Joe, Meet your Uncle Joey

This past weekend we got to spend some time with my brother, Joey, and his kids, Easton and Lauren. Easton and Lauren have met Joe before, but Joey, his namesake, hadn't. He's been in Iraq since February and was home on 2 weeks leave. It was so good to see him and spend some time relaxing. Here's a picture of them together. (Notice the drool on Joey's shoulder....nice one Joe!)

Joey and the kids went on to San Diego after their stay in Texas. They were going to pick up Caroline (my Sister-in-Law) and take a trip to Disneyland while Joey's home. He heads back out October 12. Everyone keep him and all our troops in your thoughts and prayers! Let's hope the next 4 months until he's home for good goes by quickly for everyone.

Last weekend we took a mini-vacation and the five of us met up with Do, Grandma, Joey and the kids in Grapevine, TX to stay for a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge. If you aren't familiar with the resort, it's a big hotel with a huge indoor/outdoor waterpark inside. They have several of them around the U.S. It was way too cold to go outside (way too cold being about 75 degrees and overcast), but they have huge waterslides, a wave pool, lazy river, a giant fort and an area for little kids indoors. It was a lot of fun. All the big kids (Joey, Paul, Easton, Alex and Maddie) loved the slides. Lauren and Joe liked the hot tub the best. NOT TO WORRY....I only put his feet in....and it wasn't any warmer than his baths are at home. I tried to sit with him in the shallow end of the kiddie pool but the water was just too cold. So after he got his tootsies warm in the hot/warm tub, he took a little nap with Grandma.

Amazing that the noise in the park didn't bother him one bit. Overall we were very impressed with the resort. From the cleanliness, to the staff, to the activites....all very worth it. This was the first time all of us were in one hotel room with Joe. It was tough trying to keep him quiet at night and early in the morning so Alex and Maddie could sleep. And I realized, when it's not your house, you can't just get up and go walking around in your pj's either! Luckily Do and Grandma get up early so I could go bug them.

One of the nights the boys all went to the Texas A&M football game and the girls had "Girls Night (plus Joe)." Lauren didn't really get why Joe go to join us for girls night since he was a boy. But, she quickly got over it when we went down and checked out a game to play. Unfortunately, the game didn't have any directions, but we had lots of fun with the props that came in the box as you can see.

We also played Simon Says. Lauren didn't understand the rules of the game quite yet so she would just go on and on saying "Simon says touch your nose" and "Simon says touch Baby Joe" and so on and so on. Then all of a sudden she'd shake her finger at us ad squinch up her nose and say "Simon didn't say!" even though he really did. We didn't have the heart to tell her that's not how the game goes, and besides that....it was pretty funny when she did it. Another one of her favorite games apparently is Mercy She asked Alex to play with her and Alex asked her what the game was about. She said very matter of factly, "that's where you hurt me and then I say Mercy." Like it was the most fun game in the world. Can you tell she has a big brother?

On the last day of the trip we made all the kids get together for a picture. We couldn't get everyone to be serious so we told them if they took a serious picture, then we'd take one of them being goofy. Here they are.....you almost can't tell the difference.

Here's a cute picture of Alex and Joe watching TV in the hotel room

And this last one is on here because I told Alex and Maddie I wanted a good picure of them but they kept making faces. So I threatened them by saying the next picture was going on the blog regardless of how it looked. Apparently for Maddie my threats mean nothing.