Trip to Grandma's Day 3

Saturday morning we had a lot planned. We moved the car seats to Daniel's car and drove into Gainesville. James loves Daniel's car. It is black, sleek, and has tons of buttons. After we got both boys strapped in and we were ready to go, James was laughing and saying, "It's like a rocket ship!". As we were pulling out of the driveway he said, "3,2,1 blastoff!"

Our first stop was to a thrift store that looked fun to browse. They had so much stuff! Daniel found some old computer keyboards and James found a small gumball machine and a toy race car. I thought it was so funny that he has no idea that it is a gumball machine, he says that is a machine for marbles. In fact, it is in his marble run box right now, full of marbles :)

Once we got into Gainesville, we drove around Shands and UF for awhile to see all the new buildings that have gone up. It has grown so much in 5 years! We stopped at the football stadium to get out and show James where the Gators play. He was mostly excited for the steps, he really enjoyed going up and down the steps at the game the night before. The access door to the field was unlocked, so we got to run around on the field and make pretend touchdowns. Technically I don't think you are allowed to play on the field, but we couldn't resist :)

 James wanted to check out the other side of the stadium, so my mom and Daniel took Rett back towards the car. Of course they had to get a picture of him on the bull gator! (The goldfish was already in his mouth when they got there. My mom said she made sure to not show Rett otherwise he would eat them up. My smush loves to eat!)

 James and I went around to the other side of the stadium and went through the opposite exit. There is a smaller gator on that side, so James got to check one out too!

After the football stadium, we explored the natural history museum and their discovery play area. James mostly wanted to check out the fountain outside, so we made sure to visit it when we left. We gave him a few pennies to throw in and make a wish. He wished for a cupcake and tried to hit the water spray with his penny.

Next we met up with my brother Alex for lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. We were all starving! James ate 2 baskets of the free chips, was relatively calm, and didn't run around the entire restaurant, which tells you just how tired he was! Rett ate pretty much everything I had in the diaper bag for him. I don't think he has a full setting :) After we were all stuffed, we got back in the car and headed towards home. We had to make a quick stop at a playground James had his heart set on playing in, but we were all so tired and cold that he didn't argue about leaving after 10 minutes or so. Rett fell fast asleep almost as soon as he was strapped in his car seat.

When we got home, James had quiet time in his room while Rett finished napping so that we could all recharge and get ready for trick or treating! There were so many houses with fun Halloween decorations and we were excited about visiting them. When I was packing I couldn't find all of the parts of Rett's Incredibles costume, so I brought a Tigger one for him. James was excited to be an Incredible again, but he also wanted his jacket zipped up all the way so I don't think many people realized what he was. Either way, he was still cute!

 In their neighborhood, if you are handing out candy, you sit outside with it, so we never even rang a doorbell or knocked on a door. Our first stop was this guy sitting in his car with his dog.

 Our next stop was one James had been looking forward to because of all of their spider decorations. He kept reminding us to "be careful and don't get caught in their sticky web!". After he got his candy, he wanted to go inside their house and see more decorations. He was disappointed when I told him that we weren't going inside.

 This guy had a pretty scary mask on while handing out candy, so I wasn't sure if James would go up to him or not, but he wasn't scared at all! He actually thought it was kind of funny!

At one of the houses, we walked up and the lady immediately recognized us. She said, "I know you guys! I was sitting behind you at the football game!". She looked down at James and said, "James right?". It was so funny! We said James' name soooo many times that night, trying to make sure he didn't run away or get in anyone's face. I'm sure his name is seared into her brain :)

This is just one picture of one street of trick or treaters. There were seriously so many people!! You could barely walk down the street without bumping into someone and there were lines when you went up to someone's house to get candy. It was fun to see all the costumes. We counted 11 different Elsa's from Frozen :)

 This was just one of the houses' decorations. Spooky!

James lasted about an hour and then he was done. He couldn't even keep walking, he cried and cried until I agreed to carry him the rest of the way home. Once we got back to my mom's house I left to go pick up dinner and came back to find him with tired, glassy eyes, in the same position I left him in, halfway through a blowpop, with red sticky candy juice all over his face. He was partied out!

The next day we went to church in the morning and then came home and packed up the car. I was sooo sleepy on the drive home, but thankfully so was Rett. He slept most of the way! I did get to see a black bear when we were driving through the national forest, so that was really neat. The best part of the day though was making it home in time for Anthony to feed the boys dinner and get them ready for bed. It was a fun, but very exhausting trip!