Finishing the Visit with Grandpa

My favorite people.  John and Char have a reclining couch and cable, which you won't find at our house, so we partook of the couch and Fixer Upper.

Farewell pics with Grandpa...

And the doggies...

and also a last photo of playtime with Grandpa.  Thanks for hosting us, John and Char!

The Turtle

While Jeff and his dad and a friend were fishing, they found a little turtle, and Jeff brought it back to the kids.  They agreed to call him Timothy.  The kids were totally enamored with the turtle, as you can see from their faces.  So much fun!  We returned the turtle to its new home (the nearby pond at the park with lots of turtle friends.)  Enjoy their expressions here!

More Kite Fun, and the Park

The day after Easter, in between the rain showers, the kids wanted to do some more kite flying.  The kids in the area were back in school, so we were trying to be careful of cars and school buses in the neighborhood.  You can see that it rained off and on during our visit, which our drought babies enjoyed!  This was when the rain was "off."

John needed some house repairs while we were there.  Jeff was able to help with little things.  I can't remember what was needed at this point - whether something was stuck on the roof or a shingle was out of place or what - but Jonathan was up there helping without fear.  I can't believe he's old enough for that, but I'm so happy he didn't get my fear of heights (even though he claims it sometimes.)

On one day of our visit, Jeff went fishing with his dad and I took the kids to a park.  Not everyone is used to having kids around all the time, and we recognize that!  (Hailey and Brianna and their parents were on the drive home by this point.)  We went to this park that doesn't seem to get a lot of use, both because kids were in school and this town has a rather aged population.  Here are some pictures, out of order, of course!

This is what humidity does to my beautiful girl's hair.  Waves!  We have to travel out of our home state to experience it.

This park had a playground...and a pond!  With lots of turtles! And ducks!  And more turtles!  The kids loved it.

More humidity.

They loved the pond, and it was good for everyone to have a little space for a few hours.

Easter

We celebrated Easter with Jeff's side of the family at John and Char's.  Blogger has rearranged our pictures, but here you go...

We decided to take family pictures since we had the crew together, something that doesn't happen very often!

Here is John with Jamie and Michelle and the girls.

And here is our family.

Char had put together Easter baskets full of goodies for the kids, and I think the kites were the biggest hit.  Our visit included intermittent rain and thunderstorms, and on Easter, we had enough of a break in the rain for the kids to enjoy their kites.  

Like I said, Blogger rearranges pictures.  I had to get some pictures with just our kids.

This might be my favorite kite picture.

Even though I try hard to keep the focus of Easter on its true meaning, and try not to let it become Christmas Gift Opportunity Part 2, I did bring a couple of things for Hailey and Brianna:  a book and a Lego Classic set for each of them.  And, guess what - Michelle gave similar gifts to our kids - including the same Lego sets for the boys.  Great minds think alike, even if we don't check with each other!

We had an Easter egg hunt in the yard, thanks to Char having eggs and baskets ready, and Jonathan did the hiding with me as his trusty assistant.  He had a lot of fun hiding!

The younger kids had a lot of fun hunting.

Like I said, Jonathan had a lot of fun hiding the eggs.

Here we are back at the beginning of Easter morning.  We gave each of our kids a different Max Lucado book for Easter.

You never get too old for a picture book with a personal message.

You never get took old to play with Legos, either!

That's Jonathan on top of Jeff.  The kids slept here in the living room, right off the kitchen.  They did a really good job tuning out the light and the noise.

This was one of the tricks I had up my sleeve on the plane ride.  A new pack of Sharpies and some detailed bookmarks to color were the favorite activity on the plane...and at their grandpa's house, too. Sometimes it's hard for kids to occupy themselves at a house that doesn't have kids or kid stuff, and this activity helped all three kids.

We were really happy that Jamie, Michelle, Hailey, and Brianna made the trip out to join us for the birthday celebration and Easter.  We were especially happy that our kids could have some time with their only cousins on Jeff's side.  Here they are at Easter lunch (which I suppose is actually called Easter dinner.)  Char cooked a ton of delicious food.  Speaking of a ton, I'm noticing that my kids' portion sizes are significantly bigger than their cousins'.  And I'm laughing.  We do like to eat, I can't deny it!

We are thankful to have this reason to celebrate on Easter and every day.