a W.E.kend weekend

Thursday morning we loaded up and headed to Dallas for a little family reunion called the W.E.kend!! Last summer we made plans to get together with my mom's side of the family in Dallas for a short but sweet weekend. We NEVER EVER get to see my mom's side of the family. In fact, I hadn't seen my mom's parents since my youngest sister got married almost three years ago and it had been even longer since I had seen my cousins! That is WAAAAAY too long! The reason it was called "W.E.kend" is because the other half of my mom's families last name is "Edwards" and our last name is "Wiles" and so we combined our initials with the word weekend to title our reunion "The W.E.kend"! Clever huh!? Anyway, we were excited for a mini-vacation and most excited to visit family!! Dallas here we come!!

When we first checked into our hotel, Grandmpa Mike surprised the boys by giving them a gift he bought for them on his latest trip to the Amazon in Peru!! Ashtyn has always been facinated by the fact that Grandpa Mike has "been to the place where piranha's live" and every time we would go to the zoo Ash would beg to go to the aquarium and look at the tank of piranhas! He refers to them as "the fish Grandpa Mike has been to"!! I'm pretty sure both my boys' think of Grandpa Mike as some sort of Indiana Jones character who travels the world with his wide brimmed hat and wrestles alligators or something! Ha! After my dad gave these dried out, sharp toothed fish to Ash and Maddox I overheard the boys having a conversation wherein they both were in total shock that Grandpa Mike would go into the river and catch these fish!!!!! They totally and completely believe that Grandpa Mike risked his life and caught these piranha with his bare hands just for them!!!!! We won't burst their bubble...

After checking into our hotel room and dropping off all of our luggage, we made our way to my cousin Josh's house! Since we've last seen him he's gotten married to his wife, Jenna, and we had never met her...only seen pictures! Josh and Jenna live in a beautiful home near Dallas and they have one dog named Atticus!! When Atticus first came running out the front door to greet us I was immidiately nervous because Ashtyn is so fearful of dogs that he rarely even stays in the same room as a dog but after meeting Atticus and after Jenna proved to Ash that this doggy was very obedient and calm Ashtyn did VERY well!! He petted Atticus, played with him and wasn't even startled when Atticus would run toward him!! It was so exciting to see Ash do so well!! We spent our first afternoon in Texas settling in and reuniting with long lost family!! It was fun!!

 This is my mom's mom...Grandma Carroll! We hadn't seen her since Maddox was 1 1/2 years old!

The boys weren't sure what to think of Uncle Ken at first! Ha! This is my mom's brother-in-law! He's HILARIOUS and loves to joke around!

Grandma & Grandpa Carroll

Elia DID NOT want me to take her picture! I kept begging her to smile but she was being "shy" even though I know there's no such word as shy in Elia's vocabulary! Ha! I finally got a little smile out of her...

Mommy and daughter! Oh! And Rae is "smiling for TWO"!!!! That's right!! She's expecting!! She's due February 12th!! I'm going to be an Auntie again!!

This is my cousin Tiffany. Her son Nate is just a few months older then Maddox but I had NEVER met him! It was so good to catch up and meet all the new family members! We really cannot let this much time pass before we all get together again...Oh! And Tiffany is expecting her second child too! She is due in November! The family is growing!!

Ashtyn settled in by playing with toys on the living room floor with Aunt Teresa (my mom's sister). Ash loves to play and almost no one makes a better playtime companion then Aunt Teresa!!

Then Uncle Ken read everyone a story! The book he is reading, "Little Flower", is extra special because about ten years ago my mom and her sister wrote and illustrated this children's book together!! They have never had it published but as a surprise Uncle Ken had several printed up complete with hard back cover and everything and passed out one copy to each family! What a special gift!!

The first day in Dallas went way too fast and we all knew the weekend would go by just as fast! At the end of the night we all headed back to our hotel rooms to get some good rest so that we could enjoy a busy day on Friday!!