On Friday, my parents, Andy, most of the kids, and I went to Cool Creek to go for a creek walk. Joey wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home to rest. We left Michael and Rachel home with him and the two little ones.

Cool Creek is a beautiful place with lots of little trails, and it's all shaded by trees. It's such a nice place to walk...

especially when you walk down the middle of the creek.

The Gallo kids and my parents had explored this area before and found this little "boat."

                       

This little guy was in his element playing in the creek. He really loved picking up rocks and throwing them.

At one point he held up a rock that he found and Andy told him to "chuck it." Luke turned to my Dad (whose name is Chuck), yelled "Chuck," and showed him the rock. So this is them both "chucking" rocks.

There was this great nature center at Cool Creek with lots of really neat information that we visited after our walk. Ellie did this tic-tac-toe trivia game and won these little bees for all the kids.

When we got back, Joey was feeling much better. He taught Ben this card came called "Magic: the Gathering."

Rachel had fun doing Ellie's hair, which thrilled Ellie.

That night Rachel found my mom and Joey getting James ready for bed. So sweet.

Friday night was also the night of Andy's first Phish concert. He had lawn tickets for each concert, so he got there early to get a good seat. He always grabbed a sub sandwich at Jimmy Johns for dinner on the way and packed a book and a towel to sit on. The amphitheater held 25,000. He had a blast!

For sleeping arrangements, the girl cousins all slept at Nana and Bubba's house. Andy and I slept on one side of the basement at the Gallos, and Joey and Ben slept on the other side. The boys basically took over the Gallo house every morning. Michael got a great shot of them all. 

 

On Thursday we went to the Carmel water park. We've gone before, but this time Rachel rented a cabana so we could stay all day. 

We brought plenty of baby gear to keep James as happy as possible.

It was nice having a place to hang out, eat, and take a break from the rides once in a while.

There was also some napping going on.

And some goofiness.

In January 2020, Andy was looking at the Phish touring schedule for the year and saw that they were going to have three concerts in Noblesville, IN about ten miles away from where my sister and her family live. The dates were in August so we decided to plan a summer trip to Carmel. Then, Covid. We ended up still going out to Carmel last summer, but the concert got rescheduled to August 2021. 

 

So we flew to Carmel again at the beginning on August. It was a little like deja vu. This trip was extra fun because in the past year my parents bought the house next door to Rachel and her family as a vacation home. So my parents were there for the week as well, and we even got a day with Benjamin and Christina!

Our first day in Carmel the Gallos and Lanzones went bowling. 

Rachel had us sign up for this program called "Kids Bowl Free" so all of the kids got to bowl two games for free.

I love Ellie's pose here! If you look carefully, you can see that Andy is just about to pick up a spare.

 

 

Back at the Gallos there was lots of nice down time to relax.

That night for dinner we had a big taco night at my parents' new house. My dad made this table to seat us all. It turned out so well! 

We also celebrated Ben's and my birthday. It was our third summer getting to celebrate together!

We opened presents, and I loved this present that my mom got Ben. Ben clearly got a kick out of it too.

 

I turned 41 this year. Not too old for doughnuts!

My birthday was on a Sunday, so we went to church in the morning, church in the evening, and then Andy's parents had us and our friends the Meisters (along with Amanda's parents who were in town) over for dinner. We've been doing Sunday dinners with the Meisters for several months now, so it was fun to have a special birthday edition of Sunday dinner. Amanda's daughter, Abigail, turned 14 the day before, so we had a joint celebration!

14 and 41!

The week before my birthday, as a birthday gift to myself, I bought tickets for the girls and I to see Beauty and the Beast at Moonlight. I invited my mom and Andy's mom along for a fun girls night. It was SO good! Their musicals are definitely worth the splurge every summer!

The day after my birthday, Andy's parents treated us to dinner out at my favorite restaurant, Casa de Bandini. We even got to eat on their gorgeous patio. The next morning, we flew to Indiana to see my sister and her family and my parents so I had another birthday party with my birthday buddy Ben there...

Our pastor and his wife went out of town for a a few days together. They asked us to watch their oldest son, Carl, for one night and then take him to soccer camp the next morning. His grandma, who lives with them, would watch him and his three siblings the rest of the week. We had so much fun with Carl that I asked if we could have him the rest of the time his parents were out of town. Thankfully for us, they said yes! He had soccer camp every day, but the kids still had plenty of time for some fun...

The played Camper, their new favorite game and Carl and his sister Kirra taught us a few months ago.

They showed Carl Huckleberry.

The girls were thrilled that Joey finally had someone else to wrestle with since they don't love when he attacks them and throws them on the couch.

Carl seemed fine with it! 

The Meisters came over one evening and all the kids did some night swimming. 

One night at dinner, Carl said, "You guys are making me feel so special, it feels like it's my birthday!" At that point I was felt like saying, "You say sweet things like that, and you can stay here for a month!"

We had such a fun time with Carl that I told his parents we'd love to have him again sometime. The good news is that it's their 25th wedding anniversary in September so we'll get Carl and his older sister Kirra for a few days. When I told Carl that he could come again, he gave me a big hug. He's the sweetest! 

Saturday was a very special day in the Lanzone house. Andy has been making a video game, Huckleberry Fields Forever, since February 2010. Eleven and a half years later, it's finally done! Saturday was the big reveal for the kids. They have played parts of it before, but this was the time they played the game from the beginning. They loved it!

The girls played together on the big TV, 

and Joey played in the study.

They could have all played together, but we knew Joey would fly through the game much faster than the girls.

There were a lot of fun "Easter eggs" that Andy added to the game, like pictures of Dave and Mike Logan (his best friends from childhood) in the clothing store.

It's crazy to think that Andy has been working on this game for over a decade. Now he is finishing up some details, adding some things here and there, and meeting with a lawyer to get everything ready to have it available on Steam.