A weekend away

We went up to Whangarei for the weekend to visit Rob's family.
Ethan had so much fun at Gran's house, she lives next to a farm and he loved visiting the cows and giving them cabbage leaves to eat. Gran took Ethan on a big tour around their property, looking at all the trees and plants. Ethan picked a mulberry from the tree and carried it around with him all weekend! He loved the apple & mulberry crumble we had for pudding, so I will try to make a pudding for him this week with the mulberries I picked before we left.
The first night was a bit rocky, as Tyler woke 3 or 4 times. But the second night he slept right through - thank goodness, because Rob and I are now very used to having unbroken sleep at night! Ethan was a perfect angel the whole time. We only did time-out once and the rest of the time he was sooo good.
On Sunday we had beautiful weather so we went out to the beach. Ethan went for a swim! Rob couldn't get past his waist because the water was so cold, but Ethan loved it. Pretty impressive, as it is only Spring and the water is not warm! Tyler enjoyed paddling, eating lots of sand and munching on sticks. It still seems funny to me that we go on holiday and then drive for 20 minutes to go to the beach when we live only 5 min walk from our own beach! But it is nice to go somewhere different :)
Both boys loved spending time with their grandparents and their aunties & uncles. Aunty Liv's best friend Stacey came for dinner on Saturday night, and Ethan had lots of fun hanging out with the two of them. Liv and Jo (my sisters-in-law) are both pregnant, so there was a lot of "baby talk". Liv changed Tyler's dirty nappy (she volunteered!!) but Uncle Paul flatly refused. He reckons he isn't going to change any nappies when his baby arrives.
The trip home was terrible. It took 3 1/2 hours instead of the usual 1 3/4 hours. Tyler was awake for the entire trip, and quite understandably he was not a happy camper. Ethan was as good as gold. He had a brief sleep, then tried his best to entertain his little brother during the stand-still traffic jams. I put a nappy on him for the trip "just in case" and when we got to McDonalds 3 hours later it was completely dry. I was so proud of him :)
All in all, it was a lovely weekend.