Grandparents!

On our way into the city for a whale watch!

Ahoy there matey!

Whales!

Hiking through a fern forest...

... which led to a pine forest

Boys decided to play in the sprinklers when they came onPit stop for some fruit - takes energy to run in the sprinklers!Water fun @the zoo

First, a technical note... I changed some of my settings on this blog, and the formatting on the pictures/captions is all screwy now. I'm going to change it back after this post, but I think you can make out what's going on.

We had a great visit with my Mom & Ken over the last week!! So sad that it's over already, and I know that the boys are really missing them as well. In fact, Brandon already wrote them a letter. I think the highlight of the trip for everyone was the whale watch we did. We took the train into the city and then walked over to the aquarium, where the boat departs. The trip took about 3 and 1/2 hours total, and we had some amazing views of whales in their feeding grounds! We saw a couple Minke whales, who are a bit shy, and then a mother and baby humpback whale came right alongside our boat and swam beside us for at least 15 minutes before diving down. We really lucked out, too, because we happened to be standing in the perfect spot on the boat to view them. They are such amazing and HUGE animals. In addition to observing the whales, it was just cool to be out on a boat, speeding along with the wind making a huge knot of my hair, for the afternoon. After the whale watch, we went straight to our favorite mexican restaurant in the city, where we go every summer during Mom & Ken's visit. It's a good tradition, as we always have fun and a great meal there. By the time we ate and caught the train home, it was well past the boy's bedtimes, but they did really great and were in super spirits all day long!

Besides the whale watch, we also spent a day at the pool, went for a beautiful (albeit a bit buggy) hike, and went to the zoo to look at the animals and play in the splash pad. The zoo trip ended up being quite an adventure, as unbeknownst to us, there was a huge accident on 95South that morning... involved a tanker truck and many gallons of jet fuel. Yikes. They actually had to shut down the interstate, but we had no idea what was going on. After easing forward in the traffic jam for quite a well, we were detoured off onto 495West. Luckily for us, Chad had his smartphone with him and was able to find an alternate route to the zoo... because at that point, I was determined for us to make it there! Sure, it took us three times the normal driving time, but we got there! Plus, we were in two different cars, so Chad had to call every few minutes and relay instructions to me in the other car. What would we have done in the pre-cell phone days??!!

It was a great, great trip, and even though we did lots of fun stuff, we also had plenty of downtime to just hang out and catch up. Chad was able to take days of their visit off from work, thank goodness, as I can't imagine having all that family time without him there to enjoy it with us. It was pretty sad when everyone left for work/flights home yesterday morning! Seemed so quiet around here, and I had a moment of feeling like, "wait, I have to watch these kids all by myself again?" I got used to having so many other adults around! But, it's been hot here, so the kids and I have spent the last two days at the pool. We've definitely reached a new level of enjoyment with the pool this morning, as the boys now spend most of their time swimming and playing in the water. As opposed to past years where they couldn't swim and were just hanging out on the steps. Now, I can barely get them to leave. Seriously, we've gone around 10am the last two days and both days, I had to force them to leave at 1:30pm because I was starving for lunch! Lesson learned, as I will definitely pack sandwiches next time. Every time I thought we were ready to go, they would say, "I want to go in one more time!" And who can resist that?

Wow, somehow it's 5:20pm, and I have to go start dinner. When you don't eat lunch until close to 2pm, the whole day is upended!