A Better Visit

On my way back to Michael after visiting my parents, I decided to visit Chris and Laura again. It's a no-brainer that we would stop and say hi, since it's the perfect place for the kids to get some energy out, it's on the way, and I love my kids getting to know their cousins.

This is at Morgan Falls Park, right by Chris and Laura's apartment. It's a really cool park. There are tons of jungle gym toys, swings, astro turf  instead of grass, benches, and tons of space. There's a separate play area, picnic table group (like 30 tables), and fire pit with outdoor (adult sized) swings surrounding it. There is a trail head to a sweet little hike that is immediately in the woods. And there's a dock on a lake. It's all only a couple minutes off the main road and yet it feels like deep country. 

Here's that lake. It keeps going off to the left. 

My 'stop by and say hi' turned into staying for 4 days. Thanks for that. Seriously. We played at the park, yes the same park, and I even got a chance to go out by myself. Laura had a doctor's appointment and I offered to watch her kids, but she had already lined up a babysitter. And that babysitter was glad to watch my kids too. I haven't left my kids with a babysitter since, what, March? the beginning of April? Yea, it had been a while. It was nice to look around at Pier 1, which is definitely not a place you can take you littles. I got a smoothie and visited Trader Joe's. Then Laura and I met back up and visited the Goodwill nearby. I found a sweet Ikea chair for kids for just a couple bucks. And we stocked up on kids books. Laura found this really cool frog book where the cover has eyes and you can move them around. I just know Ivan is going to love it!

We took a trip to Costco, cuz who doesn't love Costco? And while we were in the car Jane counted all the kids. She kept saying there were 7 kids and I was getting really confused. I count 5, where are the other 2 coming from? Then we realized she was counting our pregnant bellies as babies! And then it dawned on me, this is the last time that we could all fit in Laura's van like this! And Laura and I tried really hard to wrap our minds around the fact that this many kids at these ages is what Michael's mom endured with her 5 kids. Crazy!

Throughout the whole visit, there was one thing in particular that stuck out in my mind. Chris said to me "how are you so normal?" I can't stop thinking about that. In all this time that I've been in Florida I have not felt normal. I've not acted normal. And having just experienced the crazy that was Tennessee, it felt really good to be called normal.