My New Favorite Weekend

First, a pic of our happy shopping buddy who accompanied me and Mac on a trip to Old Time Pottery and Christmas Tree Shop last week. So cute 

Moving on. 

We had the BEST weekend! No Disney trips. No extravagant purchases.  No extreme adventures. Just our favorite people and favorite places and lots of sun and laughs and happiness. 

It started with a text from one of my favorite people on Friday. Danielle and I have this fabulous relationship where we can sit on my couch in sweatpants with a snack, a bottle or three of cheap wine, watching reruns of Intervention and have the best time. We laugh, we cry, we laugh some more, and I just love this girl (who happens to be married to Eric's Uncle....making her my "Aunt". Technically.) so she texted me on Friday asking us to meet up for dinner and we jumped at the chance (as we do every time Eddie and Danielle wanna hang out lol) Nothing fancy or formal. Just Ale House and some of favorite people. Happy Friday. 

And Eddie and Danielle understand that kids and restaurants can sometimes be tricky. And they get that a four year old at 6pm on the Friday of her first week of school might not be sunshiny happy rainbows and pixie dust. But they asked our hungry diva about her first week at school and they made a big deal about the crown Whitney earned from her class treasure box. And they just get us. As a family. They get it. And we so appreciate that. 

So while Eddie and Eric went out to watch football, Danielle and I assumed our usual couch positions and settled in for some much needed girl time 😃 

Saturday was another great day! We had just survived the first awesome week of school, so we were excited to carry the fun through the weekend! We all woke up on the right side of the beds and were ready for some family fun. We decided to check out a popular park we had never visited before. Park on Park is on the other side of our town but its soooo worth the ten minute drive. 

Great playground for big kids and another great playground for smaller kids. Swings. Bathrooms. And best of all? Shade!!

We had the park to ourselves for about 30 minutes and the shady trees made the morning really enjoyable! Whitney and Eric jumped in feet first with climbing walls and tallllll slides....

While the Dude took an unexpected, brief little catnap on the way to the park. I enjoyed a few minutes of park cuddles before Grady rallied and dug in for some fun of his own!

He spotted Whitney across the park, pointed to her, and happily said, "Hi! Bug!" I melted. 😃 

Whitney really liked the climbing stuff. Yikes. I was glad Eric was there. 

I let Grady lead the way....so we did something I can honestly say I never did with Whitney. We sat in the mulch and started digging. And playing with dirt. And he loved it. A lot. 

He finally decided to check out the playground and had so much fun playing peek a boo in tunnels and climbing up steps and collecting leaves and sticks. 

Both kids liked this tree and I realized that they rarely (ever) have contact with trees the way Eric and I did in our childhoods. Our neighborhood is surrounded by a bear preserve and woods but the actual streets and yards don't have big, old, cool trees. Palm trees and ligustrums. Not exactly climbing trees. So they both had fun exploring the grooves of the bark on this old tree. 

It was had to tell who was having the most fun! Us or the kids?!

And as more and more families arrived and the heat kicked it up a notch, we hung out on the swings for some pumping lessons 😃 

And maybe a swing jumping contest for mommy and daddy...

We left the park having made some new friends, making some memories, and ready for lunch! We headed home, promising to return to the Park on Park soon, got some lunch and packed our bag and headed over to my parents house for some grilling, swimming, and more fun!

It's such a blessing to live so close to be able to enjoy an afternoon watching my kids play with my parents. We sent pics to my brother who was at the Red Sox game, and took videos of Whitney performing musicals and diving for plastic wine glasses in the deep end! 

Once again, tough to tell who was having more fun! The grandparents? The parents? Or the kiddies?!

We headed home with two happy, sleepy kids. After baths and bedtime, Eric and I settled into the couches for a movie and some cuddles. I can't even tell you the last time we rented a movie! Life gets so busy and it was nice to just relax, not rush around to birthday parties and obligations and the hectic everyday life with two kids. 

And this morning, we all hung out on the porch getting it ready for friends to come over after church. We got all four of us ready in record time and got to church. It felt good to be back in the routine of school and church! We headed home with some sub sandwiches and enjoyed an afternoon of swimming and laughing with some of our favorite friends and neighbors. Whitney and Emma played nicely and would've stayed in the pool forever if we let them! And it's so nice that these girls live around the corner from each other and go to church together and see their parents hang out and enjoy spending time together. Baseball and cheerleading take over Julie and Jonah's lives in the summer so it was awesome to get together and catch up! 

The O Family headed home and Team Bass stayed in the pool for almost five hours! Eric kept the kids in the pool so I could get on the treadmill for a bit, and we tag teamed bath time and bed time and are calling this weekend a fabulous success! 

It's so nice to start the week with a clean house, all the laundry put away, two healthy and happy kids sleeping soundly, a husband who loves his job and provides an amazing life for his family, and the best family and friends a girl could ever ask for. Feeling really blessed as I head to bed tonight 😃