One Last Hurrah for Summer

We spent the rest of our summer visit with my parents.  

We packed in a lot of fun with cousins, siblings and Santa Claus.

It's still soaking in that our families are just two hours away from our new home.  For our entire married life of 11 years, we've booked flights or spent entire days driving to get home to visit with everyone.  I think we are going to LOVE this new change.

We got to meet our newest niece - Harper!

She's so tiny and sweet.

Olive enjoyed seeing her - touching her headband, wanting to feed her a fake bottle and trying to take her paci.  Harper is grand kid number 8 on my side :)

We spend one night at my parent's place in Santa Claus, IN and had a blast.

They've had the place for several years now and keep it decorated for Christmas year round.

Olive was in heaven pointing out the ho hos, deer and touching all the decorations. 

It's a cozy place that we all enjoy.

 We went on a walk through part of the neighborhood in the evening

and spotted 2 skunks, a fox and lots of deer.

Olive was in animal heaven.

 We woke up to my mom making breakfast for everyone.

Far cry from my usual cereal or boring breakfast.

My parents have a toy closet that Olive makes herself right at home in.

Tato head was the best toy this time.

 Olive and Papaw catching up on some fairy tales.

My sister and her crew invited us over to play and feed their chickens.  We were a little leery of these big birds but it was fun to feed them knowing they were securely corralled in their cage.

 The rock wall and super fast slide were Olive's favorites.

Her cousins were eager to help and show her their toys.

My Dad suggested we go down to the river front for a picnic lunch one day because the weather was really nice.  It worked out great.  We had a nice time and got to see a barge go by.  Olive was convinced some of the drift wood looked like dinosaurs.

Olive came downstairs planning to say hello to her Mimi and Papaw, but they'd gone out early for the day.  She'd gotten into a routine and expected them to be there to play with her.  She had a complete meltdown and couldn't believe they had made plans without her.  Haha nothing a little Daniel Tiger couldn't fix.

We had a great visit with everyone - family and friends this year.  We wished we could have seen everyone on our wish list, but Olive got a little cold so we opted to keep things low key and not share germs.  We'll catch everyone else on one of our next visits.  

This trip officially wraps up our summer and makes me start thinking about fall, football, chili, jackets and scarves!!  Bring on the cooler weather and fall colors.