In our own BACKYARD!!!

I was talking with our next door neighbor the other day when all of the sudden I heard the sound unmistakable sound of an hot air balloon. So, I whipped around to discover THIS about FOUR houses down! Look how LOW it is!

To show you just how close it was, the house you see on the far left is OURS!

We chased it to the backyard, and it landed behind the trees into the farmer's field. . .it stayed about 10 minutes before taking off again! Cool, eh???? Especially since it was something cool to try my new camera out on!!!

Mackenzie's 2nd. . um and 3rd Birthday Party

She is spoiled rotten, I admit it. We took her to Chicago for her 4th birthday. . .well, ok, it was sorta a trip to take me to IKEA. . .but, you know, it happened to be on Mackenzie's b-day, so, it counts, RIGHT??

Then we flew her to Boston. But, what did SHE ask for?? She wanted a party at the local bounce house place. Ok. Fine. You mean the kids play for 1 1/2 hours, then you provide the place for them to make a mess and eat cake while Mackenzie opens gifts? Really? SOLD! All of the kids seemed to have the BEST time. . .including a big kids. . . DARREN & MATT.










After the party with her friends, we went home and celebrated (after a quick nap) with family! I made HUGE cupcakes for the occasion! Aren't they cute???



The decorations. . .

Blowing out the candles. . .again. . .

I am thinking that next year, she is going to have a MUCH calmer. . .less expensive birthday!!!! Poor Mackenzie!

BOSTON!

So, remember the trip we took to Chicago to celebrate Mackenzie's birthday?? WELL, turns out that we weren't finished with our vacation travels. About a week after our Chicago trip we went to BOSTON! It was a spontaneous trip. . .sort of. We planned on having lil Ms. Mack fly with my dad before he retired from the airlines. His b-day is Dec. 31st, so we pretty much had the rest of the year to figure out a cool place to go. Turns out the timing was perfect for Boston. It was a Friday-Saturday trip, and my dad flew us to BOS and back! So, Mackenzie go to fly with him TWICE! Whoo Hoo!!!

While in Boston, we stayed with some amazing friends who just moved there a month ago. They have the coolest condo with a garage, so our rental car was even spoiled while there! Here is basically how our 24 hour excursion happened:

Friday:
Wake up at 3:30am (praying that Mackenzie would sleep on the plane for a while)
Arrive at airport in plenty of time for our 6 am flight.
Hop on plane. . .land in BOS 2 hour later! Once on ground, Mackenzie got to visit the cockpit for a "few" photos. You know me. . .that's about 20. . .or so!




Once we got in the airport, Ms. Mackenzie was very intrigued by all the paperwork the her grandfather had to do. Once her patience had been worn thin, she jumped on his leg. . .he responded by picking her up. Who's spoiled rotten?? Grandpa was done with his paperwork anyway, so we gathered our stuff and headed towards our rental car. Grandpa walked us to security, and then had to leave to go fly back home.

We rented a car from Alamo. The service was awesome! They had a new car seat for Mackenzie, and that made me really happy after reading some scary blogs about bad rental car seats. Anyway, Alamo had a huge bathroom, so we all changed into our "tourist" comfy clothes, and headed towards downtown.
Our destination was the aquarium. . .some 3-4 miles away. So, in Boston traffic time: ABOUT 40 minutes. . .maybe less, but one of the Lobster Restaurants caught on fire in the morning, the GPS was confused as to where we were, so we got detured, then LOST. . .not too badly. . .we only went down ONE one-way road the wrong way. Did I mention that we WAIVED the damage waiver on the rental car?!?!? It's ok, the car was returned in perfect condition. . .amazingly after traveling in Boston for a day!
Anyway, the minute we were in the car on the way to downtown, this is what happened

We finally made it to the aquarium, and met up with Naomi, and Mike, the couple we were staying with while in Boston. We did have to wake Mackenzie up. . .but she was quite happy to be at the aquarium, so we didn't have a wee crabby pants on our hands!







After the aquarium, we were HUNGRY!!! So we went right across the street to Legal Sea Food. OMG, was it YUMMY!! Here are some photos of our food. . .




After eating, Naomi had to go to work, and Mike left to get some groceries. . .we were the typical tourists, and went to Quincy Market. . .FUN!!!




Mackenzie took the following photos. . .didn't she do a GREAT job?!?!?


After Quincy Market, we went to Naomi and Mike's place. . .stayed in their awesome condo, and watched movies to unwind. Of course we chatted for a while too!!!! They are the most gracious hosts.
In the morning we went to the quainted little restaurant called, "Joseph's Too". . .I think. The food was EXCELLENT, and the place was close enough to WALK!!! After breakfast we RUSHED to the airport. . .



Home at LAST!!

Grandpa made an awesome landing in STL! We all had the best time, and Mackenzie made a great little plane traveler! We can't wait til our next plane ride!!!! Whoo Hoo!!

Gone Fishin'

Yesterday we bought Mackenzie a fishing pole, and taught her how to use it in our backyard. After about 15 minutes, she proved her casting worthy-ness, so we decided to go to a real lake and test her out. Her patience. . .her endurance. . .her ability to cast without hooking her mother. . .

Alas, she didn't catch any fish, but I caught some amazing photos!