Best Weekend Ever (arrival night and Day One)

The day Norah has been waiting months and months for finally arrived and we just spent a glorious five days with Ruby and her mom Megan, and Baby Lucas (who is no longer anything resembling a baby) and his mom Aileen.  Hands down some of our favorite people in the whole wide world and the house is painfully quiet without them.

This is what Norah looked like last Tuesday when I told her she only had one more sleep before Ruby arrived.

We needed a car that could fit three adults and four kids. Wednesday afternoon, I picked up this baby because it claimed it could comfortably seat seven adults.  

While technically I guess that would be possible, three of those seven adults would have to be painfully thin.  And certainly could not be small children riding in gigantic car seats.  It wasn't ideal but we managed.  Thank goodness Aileen has a tiny tush.  

It was late when everyone arrived but Norah made me pinky swear promise that she could go with me to pick them up.  The last time the girls saw each other was Disneyland.  Even though they Facetime (that's talk on the phone with video for you old people), I always have that split second of panic before they see each other that they won't have anything in common, that too much time will have gone by, that they won't even LIKE each other anymore.  Thankfully, my worry is always for naught.  There is no like here.  There is nothing but pure, total, unconditional love.  It's just what a best friend should be.  

Although I got to see Aileen last fall, we had not seen Lucas since the last time we were in the bay area, which was December of 2011.  He wasn't even two!  Now he's a fully formed three year old and he's awesome.  He took to the girls right away and was a part of the action every step of the way.  At first we thought he would be a good playmate for Lou, but nothing makes you realize the difference between two and three year olds than trying to get a two and three year old to play together.  

We got home, gave everyone the grand tour of the house and then let the girls loose.  Lou was already fast asleep, Lucas followed suit not too long after, but those girls stayed up for hours.  As in, did not close their eyes until 2:30 in the morning.  I couldn't believe they were still on their feet (none of the grown-ups were).  Clearly there was a lot to catch up on.  

When Ruby was here last summer it was hot.  Really hot.  Hot to the point where it was hard to move around.  I was expecting the worst this time around, but the universe was smiling on us and every day was overcast, breezy, and more often that not, rainy.  It cut into some of our pool time, but the pros far outweighed the cons.  It was remarkably pleasant to be able to move around and get in the car without feeling as though we might die.  The next morning we goofed around as long as anyone wanted and then went to the dinosaur dig and splash pad park approximately three minutes away.

  

After the park there was more lounging, a movie up in the movie room, playing outside in the backyard, popsicle eating, and wine spritzers before 3:00 pm.  Moms were on vacation too. 

The afternoon and early evening was so pleasant that we sent BVZ out to get bbq (about 30 seconds after he got home from work--he does have some redeeming qualities!) and set up on the front driveway with a bucket full of sidewalk chalk.  Lou loves to play in water when Norah is chalking, so I let him have the hose with the smallest drizzle of water.  The girls soon realized that chalk and water makes paint/paste and proceeded to create masterpieces on both the concrete and themselves.  At one point they were painting Norah blue (Smurfette) and Ruby green (Elphaba).  I am still finding chalk under Norah's nails, a full week later.

Lucas and Lou were having a great time until, when out of nowhere, Lou started to cry for so discernible reason and could not be comforted for a good fifteen minutes.  He felt warm and so I took his temp and found he had a 102 fever.  I had a split second (terrible) vision of a weekend of four sick kids, but thankfully it didn't last and didn't spread to anyone else.

The boys went to bed, the girls stayed up until at least midnight, and the moms gave up trying to make them go to bed and had cocktails instead.  A win-win for all.

To be continued...