Best Weekend Ever!!!

Whenever Railey is having a good time, she screams "BEST DAY EVER" at the top of her lungs. This past weekend was a "best day ever" moment for all of us. Friday morning I loaded up the girls to fly to Ft. Lauderdale. Not sure what I was thinking after my last flying experience but since Daddy was going to be at the Chili cookoff AND we wanted to visit Uncle David, Aunt Amanda, Ella and Claire, I decided it was well worth any motion sickness or embarrassment that I might incur by flying again with kids. After a fairly uneventful flight, Uncle David picked us up from the airport and took us to their new house. From there, it was non-stop action. We went to Poppy #2's (Ella and Claire's grandfather) house. After some breakfast we headed to the pool for some swimming. Railey, Claire and Ella jumped right in while little Maysie decided to watch from the side...

It turns out little Claire is a wild child daredevil like her cousin Railey. She wanted nothing to do with being held in the pool. So Amanda decided to let her put her head under the water.

Poppy and David both took turns with Claire...helping her swim across the pool. My prediction is that she will be swimming by the end of this summer. At 2 1/2 years old!

After a long swim in the pool, the girls decided to play a game of shuffleboard. I really think this might be Maysie's calling. Do they have shuffleboard scholarships????

And after shuffleboard the girls wanted to ride the elevator for a bit. It's the little things.

On Saturday my cousins Heath, Suzanne and Connor made the trek to Lauderdale by the Sea to have a barbeque. Definitely one of my favorite moments was watching Connor and Railey duke it out over who was "alpha." I am really not sure who won but they definitely enjoyed each and every minute of it. There were TONS of hugs and kisses and at dinner Railey even asked if she could marry him. Ummmmm...no.

Claire and Maysie just ate and looked cute the entire night

"The furrowed brow"

It was an amazing night....all of the kids loved playing with each other and Ella loved meeting her new "cousin" Connor.

These are the best group shots I could get. Let's just say that someone whose name starts with an R wasn't being very cooperative

BUT...I did manage to get some cute shots of the other kids

The next morning we went to the park to meet up with Darby and her three kids. It has been way too long and it was so great to see her. Great news is that Railey decided to be a bit more cooperative with the camera...the bad news is that someone else got the memo not to smile.

Railey junior...bruise on the forehead to empasize that point

I love this picture...little Taylor is looking at Maysie like she is crazy. I bet Darby can pull out a picture of her looking at me just like this.

Finally was able to get a picture of Mollie smiling. If you look closely you will see she and Railey in the tube

Riley has gotten SO BIG and ran around the playground so fast I barely got a picture of him

After the playground, we quickly ran home to drop off the little ones with a babysitter then headed to the Chili Cook Off to see ZBB play and get some time with Paul. Since the crowd was a little rowdy, Paul set us up on stage to watch the show. So the kids put on their headphones and we headed onstage to take our seats.

I have no idea how many people were there....but it was definitely enough to fill Doak Campbell Stadium. The second Railey got on the stage, she was convinced they were all there to see her perform. She danced like crazy for the first 5 songs and then she calmed down a bit and sat down to enjoy the show. When she realized that she was letting down her fans, she started dancing again. At one point in the show in between songs, I looked up to see her waving to the audience and wouldn't you know it, some people waved back. Then, she blew them kisses. Thank god I was able to catch some of this on camera....note the seriousness in her face.

The girls had a blast and we did too!

One more big hug before bedtime.

BEST WEEKEND EVER!