rockets and croquet

Knowing we already had a packed summer schedule between Maddox's summer school, church camp and library classes we kicked off our summer with a day trip to Ponca City to visit family. It's hard to get together these days with the boys' younger cousins because my boys are in school full time and are getting to an age where their schedules are pretty much busier than mine! So, even though it was only for the day, we wanted to make some time to visit family. First, we met Uncle Tyler, Auntie April and cousin Nat at McDonald's for lunch. The kids played in the play land and ate tons of food while us grown ups caught up...well, April and I caught up...Brandon and Tyler pretty much sat there! Ha! (It's the typical Knight boy way...) It may not look like it in these pictures but we really did have a great time...I just had a hard time getting a great picture!

After lunch, we drove to Noni's new house! This is the first time the boys and I have seen it and it is really cute! She has a big front yard, a big backyard (perfect for Noni!) and the most adorable little house. She had bought the boys a rocket to play with during their visit and in between rain showers we went outside so they could play. They also played croquet! Only at Noni's house can little boys play rockets AND croquet!

Since he was a toddler, Maddox has had a "thing" for newspapers. We don't really understand it and we definitely don't know where it comes from (we have never received a newspaper in all the years we've been married!) but he loves them none the less so every time we go to Noni's house Maddox collects all the newspapers he can find and reads them. He usually wants to take them home too!

We ended our day visit with dinner at our ALL TIME FAVORITE mexican restaurant, El Patio! Oh man, my mouth is watering as I type this looking at the delectable picture below. We have been eating El Patio for more years than I can count. It is a local favorite and we HAVE TO HAVE IT every single time we go back for a visit. It's non negotiable! There are pretty much two different dinners I order at El Patio and this trip I got the chicken fajita nachos with vegetables. DELICIOUS!!!! This is one of the few meals I actually crave and now thanks to this blog post I'm craving it...

I know we won't get to see our Ponca City family as much as we would like this summer but we know we're coming back the weekend of the 4th of July so we are already counting down the days!