"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality."

-Romans 12:12-13

Friday, July 29, 2011

The 11 Day visit of Daniel.....Beware LOTS of pictures!

So before we went on our 2nd family trip this summer, my parents asked if I would be interested in keeping Daniel for a week. My sisters were doing a camp and so Daniel wouldn't really have anyone to hang out with so they were just wondering if Christopher and I would interested in taking him in. So we did....and the following is how the 11 days that we had went down. 
We met my mom, Anna, and Daniel at Dairy Queen in Corinth, MS. They brought along the newest addition of the Lyons family....puppy dog Dudley. 
Playing with Dudley while drinking his coffee...thats my husband!

Cute puppy dog face!

I love this photo! Look at those ears!
So we picked Daniel up...said goodbye to Mom and Anna and hit the road for Huntsville! That night we had made plans to meet up with our friends Stephen and Kristen for the Rocket City United soccer game. So we got back to Huntsville and headed to the soccer game! Daniel was a great trooper seeing that I doubt he had ever sat through a 90 minute soccer game. At the half he went out on the field and did the dance thing that they were doing for kids at the game. He also got one of these. 


He was a quick learner!
So after the game we went home and showered and went to bed so we could go to church in the morning. We got up fairly early and made breakfast.... 

Eggs, Bacon, and Biscuits...and a happy camper? 
On Saturday at Dairy Queen Daniel made a comment about wanting his hair cut like Chris'. So we asked my mom and she said sure.  Daniel was really excited about this haircut. So after breakfast we headed to the guest bathroom with Chris' clippers and got to cutting. 
Before Front.

Before Back.

Here we go.

First swipe...no turning back!

Tackling the top.

He didnt want us to touch his sideburns!

And this is where we were when the clippers died. ....uh oh! Luckily my hubby is brilliant!!

Finished Front!

Finished Back. 
So that is how Daniel got his first #2 haircut. He absolutely LOVED it! Chris was concerned at the first swipe of the clippers because of how thin and light colored his hair was. But Daniel did love his new hair cut!
After church and lunch and the grocery store we headed to the pool!

The boys having fun at the pool!

Chris swimming around!

After swimming and getting rained out of the pool we came back in side to play some Wii!
So that was Sunday. Monday Chris went off to work and Daniel and I went to the pool again! And watch some Harry Potter movies. 
 Tuesday we had bootcamp. So we packed up Daniel and headed to the park! We had a lot of extra stale bread so we went early and fed the birds. 

The pigeons LOVED Daniel. 

Along with all the other birds!
Daniel did the warm-up with us but then he played his DSI for the rest of the work out. After the work out we headed back to the apartment and had dinner!

Wednesday was another pool day! We love the pool! Daniel met a new friend too!
Daniel, his new friend, and his new friend's sister playing Wii.
 Thursday we went to the movies with Daniels new friend. We went and saw Rio at the dollar theater! It was really funny and we had a great time. We also had bootcamp again. We went early again and threw the frizbee around and a little football. Then Daniel saw a man in the park feeding the pigeons. So he went over there to see if he could have a pigeon eat out of his hand. He did this while Chris and I did our warm up. 


After our warm up Daniel came over and he did the entire work out with us! I was quite impressed! He was a trooper! After bootcamp they were having an Harry Potter Party at Barnes and Nobles. We were going on Friday to see the final Harry Potter movie in theaters and Daniel and I had been catching up on all the Harry Potter movies during the week....so we decided to go check out the HP Party. 
Daniel and his owl.

At the platform.
With his owl and trunk.

Having his tea leaves read!


Potions class.

With their smoking fruit punch!
It was bedtime when we got home, but Daniel had asked if he could dress up for the movie on Friday. There were a ton of people dressed up at the Harry Potter Party so I guess he wanted to dress up! Well I wasn't going to go out and buy anything, but I wanted him to be able to dress up if he wanted so I started looking for things to make him a homemade costume....I dont think it turned out too bad...

Glasses that Chris made!

Opus even dresses up to be an owl.


At the movie theater!


Supporting my Gryffindors!

Fighting Dementors at the movie theater!

My super cute husband in his glasses!
So we saw the movie and then headed out to eat dinner! We went to Rosies Cantina! Yum Yum YUMMY!! Saturday morning we got up and went to bootcamp again. Daniel was EXHAUSTED! He was not feeling getting up to go ANYWHERE! However he wasn't too sleepy to do a few workouts with us. 


After bootcamp we headed to the Huntsville Depot. They were having something called Lego Palooza so we headed over. 






They had two rooms of Lego worlds set up! One was even a Jr. League of "Lego"ers. After looking at both set-ups Chris and I did a tour of the Depot. Daniel and I went when my mom and the girls were here for Spring Break, but Chris didn't get to do the tour so we took advantage of the opportunity. Daniel sat in the hall reading his new Lego magazine! Daniel also won a door prize! :)
After the tour we walked around the Depot grounds at the trains and cars they had out. Until we were STARVING!


That night we went to another RCU soccer game! Daniel took his DSI this time and he played that for most of the game...except when he was blowing his vuvuzela.
Sunday we got up and went to church and then we headed to the pool. Only to find out the pool was closed. Someone had intentionally broken it and they said it was going to be 1-2 weeks before it could be fixed. Sad day :(
So instead we decided to wash the car! Woo Hoo! 
Daniel's "car washing" face. 


Chris even taught him how to detail the tires! 
After washing the car we went back to the dollar theater to see Rio again. Chris had not seen the movie, but I knew Chris would love it so we went to see it again!!
Monday Daniel and I kinda laid low. It was SUPER hot and since the pool was still closed we just decided to lay low. Plus Daniel had a late night which resulted in him and I running to Walmart for some Tylenol at 4:30am. And when we got back he couldn't back to sleep he got up at 6am to help me with Chris' breakfast and his lunch before he headed to work. Daniel crashed around 8am and slept til 11am. Chris got home around 3 and we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens. They were having something called "Treehouses with a Splash" and from what I read it sounded like tree houses that had water features that kids could run around in and cool off. The Botanical Gardens was very pretty but it was hot too!. I was disappointed in the "water features" that they claimed the tree houses had. Several of them were turned off. The tree houses themselves were very neat though. And since they had sprinklers watering a lot of there flowers, bushes, etc we let Daniel run around in them. 

















We had a lot of fun at the Botanical Gardens! I went home and made a meatloaf which Daniel ABSOLUTELY devoured. He told me he liked meatloaf but that was an understatement!
Tuesday I had to finish up laundry and packing, so we invited Daniel's new friend down for a play date with the Wii while I packed and finished laundry. Then one last time at bootcamp before heading to DC with the family. We headed to bed fairly early that night and then on Wednesday  morning the rest of the family came and picked the three of us up and off to DC we went! More from that trip later! :)
We had a great time with Daniel, but my parents experiened "empty nest" the last weekend he was with us. The two girls were off on a trip and Ted was at school and they said it was really weird not having anyone at that the house!