Summer Repat

A mere two days after Everett's birthday, the kids and I left for summer repat.  Thank goodness we had Grandma with us!!  Catherine did not have her own seat.  We would not have made it without her. 

The boys did great!  They did the best they have ever done.  They slept, and watched the TV, and played with their Leap Pads (new presents for the trip!), and they even ate the adult airplane food.  Seasoned travelers.  

We did a lot on repat, but here is a sampling of our stateside adventures. 

 Gramama threw Everett a family birthday party since she had missed the big one in Arabia. 

 The kids watched our teeny weeny TV in B House, our house in Knoxville.  Catherine liked Spot.  She is pointing to Spot on the TV.  She still won't sit to watch TV for more than a few minutes, but this held her interest for maybe 5 minutes?  (That's doing pretty well.)

 

 We took a day to picnic and hike in the Smokys. 

 Staying on the correct side of the line!  Grandpapa, you stay on that other side. 

 Lawrence REFUSED to look at the camera!  But he does love those light-up dinosaur shoes. 

Then we went to the big Country Club carnival for the fourth of July.  It rained!!  BOO!!  So they had it inside the tennis bubble.  It was hot and loud, but SO fun.

 They had barbeque and corn on the cob and watermelon and baked beans and hot dogs and brownies and cookies and ice cream! 

 And after a little basketball, and bounce house,

 and ring toss, they had two snow cones, two cotton candies, and two bags of popcorn, EACH.  Well, not the baby.  Just the boys.  But WOW. 

In mid-July, Grandpapa got a rain barrel in the mail.  It came in a HUGE box.  Which became a playhouse for about two weeks!

Then we went to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga for a day.

 These were stingrays.  Then we saw the penguins. 

 This crab aquarium had a center cylinder you could walk into. 

After a month without him, Mike finally arrived in mid-July after a nasty trip.  His flight into Knoxville was flat-out cancelled, which is not what you want to hear after you've been flying for 24 hours.  It wasn't cancelled until the last minute, which meant that the kids and Gramama and Grapapa and I had already arrived at the Knoxville airport, complete with signs that Everett had made saying "Welcome Home Daddy," before we realized that he would not actually be arriving.  He finagled a late flight to Chattanooga instead, and I drove down to pick him up.  We finally got back to B House at 1 am that night.  But hey, he made it. 

And the next morning, we woke up and he drove us all to Michigan.  I do not know how he does that. 

In Michigan, we belatedly celebrated our 9th anniversary.  Mostly because there are no good restaurants in Khobar. 

 And we visited Mike's grandfather's (now his Uncles') trucking company.  What great fun!

Hiding and playing in the corn behind the trucking company.


 Back home in B House, Daddy went crazy with bows after bath one night.  She just kept pointing to the bows and saying "bow" so he kept putting them in.  Bow girl! 

 Then we went to Kiawah for a week with Gramama, Grapapa, Uncle, Aunt, and baby Cousin.  That was really fun, too!

 

 Chilling out after a hard day's play. 

All five of us!  I have a series of these pictures starting when I was pregnant with Everett.  And look at us now!

Right after this, we had to get on that plane and head back to Arabia.  Repat always goes so fast.