Hatch Family: Evansville, Indiana

Not sure if I was burnt out from taking so many pictures in Kentucky, but at our next trip this summer, I barely took any pictures! We must have been having too much fun. A little over a week from getting back from Kentucky, we loaded up the kids and the accord and headed off to Evansville, Indiana where Jordan's sister, Cara, lives.

The kids had a great ride down and both of them slept for a couple of hours each. Which never happens. We stopped at a little Mexican place on the way down that was very delicious and arrived at Cara's around 6pm. It was a cousin extravaganza! Lily kept saying 'I want to go play with lots of cousins!'. All of Jordan's family was there, all 4 sisters and their kids plus his parents.

We had delicious pizza, played with all the kiddos and then chatted with family until wee hours of the morning. The next day, everyone loaded up to go boating on the Ohio River in a pontoon boat. It was hot hot hot. Like, heat advisory warning hot. Like you can't breathe hot. We loaded up the kids, sunscreened them up and waited on the dock for our trip on the pontoon.

Here is little miss Lily waiting patiently on the dock to go ride the boat!

Just as we were about to board, we put Rob in his lifejacket and he lost it. He had been out in the heat for over an hour at that point and he wasn't going to make it. We tried getting on the boat but he was screaming.... so we waited on the dock for Lily and Jordan to come back. But they never came back, ha. I got a phone call 20 minutes later saying he and Lily were going to stay so off Rob and I went to check into our hotel.

Lily and Jordan had a blast at the river. They played in the sand and the water with all of her cousins. Rob and I made it safely to our hotel, thanks to our GPS. That night we had taco night and all the kids ran around playing, giggling and playing some more. When we had to go back to the hotel, Lily would ask 'When are we going to Cara's? I want lots of cousins!'. It was adorable and what a wonderful chance to get to bond with so many of her cousins that we don't see very often.

The next day we had family pictures at a local fair grounds. Although, it was mad hot outside. I think everyone did remarkably well for being so hot. I'll have to post the pictures once I get them. We then ate at a delicious habachi grill and then enjoyed ice cream at Dairy Queen. Later that day we enjoyed hamburgers and root beer floats by the pool. Cara's pool is amazing. I have never seen one quite like it - colored lights that change colors, sprinklers all over the place. Lily loved it. In fact, we all loved it and didn't want to get out.

The next morning before we left for home, we stopped at a place called CMOE, Children's Muesum of Evansville. It's kind of like COSI minus the super sciency stuff. I love places like that, and I wish Columbus had a Children's Museum.

Here we are at the cordless harp that played beautiful music

Lily and I are playing banker and patron. There was a little wooden car you could sit in and then push the cash drawer back and forth. Lily couldn't get enough. And, really, at every little activity place we would have to pull her away, trying to convince her that there were more things to see.

There was an adorable mini theatre where the kids could dress up and put on a play for anyone to watch. It was hilarious to watch the kids all silly up on stage. Lily had fun trying on outfits and dancing about.

Below she is a pig-tailed witch

CMOE!

The night before we had left, I received a text from my good neighbor saying that a storm had come through but that our home and property was fine. The next day I started getting texts from our friends who were out of power. My neighbor let me know we had power so I let my friends know they could stay at our house for as along as they needed.

We came home to this in our neighbor's backyard