They brought a little excitement of their own, too.

My sister was kind enough to make the long drive from Corpus Christi to unite our families for a weekend of hilarity.

…much of which was spent trying to impress a very small little boy.

On Friday we just had the evening, so we enjoyed a quick meal and then let the kids mess around in the backyard.

Owen was very interested in telling Emma how the telescope works.

They were all quite interested in tossing the ball around.

We put the kids down for some much needed sleep to prepare them for the days to come. When the sun came up, we wasted little time on breakfast so we could try to beat the heat when we took our trip down to the pool.

Max found some shade to keep the sun at bay.

Both of them were getting a bit impatient about getting in the pool.

…and thus I was attacked.

But we got them all the appropriate flotation devices…

…including the little dude…

...and a good time was had by all. Our guest noticed something the boys had neglected to care about for quite some time.

A playground within the pool area!

They all had their fun, but it wasn't long before they were back in the pool.

I don't think that's how the goggles go on, Max.

We took turns putting kids on our shoulders and letting them stand on our hands, just like we did with our dad when we were kids.

Of course, Max couldn’t help but show off his new trick.

Then we all went back to the house and the kids took a break.

…except for RyanPaul, who slept through a decent bit of our pool time.

In case you were wondering, Owen thinks babies are hilarious.

Especially extremely adorable babies.

When the afternoon arrived, we had to go our separate ways for a bit due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict. Luckily Jenn was able to do something she wanted (visiting an old friend) while we took our kids out for something we bought tickets to a while back.

Circus time!

Max was super excited about seeing clowns and getting clown noses and eating cotton candy and peanuts and watching elephants and buying souvenirs. Owen was...

…kind of bored, actually.

Unlike this guy, wearing the hat his cotton candy came in and clutching his spinny light thing so his brother wouldn't steal it.

At the end of intermission, Max had a change of heart and decided he didn't really want to go back in to watch the rest. Thankfully we convinced him it would be a good idea to stay, as we finally found something Owen enjoyed during the second half. They rolled out a huge set of trampolines. Once the acrobats started jumping on them, Owen stood bolt upright in Christy's lap and yelled "JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMP!"

Just had to find the right performance for him, I guess.

We reached the final day with the cousins and decided it would be best to keep it as lazy as possible for the sake of the kids (and us). That didn't stop them from having a good time, though.

What? That's Owen's excited face.

Ahh, "crush the baby", our favorite game.

After wishing everyone well and thanking them again for driving all the way out, we spent the rest of the day much as we spent the morning. The kids hung out, and we watched them hang out while doing as little as possible.

For Max, relaxing means coloring, cutting, and pasting.

We should probably mention that. Every single day that week, Max came home from school demanding a pair of scissors, a glue stick, and as many pieces of paper as we could hand him. He loves nothing more right now than sitting down and cutting out shapes, then gluing them on to big pieces of paper to hang up on the bulletin board in his room. We have so many of them now that it would make more sense to just turn all of his walls into cork board. He's a crafty kid, that one.

For his part, Owen has taken on a slightly more demanding personality. Thankfully he's fallen into a better eating pattern, but his demeanor at the table has become...interesting. Generally, no less than four times a meal he will turn to his mother and yell, "MAHHH-MEE!" as many times as it takes for his mother to turn to him and reply, "Yes, Owen?" He will then do something trivial, like saying "Hi" or eating a bite of breakfast. Christy finds this slightly less hilarious than I do.

All that and still two hours to spare. I suppose I could link you all to the big photo set and drop a video in here for the heck of it.

RyanPaul

Hopefully we didn't dislocate anything.

See you next week!