As it turns out, after I'd planned my trip to visit my brother Anton and his family, they ended up selling their house and acquiring a new one, and the moving weekend happened to be the weekend I was there. That means the account of the weekend probably isn't a thrilling read, so I've kept it fairly short. However, it worked out well because I got to spend a lot of quality time playing with my nieces, as well as just hang out and talk to my brother and sister-in-law. And honestly, since I probably won't see them for a good long while, a chance to chat was the most important thing.
Anyway, they were still living in the old house, trying to finish packing. The actual movers were scheduled the Monday I left. Rory is 4, and I hadn't seen her since she was almost 2. Ellery is about 20 months, and I'd never met her.
I arrived around noon and Gena, my sister-in-law, picked me up with my nieces in tow. Anton couldn't get free from the office for lunch, so Gena and the kids and I got some lunch and then headed to the house. Anton got home early, and we took a trip to the new house to check it out and Anton needed to drop a few things off. Their new house is gorgeous and huge. It has a big pool, 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs plus a large open room in the middle. The first floor has a den, a dining room, living room, kitchen, breakfast area, laundry room, and of course, the master bedroom. They also have a "bonus room" off the garage which will become a mini-gym. After that it was back home. Anton made some pasta for dinner, we hung out, talked, and then retired early since I was on only 1.5 hours of sleep.
Anton had Friday off and the plan was to take the kids and meet some of Anton and Gena's friends at bar/restaurant to watch basketball (it was the playoffs). Before we left, I decided to snap a few pictures. Rory, always quite the ham, made it easy, but I never did get a shot of Ellery that morning.
Being essentially a sports bar, there were a ton of TVs all on sports. Since the place was mostly empty, we got them to turn the closest TV to cartoons for the kids. Since sports isn't really my thing, I ended up watching the cartoons as much as the basketball. The kids spent some time climbing around the arcade area, and Ellery often got "stuck" on a chair to one of the seats - i.e. she climbed up, but couldn't get back down.
After lunch, Gena took the kids home for a nap and two of Anton's friend's kids showed up - Haley (17) and Katy (14), and we all chatted for a while. Gena called Anton to remind him that the cable guy was supposed to be coming to the new house to install several drops, others, and activate the cable internet service.
So we headed to the new house for the 4-hour window. An hour in, Anton called to confirm the appointment. Another hour later, Gena and the kids stopped by. 3 hours into the window, Anton called again and they claimed the appointment was on Saturday night, not Friday. Despite the earlier person confirming the appointment. Awesome. We headed home.
The kids went to bed when we got home, I gave my sister-in-law a massage, and then it was bedtime.
Saturday we woke up and Rory was very excited since today I'd be taking her toy shopping. After breakfast, Anton, Rory, and I headed to Target. Anton reiterated to Rory she could pick out only one toy. While we were toy shopping, Anton went to buy easter eggs to hide in the yard for the easter-egg hunt the next morning. As Rory and I walked the toy isles, Rory pain-stakingly tried to determine the very best toy in the store. She kept saying "I'm only allowed to get one!" Making sure to reminder herself of it, as well reiterate to me that she was following the rules. After picking out her favorite - a Polly Pocket water-slid set - she was still holding onto the first stuffed animal she'd picked up - a mylittlestpetshop dog. I told her I'd put the dog back, but just kinda kept it behind my back, intending to surprise her with it. Anton then helped me pick out something for Ellery (she's only one and a half) - a Dora the explorer electric bubble-blower thing - and we went to check out. While I'd managed to hide the stuffed dog from Rory and get it onto the conveyor belt, when the clerk picked it up, Rory said, "what's that? Who's that for? Is that for me? I'm only allowed to get one toy! I'm not allowed to get two?" I said it wasn't for her and she said "is it for Ellery" and I said "no, it's for someone else", but she kept at it "Is it for me? It's for me, isn't it? But I'm now allowed to have two toys!" I gave it to her in the parking lot as we walked back towards the car and she was quite thrilled after she realized that Uncle Phil had broken the rules and got her two things and that she hadn't broken any rules.
We then headed out to a really good Mexican restaurant for lunch. Ellery had to bring her new Dora with her and Rory had to bring the tiny plastic dog from her Polly Pocket set with her. The certainly liked their toys! ;) The tiny dog, of course, got lost, but fortunately, it's not a vital part of the toy. We all shared fajitas-for-four, which were really good. There was a sandbox/playground for the kids to play in as well. Despite the great food and fun atmosphere, our waitress was surprisingly horrible. Ah well.
After lunch Gena and I went shopping for things for the new house, and Anton took the girls to the new house to wait for the cable guy. When we got to the new house, I played with the girls for a while. Rory wanted to play dress up, and put on her "wedding dress":
We played "wedding" and "fashion show" and sorts of other games that I pretended I knew how to play (I was never a little girl, but I faked it pretty well, I think). Ellery, being the very independent girl she is, didn't pay much attention to us, but occasionally permitted us bother her.
One can only play with kids for a few hours until a break was needed so I helped Gena and Anton with various things for a while, meanwhile snapping some pictures.
Eventually the cable guys do show up. There's a lot of concern about adding drops to the second-story - ironic since several weeks ago a guy came out who wasn't qualified to work on two-story houses and re-booked the appointment specifically to get such a person down here. But eventually the two-story guy did in fact show up to help the other guys out. They got everything done except the drop in the den. Two of the den walls were exterior so doing drops on them is near-impossible. The third wall was only a first-story wall and didn't go all the way to the roof. The fourth wall was simply a door-way. The guys said there was no way. Having done many drops, I pointed out the one part of the room that actually did go the entire way up - the intersection of 2 walls of the den and the front staircase. After a while crawling around in the roof and looking at blueprints, he said "it might be possible, but it would involve a great risk of me falling through your wall." I agreed that was a likely possibility and Anton decided it wasn't worth it. He only needed a drop in there for internet, so he decided he's just go with DSL (there was already a phone drop in that room).
Gena and the girls left around 9, and Anton and I left after the cable guys around 10. Anton and I stopped to pick up some food at ... eh, Whattaburger, I think.
We stayed up late that night stuffing plastic eggs, talking, and once it was late enough, hiding the eggs in the backyard.
At 7am the next morning, I hear Rory say, "I want to look for Easter Eggs!" Assuming this was coming from downstairs, I decided I should probably get up. A few minutes later, I open my bedroom door to see her standing there, and she says again, "I want to look for Easter Eggs!" Her parents advise her to search the house. Then the front lawn. Then finally they "remember" that the Easter Bunny sometimes leave eggs in the backyard! Watching the Easter Egg hunt was priceless!
I was told that if I posted this picture I had to explain that none of us had coffee or a shower yet. Disclaimer posted.
Post easter-egg hunt, we wanted to find somewhere to eat lunch where Anton could watch the UT game. Sadly, every bar in town we drove by seemed to be closed. The only place that appeared to be open was Fuddruckers. Since they had but one small TV, we got food, went home, and watched the game at the house while we ate. After food and game, it was a day of packing. I played with the kids, helped pack, chatted with the adults, and got lots of good quality time with the family in.
Up early in the morning, Anton drove me to the airport on his way to a meeting, after which he'd be coming home to join Gena with the moving.