The Whomptons Celebrate Independence!

The Whomptons believe in cramming all sorts of family fun into each weekend, and Independence Day weekend was no exception.  We were fortunate to include all sorts of extended family into our play.

On Friday, we found out that Eric's parents would be joining us for the weekend.  Friday night saw us gallivanting off to Weekends Only to acquire a mattress for the bonus room.  Yes, Samantha's room has been vacant since late March.  We had done nothing to it since then; occasionally the girls played in there, but that was the extent of our involvement with that corner of the house.  Needless to say, it was time to make the bonus room into a semblance of a guest room again.  We lucked out, found a nice bed, and they agreed to deliver the next day.  Woohoo!

Saturday saw us furiously cleaning.  (Did I mention the in-laws were coming?)  Everything got the standard scrub, and the bonus room received lots of attention.  Roxanne had lived in that room too and she left behind a fair amount of her hair.  Everywhere.  Walls and baseboards and carpets were cleaned multiple times until I considered it passable and then we set up the bed. 

We had a bookcase in that room which we moved out into the living space.  I had purged a fair number of books earlier in the year, so we didn't actually have enough books lying around to fill it.  Then we realized that Whomptons don't fill bookcases with books; we fill them with board games!  Now our adult board games are featured prominently in the downstairs living room.  It's awesome.  We weren't able to fill the bookcase completely, but yesterday's Groupon scored us $50 of board game store loot for $10 so we're optimistic about the future.

Moving board games downstairs freed up some space in the dining room bookcase so I decided to pull out all the framed pictures.  (The pictures had been boxed when Raina arrived and really haven't emerged since then.)  It was wonderful to pull them out and reminisce about high school, college, our wedding, and the early Raina days.  We quickly realized that we have no framed pictures of Lola; it's time to start printing off the digital photos! 

Saturday night, Gary and LaVerne came over and watched the girls while Eric and I celebrated birthdays and anniversary with the Williamson clan.  While there, Samantha realized the best time to hang out with us was before the Comptons arrived, so she came over bright and early Sunday morning.  We were game-playing by 9 am!  Raina also started teaching Lola how to play basic board games like CandyLand and Snorta.  We soon will induct Lola into our game-playing coven :)

The Comptons arrived Sunday afternoon; we had dinner, plenty of cuddle and play time, and the Whompton adults went bowling for the first time in ages.  Our scores were predictably terrible and will not be shared here.

Mama Jo cuddled with the girls before bedtime Sunday night.  

 Mama Jo and Raina have bad habits of closing their eyes at just the wrong time.  This one is almost perfect.

Everyone slept in on Monday morning and we greeted the day with good cheer.

Then we headed out to the Magic House.  We have taken Raina to the Magic House oodles of times but this was Lola's and the Comptons' first go.  It was a blast.  The girls charged up Jack's Beanstalk and climbed up and down multiple times before the mob arrived.  At times Lola was hesitant about her next move, but Raina took her big sister job seriously and helped Lola along. 

I wanted to hang out in the "old" Magic House parts so we ushered the kids that direction.  Slides and climbing structures and whole rooms with balls and magnets and air tunnels -- the place is incredibly fun.  We had great photo opportunities with the electrostatic generator.

 This picture is only of Raina's bangs.  Wow.  That kid has a lot of hair.

Then we ventured out into the garden.  The girls were appropriately fascinated with the boats.

The Magic House addition is for more mature audiences, I think, as it has a significant emphasis on literacy, mystery decoding, and government.  We played around in the Oval Office, sang patriotic songs in the Congress (and drove out the other patrons from the room!), and played in the court.  Raina and Lola took turns being the judge and the adults were happy to sit quietly in the jury box.

We concluded our venture in the construction zone.  The girls gleefully shoveled and dumped rocks.

Lola discovered a broom and dustpan set, which occupied her for a goodly amount of time.  She really loves to sweep.  She kept trying to put the set away in its proper home but the brooms alternated in falling over and hitting her in the head.  She eventually gave up and carried the broom over into the white shower space and ditched it there.

Everyone was so worn out from the Magic House that sleep overtook us all in the afternoon.  Only Eric resisted its siren song.  We took family photos, ate lots of tasty food, and played Apples to Apples.  All in all, a lovely three-days weekend!