Aunt Melanie Comes to Town

For her Spring Break, Aunt Melanie decided to come and visit us again.  That would be two years in a row.  I hope everyone is taking notes.  That means she came back a second time to visit us.  We are a good time, people.  And more of you should come and visit.  Thanks Melanie, for being our biggest fan (aside from Grandparents....they are tough to beat).

So in the spirit of having the best time possible in order to entice Melanie to return for a third year, we set out to see some new sites.  After much contemplation, we selected the Challenger Space Center Museum.  It isn't too far from our house and the kids are into all things airplanes/spaceships so we thought they would like it.



 Maybe we have kind of a high standard, but not really a fave.  It wasn't for kids...at all.  But at least they each got to touch the above moon rock.
When we pulled in, the kid at the front desk informed us there was a kid's room downstairs.  We should have just made a beeline for that, but tried to give the rest of the museum its due diligence.  Boring.  And shockingly not that much about the Challenger Space Shuttle.  Dissapointing.

 But when we finally wised up and made it to the kid's area, we found all these blue building materials.

 They were a little too bulky for the kids and they weren't sure what to do with them.  Except for Brisbane, who sat in them so that the other kids couldn't roll balls along them.

 As a follow up to our awesome fort building from Melanie's last visit, she and I dug right in in hopes of making something equally as amazing.  We came up with this chair.

 That each child took a turn sitting in.

 And yes, the adult in the picture is necessary since our chair wasn't super secure.

 After another family left, we confiscated all of the larger blocks and made a house.  Which the kids loved.  But was also not structurally sound, and Brisbane was able to topple it easily and often.

 Melanie was also present for part of F week, and so she helped us pick out some flowers at Home Depot and plant them.

The kids did a great job.  They probably wish their mother would do as great of a job at keeping the flowers alive as they did of planting them.  I am not good at keeping things alive.  Except my children, of course.
And that is where the pictures of Melanie's visit end.  Oh yes, she was here four more days.  But she fell horribly and miserably sick.  She and I spent a lot of time playing Nertz and ignoring the kids.  It was sad because she couldn't even read to them because her throat hurt so badly. 
We finally decided that she needed to go to Urgent Care so that she could go back to work when she got home.  After several hours in a waiting room, a pretty incompetant PA, and another wait at CVS (which was accompanied by snacks) she was ready to fly home.  As we were driving home that night Melanie declared the whole experience "Blog Worthy".  And she was right.  I mean, come on.  As we were waiting at the Urgent Care a lady brought in three children in nothing but diapers and said that the television had fallen on top of all three of them.  One of the kids was screaming his head off.  What they were doing at Urgent Care and not the ER is still beyond either of our comprehension.  Poor tykes.
Sadly Melanie's horror did not end there because she woke up the next morning with pink eye.  My kids had been taking turns getting it and as much as we tried to squelch it, Melanie fell victim as well.  As any loyal and loving sister would, I gave her one of our bottles of antibacterial eyedrops and sent her on her way home.  To my horror, I found out that she was allergic to the eye drops I gave her and had a majorly horrible reaction.  How was I to know!?  My whole family had used them without a problem.  I felt awful.
Melanie assures me that she will come back again.  This experience of being deathly ill at my house and then my ineptitude with medication dispensal has not spoiled her amazing memories from her first visit.  Hear that people?  Even being sick at my house is more fun than other places.  If you don't whine too much, I will go buy you a Spicy Chicken Sandwich.