Mother's Day and The Zoo!

Genevieve had a spring trip to visit YaYa last weekend.  She spent one night with my mom and dad.  

She reunited with our beloved Kashmir.  I don't think our old kitty likes my child any more than she did when she lived with us.  Kashmir just had another birthday.  She's 17 now.  I expect 3 a.m. phone calls from my mother about how she has slipped out of the house to go drinking with her fellow teenaged kitties.  

G had her first overnight adventure with Caroline, Chip, and Katie.  Sadly, my computer won't download those pictures.  I'll try to update that later.  We all joined together at the Country Club for Mother's Day brunch. 

Genevieve spent most of the time loving on Chip's mother, Gari.  Genevieve also calls her Nana, even though she is not her Nana.  We had an embarrassing moment when Genevieve touched Nana inappropriately and told her she liked her "meatballs."  I have no earthly idea where my child heard this word to refer to a female's chest, but it has become part of her vocabulary.  Now normally this isn't much of an issue since her Momma does not really have meatballs worthy of discussion.

Nana's meatballs were a different story.    

As usual, Gari handled herself with grace.  Genevieve and I had a talk about not groping others.  

This is yet another aspect of motherhood that I did not anticipate!  

Mother was happy to have her 3 children home to love.  

Katie continues to morph into my mother and Robby and I continue our reign as Irish twins.  

On Friday I took my 24 babies to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Grab the Klonopin.  

Tending to other people's bundles of joy in a highly crowded public place gives me a bit of anxiety.  My kids were excited, but they listened and hung close!  

I was totally relaxed.

Plus I had this secret weapon-

The silver haired retiree.

Since we are both roughly the size of baby giraffes, the children could spot us easily.  

Mother was very helpful.

Except for when she left my precious Hannah in the bathroom.  It was fine!  My mother will kill me for oversharing.  Hannah was lost for exactly 22 seconds.  It was enough to send my mother into panic and for Hannah to start wailing. 

I just followed her cries to the correct stall.

All was fine.

Here's a photo of most of my babies.  We have 9 more days and I'm going to miss them terribly!   

Spring Fun

The last few weeks have not been that busy.  I just can't seem to sit down to write anything on here, so I'll give a quick recap of our latest activities.  

Lady G had her dance photos taken recently.  

We are in the final countdown of her first year of dance.  I'm not sure that there will be a year 2.  

It's a lot to pay for a child who typically spends at least 5 minutes of class eating a granola bar. This occurs after I finally break down  from about 6 runs over to me whining for a snack.   

She was very excited about her time in front of the camera.  

We spent some time swinging at the park one day.  

We have eaten quite a few dinners al fresco.  

The whole gang came together to celebrate the fact that Dad is old.  We had a fabulous brunch at Trader's Point Creamery and my child refused to cooperate.

Shocking.  

Dad sat with his two grand girls.  

We went for a little nature stroll and G loved on YaYa.    

G had a heavenly afternoon with Charlotte, Liam, and Georgia.  

She just settled right in and pretended that she was the 4th child of the family.  She always does that with them. 

I took a personal day on Friday for an appointment and some Betsy time.  Of course that involved yoga and cake.  I figure they sort of balance each other out.  

Start your engines!  

It's May in Indy, which is the best month of the year.  I loved the checkered flag on my black and white cake.  The entire piece was consumed while sitting in my car like some sort of hermit outside of The Cake Bake Shop. 

Trinity and I played miniature golf at the new course exhibit at the IMA.  

My favorite hold was #2 featuring Li'l Bub, a rainbow, and a somewhat questionably shaped putting green (purple).   

I had not played mini golf in decades and it showed.  I was terrible.

Trinity was not much better.  

It was a beautiful day and quite a quirky adventure.  

Family Travel

Saturday was a very busy day.  We spent Friday night with Patsy and Eddie in Kentucky.  On Saturday morning we drove to Burns, Tennessee to celebrate Nevelin's 90th birthday.  Nevelin was married to Trinity's Grandmother's brother.  Does that make sense?  

I do love any type of family event in Tennessee.  Everyone is super friendly and all of the tea is sweet.  

Genevieve cozied up to the birthday girl.  

Nevelin loves strawberries.  She had the best strawberry buttercream cake.  I ate 3 pieces.  

The party was at a fabulously cool venue called Old Stone Mill.  It was rustic and fun.  They served all kinds of bottled sodas that I had never tried.  Sun Drop, Ski, and Ne Hi grape and orange sugary beverages were a flowin'.

They also had a guitarist singing Elvis songs.  

That face of mine confirms my love of Elvis and orange Ne Hi. 

I look like I'm in a Mentos commercial, only this one would be for Ne Hi orange soda pop. 

