visit from cousins

Caleb and Marci and their boys came to Iowa to visit my parents and to see Kelbie graduate from high school. It was great to spend some time with them. Plus it gave us an excuse to put off a lot of the unpleasantness of moving in. :)

Tatum and Wyatt were great buddies. I'm not sure how much Wyatt enjoyed it but Tatum pretty much worshiped him and wanted to be anywhere he was.

We headed to uptown Mt. Vernon one day to visit The Silver Spider and to see Crystal and Rich at work.

Davis Park is even better when you have older cousins to push the merry-go-round for you.

They got to come see our house one morning. Unfortunately that's about all we could offer, a brief, unexciting tour. With no furniture and very little unpacked we weren't really in a position to host. After their tour we headed to lunch. They gave us a big table in the back corner of the restaurant and no one was eating anywhere near us which was perfect with this crazy bunch.

We all headed to Nauvoo one day. It was really nice to go and do some of the little tours and sight seeing that we don't normally do. I feel like I've done it all a billion times but of course my kids haven't. It was fun to start letting them experience Nauvoo. Even better with cousins.

 These two were all tuckered out from...oh wait we hadn't done anything yet.

 Lined up youngest to oldest without even being told. Kind of funny how that just naturally happens.

If you want a laugh, expand this next picture and take a closer look at Declan. What a dweeb.

A carriage ride was one of the first things we did. Declan was excited about it. :)

Oh these two. I just loved how much Tatum loved him and how kind he was to her.

We checked out the school. This was a first for me. The kids loved writing on the little chalkboards.

Haha, there are so many pictures of Tatum and Wyatt. Everywhere I turned Tatum was right up next to him and it just made me smile.

All of the grandkids love Grandma. But she seems to have an especially devoted following with the 2 to 5 crowd. :)

Getting a taste for the pioneer life. Gavin was a great brother and cousin and pulled the little ones around in the handcart several times.

The family fun center is the best. Yummy bread, rope making, what's not to love? Oh and riding fake sheep of course. :)

We played frisbee golf at Cornell. Declan considered it his job to pester Finn as much as Tatum bugged Wyatt haha. It started to sprinkle a bit during our frisbee playing so Finn held their giant frisbee above his head. Declan decided to join him under there and "tickle" him. His tickling is really not gentle but again, Finn was a great sport.

We couldn't play frisbee around Ink's pond without checking out the water, fish and geese.

Games with grandma are a must. It was pretty hilarious to watch her try to play an Uno-type card game with this bunch. So many short attention spans and limited understanding of the game. But they sure loved to play anything with Grandma.

I love having people come visit! It totally makes life more exciting for awhile. Who's next? :)