Uncle Foo Foo Visits

Foo foo. It's what Belén calls him and it's adorable.

Actually, we all call him that now...

It was such a treat to have Philip come up and visit us over Shae's birthday weekend. He had never been to Ithaca before, and even though the heart of the winter isn't the greatest time to show off Ithaca, we still tried our best. Thankfully, the Saturday he was here almost hit the 40s, so it wasn't too terribly miserable while getting out to explore. We took him to Taughannock Falls State Park which has a very nice kid friendly hike to a waterfall. The kids were so excited to be outside (it's just been sooo windy and frigid that I haven't wanted to spend more than 2 seconds outside as of late. Poor kids!) They loved walking through the snow and making and throwing snowballs throughout the entire hike.

Even in the winter, Ithaca is gorges.

 On Sunday (Shae's actual birthday) we kept things pretty low key. I tried to be extra loving with him since it was his day and played Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with him twice (which is saying something b/c it is easily my least favorite game to play with him, so convincing me to play it once is a feat in and of itself). 

We gave him our presents, which his sister seemed to be a bit more excited about than he was...

 He opened his awesome package from Aunt Amelia which he loved. He immediately put the calendar on his wall and asks us everyday when it will be the day he can flip it to the Hulk page (er, March).

I found this big box of Mega Blocks at the thrift store for $10 a few months back and it has been hiding in our closet every since. I was planning to give it to Belén for her birthday since it seemed more age appropriate, but we have other plans for her now, so we gave it to Shae and I'm so glad we did! He has really been in to building things with them and even snuck away while the TV was on (!!!) the other day to play with them.

Monday was FREEZING and windy and did I mention FREEZING? But we wanted to show Philip Cornell, and we might have been crazy, but we did. We went to the chimes concert and then tried to go to the Art Museum to see the cool laser display, but it was closed which Shae thought was just so rude of them to be closed, as did I.

 Chowing down on fruit snacks while waiting for the stairs of the Bell Tower to open.

On Monday night Philip got to see the beautiful religion building on campus (Anabel Taylor Hall) as he went to FHE and I went to a little Galentine's party with some ladies from our branch while waiting for him. Before Philip left on Tuesday morning, we ate heart shaped pancakes in honor of love day and then went to Ithaca Falls while waiting to pick up Shae from Joy School. We had such a fun time hanging out with him!

Loved these pictures that Philip got of this cute girl.