We ventured outside.  The weather was stunning.

75 degrees and sunny!  

The food was set up under a Covered Wagon.  This was just another time I could chuckle over my 3rd Grade Oregon Trail escapades.

I managed to avoid losing two oxen in the river and instead got a lot of biscuits!

Here's our silly crew.  

They had peacocks!  

Genevieve was mesmerized and so was I.

I forced my peeps into the 12 South area of Nashville.  T and I have some great memories from Nashville.  He proposed to me in The Music City. I just adore that city.  Patsy and I spent some time in Draper James.  Reese was not there, but the darling salesgirl offered us sweet tea as soon as we walked in.  I found a dress on sale.  It was a fabulous shopping experience.  

Patsy took her first non blurry picture ever!

This happiness was followed up with more happiness.

Sprinkles Cupcakes is next door.  Y'all know I will plan a vacation to places based on Sprinkles locations.  They are hands down the best cupcakes ever.

Genevieve was completely over it by the time Pat took the picture above.  Trinity was wrangling her and she was screaming "Mama" from across the street.  My ever patient husband yelled across the street, "Betsy, get over here!  Get across this street now!!!!"  Our glamour shoot abruptly ended so I could get back to mother duty.  

On the way home Genevieve drew this picture of me.

I look like Donald Trump.  I have such angry brows.  I love it.  

I forgot to blog a few pics from when Genevieve stayed with Pat and Eddie over Spring Break.  

She visited Miss Kay and Mr. Dave's farm.  

She loves the South and so do I!  

Spring Break in Wisconsin!!!!

Spring Break in Wisconsin?

Say what?

Don't you know?  That's where all of the cool people go!

The 3 Hunt women traveled to the cheese state wearing our Nanook of the North attire.  4th Lady Hunt (Meg) could not attend due to work obligations.  Boo hiss.

Since my work involves long vacations, Mother does not work, and Katie can sometimes run her cheeseburger empire remotely, we were all able to travel.    I convinced them to go to The American Club with me, where T took me last year on Spring Break.

See the canopy?

When your packing list includes down vests and double layered yoga tops, you know you aren't going to get tan.

We stopped at Oak Brook to shop on the way up and ate at Seasons 52.  Mother and Sister are now gluten free eaters, which is a real pain in the a** to me.

Probably not as inconvenient for me as it is for them.

Mother has Celiac disease and Katie is gluten intolerant.  I had a blood test and my results encouraged me to continue to rage on wheat products.  

Don't mind if I do!

I had a salad so I fit in with the crowd but then was able to eat the bread basket without competition.  

We arrived in Kohler and checked in to our two adjoining rooms.

I was already the butt of many jokes from those pampered ladies before we even got to the room.  I'm accustomed to traveling with my husband, who is far more frugal than I.  He has trained me well, as I layered bag upon bag on my back like a sherpa so we didn't have to tip a bellman. 

My dear mother nearly lost it.

"Good Lord, Betsy, I'm 66 years old.  I'm not schlepping my own damn bag!"  Cue the bellman.  

Everything there is made by the Kohler company.  Except the beds.

They don't make beds. 

Neither do I!  

Now that was a good one.

I really don't make my bed, like ever.  

Here's a giant tub.

In case you want to be all judgy, I always use hotel bathtubs.  It hasn't killed me yet and I have no communicable diseases.

That I know of. 

After a heavenly night of sleep, I took the shuttle over to Yoga on the Lake for an 8:00 yoga class.

They met me for breakfast after.  

Katie again chided me for wearing my tank top at breakfast.

I assured her that I was hot after DOING YOGA.

Plus, I like my arms. 

We flushed toilets at the design center again.

I did dumb stuff just like I did last year.  I think I'm even wearing the same outfit.  That towel was glued to the vanity!  Glued!  Because if I'm going to steal something it's going to be a washcloth and not a $3000 farmhouse sink with a $1200 matte brass faucet.  

Next up we took to the waters of Kohler.

Katie was getting her scalp treatment (she had lice) while we ate yet another salad.

I'm kidding!

I did not eat salad.

No, I did.  I'm kidding about Katie and lice.  She got her head rubbed down with lots of Moroccanoil.

We did a lot of hot tubbing, magazine reading and other such nonsense.  Mother had a facial and all 3 of us had a hydrotherapy treatment.  Hydrotherapy is a nice way of saying, "We are going to charge you $110 + gratuity to take a bath."

Rub a dub dub

3 Giantesses in a tub  

We were actually in different tubs in different rooms.

Otherwise that would have been weird.

Katie wouldn't allow me to take off my swimsuit and get in the hot tub in the ladies lounge.  I really thought it would be funny to make other people uncomfortable.  

Mostly my older sister.