River, friends, fires and beds, that pretty much covers it!

As most of you know, our very good friends Henny and Nathan came to visit our lovely town a couple weekends ago. We were so blessed to have them stay at our house! What a fun and happy and wonderful couple! We hardly took any pics while they were here because we were too busy enjoying them. The first night we went to the pool and swam together. This was great! The kids love when Auntie takes them swimming! I think if she wasn't there, I would have lost Annabelle numerous times and she really could have drown, what a girl! Only Hen can keep up with that girl in the water. Scary stuff. Nathan bonded very well with Joel, how cute! They played in Joel's room for long periods of time and Joel was happier than I have seen him in a long while. Nathan plays with kids toys well! ha ha

Here is a little of the fun they had. They really thought that they could beat him up. Thank God they didn't hit, just hung on him and when he sat down finally for a rest they all cheered and said that they had beat him up. So cute!
Nathan and Joshua played a couple games of Battleship. He won over Joshua's heart easy!

A little puzzle time, he got this one for Annabelle to do but she gave up so he finished it.

Annabelle and Henny near our freshly built fire.
Just eating and hanging around.

Joel decided it was time to roll in the mud, we just laughed our butts off about it!
This night probably couldn't have been any better, well I guess it would have been nice to see a couple fish but you can't expect perfection every time!
It was so hard to see Hen and Nathan leave. We miss Henny so much!

Last Sunday after church the kids, mom and a friend went back to the river for a picnic. It was pretty cold but some nice guys left their fire for us so at least we had something to help keep us warm.

Joshua's fave thing is picnics in the summer, he doesn't look too happy but he sure was!
There is a happy face!

The kids climbed the rocks at the edge of the river and they had a blast! Mom's friend got some gorgeous pics of them next to the rocks. Loved this outing.

My Ma packed hot chocolate and the kids were so happy about that! It was a great idea.
My mom's friend photographing whatever was beautiful, she takes wonderful pics.
Just hanging out.
And today, St. Pattie's day, we did much! Adam started the day off with sleeping in, he needed it! Then we had coffee and spent some time with the kids, had lunch and Adam started on this little project, replacing the dead bolt in the front door. It has been not functional since we moved in so the other day we bought a new one. Adam was starting night shift for a week tonight and I was so glad he finished this today! Here is Annabelle peeking through. It was a little bit of a complicated situation but Adam got it done with much patience! Yay!
And then we moved on to this. Together we built this baby with NO INSTRUCTIONS!!! We were pretty proud of ourselves! We have been needing to get a new bunk set for a long while and as Star was moving, this is one of the things she was selling for a very good price. We snatched it up as quick as we could! It is perfect for the boys. I will take a pic of the finished project some other time but, you get the idea. Very productive day!

Then we went on to doing St. Pattie's crafts and watching the Sumo of the Opera, veggie tales movie which has the story of St. Patrick and the kids love it. We have supper and then the kids and I sat down with a bowl of chips and watched Narnia. This was the first time I let all of them watch it and it is very much more scary than anything they have seen before but the know all the parallels in it to Christ and such. They LOVED it. And I tried to cover their eyes at certain parts but there was none of that going to happen. I will pray against nightmares. They didn't even seem fazed by it though so maybe they understood well enough for it not to scare them. