I had these great friends, John & Allie, when I was an undergrad that were basically my older siblings in the geology department. I even inherited their office as a grad student when they moved to Norway. Matt and I went to go visit them in Norway twice and I always hoped they would move back to Texas. Of course as soon as I moved to Alaska, they did! Sigh...
We visited them last time I was in Houston and Allie threatened me with some sort of harm if I came back to Houston and didn't stay with them. So this trip, I took her up on that offer / threat.
John and Allie are both super techie - I have always wondered who would buy Amazon Echo or Dash buttons. John and Allie did! A 3D printer? Of course! A Hovertrax? Duh.
So imagine my surprise when I went to grind some coffee this morning and all they had was a hand grinder! What?!? It took me forever to grind enough coffee - you can see how bored Thomas is waiting for me to finish. Ha!
Thomas was more than happy to play with all of the forgotten gadgets from their kids though! The boys and I are sleeping in the play room and it was like a treasure trove of toys for the two of them. I think this morning he was obsessed with this "spy" listening set.
Also, I discovered this coffee cup in the cabinet and Ken's was one of my favorite restaurants from our Hawaii trip this year. Small world! Or great minds think alike...?
We had stayed out too late last night for the boys to get a bath and I had already psyched the boys up on the jacuzzi tub... So we did a bath after breakfast! Thomas is always super curious about jets in any jacuzzi tubs, but the jets are always so high that it isn't really possible to turn them on with the amount of water they boys bathe in. But this tub had tiny jets at the very bottom, so we could turn them on.
Thomas was super excited about them - at first.
Thomas decided a short jacuzzi session was all he really needed, but Henry really seemed to like them. So we pulled Thomas out of the tub first and turned them back on for Henry. He loved the jets and the bubbles. That's my boy! :)
The second bath they got, they were both demanding jacuzzi and bubbles. I didn't get any photos, but the bubbles got a little out of hand. I think they were over Henry's head at one point. Which was thankfully hilarious to him instead of freaking him out. Whew! Yay bubbles!
Allie became the true hero though, when she pulled out Jack's old hot wheels tracks. The boys were in heaven. And there were cars flying everywhere!
There was a lot of interest in the hot wheels from everyone - even their cat Onyx! She would swat at the cars as they flew down the track. Thomas was not too happy about this and kept telling "Kitty" he didn't want to play with her. Poor Onyx just wanted in on all the fun!
Also I'm pretty sure Mia was procrastinating on doing her homework by helping with the hot wheels. I can't really blame her - they were way more exciting than math problems!
Jack was ironically the only one not interested in his old cars. And I apparently confused both Jack & Mia when I was using the flash for the camera. Mia kept looking around for the source of the (super obvious) flash and then Jack was complaining it was too bright when he figured out what it was. This photo may or may not have been me trying to drive him crazy with it.
I can't wait until my boys are old enough to really drive crazy. :)
Of course, Allie was not content with the amazing amount of cool points she had already racked up in one day, so she decided the boys needed some trampoline time. They were soooooo excited to jump on it. Thomas started bouncing right away, but Henry was mostly focused on staying upright.
(And it's hard to see, but there was a net around the trampoline, Matt. Safety first!)
Henry managed a few bounces before he toppled over again.
I actually had to leave for my dinner plans pretty soon after they started bouncing, but I could see that they were well on their way to having a fun-filled evening. If our yard wasn't covered in snow half of the year, I would consider buying one of these!
The next morning, Thomas decided to sleep in a little since he had a stressful night of trying to hit or kick me every few minutes. (That's karma - I was apparently a pretty restless little kid when in my parent's bed). Henry was ready to face the day though, so we went downstairs and hung out with the big kids until they had to catch their school bus.
Also Henry is now obsessed with these "special yogurts". Allie may have bought the jumbo pack, but it is not going to last the few days we are here. Sorry Allie!
Nonni and Thomas finally joined us and we had a surprise for them! John had shown me the new Star Wars trailer before he left for work and it was awesome! The boys haven't seen any of the movies, but I bought the boys (ok, for myself...) a small Millennium Falcon and Tie Fighter to play with. When Thomas kept asking what they were, I showed them a few clips of the movies on YouTube.
He was super excited about the preview! Until the Tie Fighters started shooting at the Millennium Falcon... He was yelling "Stop! Leave the Millennium Falcon alone!" at the TV. It was pretty darn adorable. Nonni, who introduced her daughters to Star Wars, also loved it! :)
Back to the hot wheels! This was really the best arrangement we came up with yesterday. Allie was trying to remember all of the different track configurations and I was absolutely no help - I was more interested in playing with them than building them. After running interference on the Onyx / hot wheels situation, I thought I might try to make a few different tracks to give Thomas options if she decided to sprawl across one...
Success! I had to steal a dining room chair and move over to the rug so the tracks would stop slipping on the hardwood floor, but I got several different layouts accomplished. I was so proud of my handiness that I texted a photo to Allie. She responded by asking if John had done it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Allie...
Also in the background you can see *one* of the monster trucks she bought for the boys. I told you she was racking up major cool points with them!
John may not have been track building, but he did make us a super cool souvenir! Remember that 3D printer I mentioned earlier? He had this clever idea to make a vase using the silhouette of a face. He had done it twice before and said if I could take him a good profile picture of the boys, he would try to make me one for each. The one above is Thomas' face - a few people I showed it to didn't see it at first. The best way to describe it is that the outside edge of the vase is a face staring in. I would post the profile photo to make it easier but while it was a good profile, it was not a great photo...
Henry's face was a little bit impossible to make a vase from though. The first vases John made were for older kids and apparently babies have much deeper profile curves that the machine just couldn't make work. He tried about 6 different variations and they all kept collapsing in on themselves while printing. Oh well!
But I love the Thomas one! And watching the printer in action really made me want one. Unfortunately the only thing I could think of printing was cookie cutters and icing tips. Well and maybe a face vase once Henry gets a little older. (Unless John copyrights the process before then...!)
It was so much fun staying with our friends and super hard to leave Houston behind (again!). But as much fun as the boys had, I doubt there will be any disagreements when I plan the next trip back. And for the record, Allie, Thomas asked where we were going about 15 minutes after we left - and several times on the way home. Every time was met with "I want to go back to the house. Allie's house!" You certainly know how to make a great impression! :)
Thanks again for having us and we miss all of you already!