After our Pittsburgh trip, my niece Ellie flew back to Austin with us. I don't know how I would have survived the flight home without her. King no longer qualifies as a lap child and has to have his own seat, so I can't even sit in a row with all my kids. I realized that this was the first time in 6 years that I had traveled without a lap child, not counting the one in my belly of course. Once our kids turn 2 and have their own seats we usually don't bring a car seat on the plane for them, because they are such a pain to lug around and I am usually traveling with the kids by myself. However, King is my little trouble maker and I knew he would try and escape the whole time, so we brought one and it was the best decision we have ever made. We will definitely be bringing one with us for him from here on out.
Anyway, the kids were in heaven with Ellie staying with us. She is such a great cousin and helper. She kind of rotated between staying with us and staying with my sister Sarah and the kids were always eager to have her back at our house. She stayed for 2 weeks, but after the first week John took off with EZ and Netta to attend his family reunion in California. The reunion was supposed to be at the end of the July, when I wouldn't be able to travel, so we only got tickets for those 3. Then they moved it to the beginning of the month, when technically I would have been able to travel, but it was just too expensive to buy more tickets at that point. It worked out well though with Ellie here to hang out with King and I. John left the camera with me, so we don't really have any picks of their trip, but it involved a lot of games and swimming and EZ and Netta loved it and keep asking with they are going to get to see their cousins again. While they were gone we decided to brave the heat and go to SeaWorld. We wanted to do something special with Ellie and I wanted to go when I had less children to deal with and plus King is still free. And of course I only managed to get pictures of Ellie while we were there. Here we are waiting to watch our first show. We sat in the splash zone and got way wetter then I was expecting. King was not a fan so for the rest of the day Sarah braved the splash zones with Ellie and King and I sat further back.
At one point we split up so Sarah could take Ellie on the roller coasters. King and I hung out in the little kiddie area. He did not seem to like it as much as Kennywood, but it didn't help that he was hungry and close to nap time.
He also was not fan of this mascot. I didn't capture the perfect moment, but he was really struggling in Ellie's arms to get away from that thing.
The one thing he did love was the aquariums. We had to literally tear him away from them.
Amazingly, we survived the heat without anyone getting sick. We tried to pick the coolest day, but that just meant the high was only 96! Ellie was here for the 4th of July and we were very delighted to discover that we could see the Pflugerville fireworks from the end of our street. We were very happy not to have to fight any crowds or the heat. It was a sad day when Ellie had to leave and we were so grateful to have her come and visit! Now I just need to plan more trips for older cousins to come and entertain my kids.
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