piot family: Summer: Week 3

Two weeks in and he's already worn out! Cutest. Thing. Ever!

Watching Daddy water the plants. This moment looks all sweet, but I can guarantee within 2 minutes of me taking this pic, Grant probably started some sort of squabble with Michael. #babybully

More late afternoons/evenings at the pool. They can't get enough, especially our new found fish...Michael! He's wearing his floatie in this pic, but it was quickly removed and he was jumping in on his own, from here on out. Another week of GREAT swim lessons for both boys!

I had told them to head upstairs and do their reading before bed, but when I walked in and found this...well, my heart melted!

The progress made by the seventh swim lesson is just mind blowing! Well, my mind was blown after only the first day, but their growth just kept on and on...

I'm a FIRM believer in investing in QUALITY swim lessons, as well as just jumping right in (no pun intended) and scheduling lessons on back-to-back days for a couple of weeks.

More evenings at the pool. On this night, I surprised the kids and packed stuff for s'mores (their FAV) and after they swam their hearts out, we went up to fire pit and they had dessert:) We are becoming addicted to these summer evenings with friends and neighbors all hanging out together at the pool.

I have no idea what's going on here, other than we got home from the pool on another night and I was making baked potatoes for my big kids and oatmeal for G at 9:45pm! Swimming sure brings the appetite out in these kiddos!

Last day of swim with our beloved teacher, Ms. Debbie. She's INCREDIBLE!!!!! We feel like we owe the redemption of Michael's love for swimming to her...thank you, Lord!

Friday mornings watching the good 'ol tractor:)

I was picking up dinner on Friday at our local Italian/pizza joint and just smiled when I look at this site. Probably means nothing to anyone else, other than me:) Love our sweet town...small town, big heart. No, I did not bust into singing "Wide Open Spaces." ;) Although, I've been known to do that plenty of times before.

I was trying to pack to head out of town earrrrrrly the next morning and this "thing" (I honestly don't even know what to call it???) comes busting into my room-ha!!! Wrong. Just wrong!!! But golly, I LOVE him!

Surprise! Hailey and I pulled off an epic surprise for my LONG time BFF, Amy! Her darling baby was turning "one" and since she was born right before we moved last year and given what a big year it's been for us, I had not yet been able to meet Miss Emersyn Elyse (we even share a middle name!!!!). I knew I wouldn't be able to look at many more pics without seeing this sweet baby in person, so thanks to Justin, he booked Hailey and I tickets to head to Phoenix for the weekend and surprise them at her bday party!

Well, we got up SUPER early to head to the airport and the first thing I noticed when we arrived was the chaos AND the LONNNNNNNNNNGGGGG lines at security (enter, me beginning to ~~mildly~~ majorly panic). I had given us enough time to normally get through security, but this line was unlike anything I'd seen before and I was pretty certain we may miss our flight. Well, about 75% of the way through the line I had heard someone mention something about "delays," so I quickly opened my Southwest app to find that hallelujah, our flight was delayed an hour!!! I know, who gets excited about delays?? THIS girl who was starving and yet to make it through security and originally supposed to board in 10 min ( with still probably 20-25 just in security)! Our delay would still give us plenty of time to make the party, so we were in good shape! Or so we thought...

We grab a quick breakfast and head to our gate, only to find ANOTHER delay...nooooo!!! One delay= good. Another= not good. I told myself it was fine, we'd be a little late to the party, but no big deal. Don't sweat. Yeah, that self-talk quickly got thrown out the dang window of that airport when our flight kept getting delayed for over THREE HOURS!!!! At one point, I lost faith that we'd ever get there and wondered if we should just cancel (it was going to be such a quick trip that every hour counted, people!!). Our hearts both wanted to be there SOO badly, so we took some deep breathes over those three+ hours and boarded our plane (FINALLY) and were on our way. I was texting with Jeff, Amy's brother, the entire time and keeping him up to date on our timing. Thanks to his mad "stalling" skills, he was able to delay the cake/singing, so we could at least be there for that.

We pulled up to Amy and Andrew's house and there they were, waiting on the porch because Jeff had made up some story about needing to tell Amy something, so he pulled her aside;) Her scream of shock and excitement was truly priceless and just like that, all the stress of getting there was 1000% worth it!!!!

We LOVED getting to meet Emersyn and catching up with Amy's family (who are like family to me, as well). Amy had totally out done herself with the SWEETEST party, too!!

After the party, we grabbed some lunch and headed off to the hotel that Justin had booked us. We were SO pleasantly surprised with how NICE our hotel was!! It was only a year old and did not disappoint. By this point, it was only 4pm and my kids were apparently missing one another, something fierce, so they Face Timed:)

We met up for dinner with everyone and enjoyed going back to Amy and Andrew's house to visit some more:)