Not Hawaii, but still pretty fun

This weekend was another one of those madness-filled weekends where at least once during the packing/planning/travel stages, Ben and I look at each other and sigh, "What are we thinking?!?" BUT it was also filled with lots of fun, adventure, friends, and merriment. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Except for maybe a vacation home in Hawaii. I'd probably trade it for that. 

It started off at Ben's newly-built high school for the home-opener football game. As in, the first-ever-played-football-game-at-the-new-forty-million-dollar-St.-Joseph's-High-School. It was a pretty big deal.

It was also decidedly NOT a good night for football watching. At least, not in Davidsonland, which includes one energetic three-year-old and one feisty five-year-old, neither of whom are interested in SITTING STILL on metal bleachers to watch a bunch of big people run back and forth on a field for three hours. And particularly not when the formula also includes steady rainfall and a weather forecast showing 80% chance of thunderstorms for most of the evening.

We stayed for the first quarter.

Here's what we missed:

Let's just say that new field worked out pretty well for our team.

After the game, we packed up and headed down to our friends' house about 90 minutes away to begin phase two of our weekend. We got there just in time to get everyone snuggled into sleeping bags for bed before turning in ourselves.

In the morning, I left Ben asleep in a houseful of five kids (60% of whom are carrying his DNA, and the other 40% having no idea they were going to wake up with both parents gone and some guy in charge of them) while Tiffany and I drove down to Indianapolis for the Color Me Rad 5K.

This was Tiffany's first race, it was one of those where they spray or throw color packets made of corn starch at you every so often.

(Open your eyes, Courtney!! Nobody's throwing anything at you anymore!)

It was fun.

Next, we headed back to Tiffany's house, dropped the dads off in Fort Wayne for some male bonding time, and took the kids to the Columbia City Art Fair, where they painted rocks, danced, ate some cookies, and rode a carriage.

Raccoon face

We spent the evening back at Shawn & Tiffany's, with Mexican food, wine, and trampoline jumping serving as the highlights of the evening. (Not at the same time. That would be a recipe for disaster.)

In the morning, we packed up our families and made our way to the Fort Wayne Zoo. Some pictures below, and you can see evidence of what Noah has decided is his "happy-pose".

 Lanston, the happiest baby on the planet

 Noah's happy pose #1

Noah's happy pose #2 (and a thumbs-up by Sophie)

Noah's happy pose #3

Enjoying the monkeys

The Friends in the log-boat, minus Ganon, who was an honorary Davidson for much of the weekend.

Tiff & Tanner in the bumper boat. You mean these aren't bumper boats? DID YOU HEAR THAT TIFFANY!??!

Me and Sophie on the log-boat, and Travis's arm behind us

 The family....plus our two surrogates, Tanner and Ganon

The kids, minus Tanner, and plus another one of those happy poses.

Finally, to round out the weekend, we headed over to another friends' house to watch the Colts get demolished by the Bears. Watching the Colts lose isn't exactly my favorite thing to do, but it was a nice time and we got to eat Tammy's famous chocolate chip cookies, so it wasn't a total loss.

Come to think of it, maybe I wouldn't even go for that vacation home in Hawaii.