out of school today but Ryan is still working so it feels like a semi-long weekend in our house. On the bright side, our weekend kicked off earlier than usual since my parents arrived in town on Thursday and neither of the big kids had school on Friday.

My mom and dad’s visit was planned rather last minute so we did not have any set plans on our agenda but we still made the most of our time together. Their visit also allowed me to do something I’ve been dying to do for ages — participate in a Burn Boot Camp live streaming workout!

With my mom and dad in town to watch the boys, I was able to join one of my favorite trainers and three Burn members the Burn live streaming workout that is broadcast for all Burn members at 9 a.m. every week day. I cannot tell you how much these workouts have helped motivate me during the pandemic and postpartum period of my life so it was an awesome experience for me to be able to be on the other side of the camera and see how everything works behind the scenes. (I told everyone at the studio they are like mini celebrities to me because I’ve been watching them from my garage for nearly two years!) I had a blast and hope to be back again soon when the childcare stars align.

The rest of our Friday was a good one and we filled our time with a family trip to open play at MyGym and grabbed pizza from one of our favorite local spots for dinner before calling it a night.

Saturday

On Saturday morning, we kicked off the family fun with a visit to Discovery Place in the city.

The boys love Discovery Place so much and it’s a great place to bring family and friends when they come to visit because it’s entertaining for a wide range of ages.

There is a new exhibition at Discovery Place right now that focuses on mental health and I highly recommend it to any local friends out there. Even the big kids enjoyed it and Chase loved the “worry shredder,” a paper shredder we used to shred pictures/words we drew of our worries and anxieties.

During our visit, Chase brought along his little Instax Mini polaroid camera to snap pics of the animals at Discovery Place which was his main focus of our visit. (Thank you again for this amazing gift, Kim!) Ryder unfortunately lost the picture Chase took of a frog and so Chase drew a picture of his frog picture to shred in the “worry shredder” which I thought was so darn cute and the perfect example of a 6-year-old’s worries.

After our Discovery Place adventure, we made our way back home and ate lunch after Rhett went down for a nap. My dad and Ryan then headed out on a bike ride while I took the big kids to a birthday party at a local trampoline park.

I was kind of shocked neither Chase nor Ryder seemed to hit a wall after so much activity but they were in their element and had a blast running all over the place and fueling up on pizza and cupcakes.

By the time we made it home, baths were in order and we made it a point to get all of the kids in bed nice and early so the grownups could enjoy an adults-only dinner.

It was nice to have some uninterrupted conversation with my parents and we laughed a ton as we watched the Olympics later that evening and found ourselves critiquing the athletes as if we actually had any kind of legitimate knowledge about bobsledding and pairs figure skating. (And, it should be noted, that the fact that we were sharing our uninformed opinions as we dug into chocolate chip cookie icebox cake only added to our laughter.)

Sunday

Sunday morning started out rather cold but by 9:30 a.m. it warmed up enough for our crew to bundle up for a short hike on a local trail.

We took some breaks during our hike to hop over some rocks in a local creek, pick wild flowers and draw pictures along the trail… and also give Ryder a million snacks and try to make Rhett happy because he was in fussy baby land for most of the hike.

I couldn’t get Rhett down for his nap fast enough when we got home (he practically dove into his crib) and then we all had a little down time after lunch before Rhett was awake again and we headed back our again.

Our next adventure of the day took our whole gang to our friends’ Carrie and Nick’s new property — fondly referred to as “Muddy Mountain” by the kids since they have an epic pile of dirt to crawl all over right now. Carrie and Nick are also in the middle of building a home and it’s been really nice to have good friends going through this process as the same time as us since it’s a giant learning curve for all of us!

Eventually we made it home where my father-in-law joined us for dinner and homemade cookies as we tuned into the Daytona 500. It was a good evening and we were all exhausted by the end of the day!

My parents are heading back to Florida this morning and so now I’m off to say my goodbyes and brainstorm something fun to do with the boys on their day off. I hope you all have a great Monday!