Hi Everyone! I'm Baaaack!

Nathan and James got here Thursday evening.  It has been non-stop fun ever sense.  

It started right away at the airport.  There are  these big block shaped stones outside the short-term parking garage.  We had picked my dad up from the airport a couple of weeks ago and Harrison jumped on each one.  Up onto the block.  Down from the block.  There are at least 15 of them.  Walking back to the car, Harrison decided to repeat this fun adventure.  James decided to try as well.  There are several differences between James and Harrison (as with all children, I am sure), one of them being athleticism.  Harrison is just a bit more nimble than James.  Harrison was quite a bit ahead when James showed that he may be a bit wittier than Harrison.  Harrison would jump onto the block and then jump down.  When he jumped down he would look back to see where James was.  James noticed this and when Harrison jumped up, James would run around a block (skipping it) and jump onto the next.  Harrison was completely unaware and the 2 finished almost even.  I can't call it cheating, because they weren't competing and there were no rules to the activity.  I call it being the best you can be with what you've got.  And this time Harrison had the brawn and James had the brains!  

Mom and Dad were nice enough to take all of the kids for the night and that meant Chris, Nathan and I got to go out.  Out!  I didn't even know it was still legal for me to do that.  I must be getting boring.  Anyway, we met up with Marc and Emily and Josh Dobson and a couple of his friends at Mickey's Irish Pub.  It was a fun night.  I have to figure out how to do that a little more often!

Friday night I twisted Mom's arm and got her and my dad to bring the kids back to Des Moines for Night Eyes at the zoo.  And boy was she glad.  We had a great time.  There are too many funny and cute things that happened through-out the night but by far the best was the end of the train ride.  There are all sorts of families waiting to get on at the 'station' and we are just pulling up to a stop and James says (quite loudly, but not a yell) "Hi, everyone!  I'm baaack!"  It was way too funny and so much fun to try and think what must be going through his head.

The night went on with a lot of growling from Bennett (I think he thinks every animal except a duck and a dog growls!) and a lot of excitement from Harrison and James.  We ended up at the inflatables.  Bennett was a little tentative, but once he figured out how to 'dive' over the walls I didn't ever think we would get him out.  Harrison LOVED the slides and James thought the bounce house was something he really wanted to do until he saw Spider-Man in there and then that was out because "Spider-Man is mean to me.  I don't want to get hurt!"  Not sure where that comes from but it was really cute!

Cubbie player James wanted to keep his hat down so he didn't get scared.  I thought he was going to run into things all night long!

Get this giraffe off my head!

This is one of the only times we got Harrison the Dragon to keep his 'head' on!