Last week Ansen’s parents went on vacation to Branson and asked us to join them! We had a great time, enjoyed WAY too much food and did a good amount of shopping. Of course, I forgot to take many pictures, but (thanks to Auntie and Uncle) we did get some pictures of the one thing I was most excited about: Baby’s first swim!

Unlike her father, she actually seemed to like it and found it very relaxing. The best part is that the smallest swim diapers are absolutely HUGE. Too bad we didn’t take a picture of her in just the swim diaper. But they still worked, so I’m not complaining!

We spent a lot of time sitting on the screened in porch, just hanging out and relaxing:

Our week did include some go-kart racing and lots of shopping. Here’s Avie chillin’ while we shop:

Outlet malls are the best. Arielle bought 2 huge bags full of stuff at the Banana Republic. Before she totaled it up, we made guesses on how much her $250 shopping spree would cost retail. Closest guess: $1,200! (That was me, by the way.) That’s a savings over $950!! My favorite part was baby shopping, where we found these darling accessories:

We even began a Boys vs Girls Bayer Family Olympics. The first events were Formula One video game racing (boys event), pillow case stuffing (girl event) and pool running (boy event). For the Formula One racing, the girls had “brake assist” which is supposed to break for you, but I’m simply terrible at driving on video games so it didn’t really help. The boys blew our doors off. For the pillow case stuffing, you had to stuff 3 pillows into their respective pillow cases and they had to be completely inside the case, but they did not have to be sleepable. Not to toot my own horn again, but I had the fastest time with 35 seconds and my pillows were the most sleepable, although if the video ever surfaces, I’m sure there will be plenty of fun-making. For the pool running, you had to run (not swim) across the pool with your elbows above the water and could not push off the edge with your feet. Again, the boys blew our doors off because they weigh more. We were going to do a toenail painting race to even things out, but ran out of time. I guess we’ll just have to continue another time.

*Update!*

I mentioned that we ate way too much good food, but I forgot to say how! Andrew had a great idea to divide up the meals and take turns so we each brought food for those meals and no one person was responsible for all of it (namely Lila). So, for our lunch, we made cobb salad wraps. We made them pretty much exactly like I used to make when I worked at City Coffee Co. (God rest it). Tortilla, ranch, lettuce, chicken (some of the yummy roasted chicken I discovered!), bacon, avocado and tomato. Yum! For a side: salt and cracked pepper chips or sweet potato chips. For dinner, we made our favorite spicy pasta. It’s a take on Carlos O’Kelly’s Pasta Diablo. Pasta, white sauce, tomatoes, chicken and chipotle peppers. We actually only add 2 peppers and no seeds or it’s too spicy. Of course, everyone else made some great stuff too, I just thought I’d share our part!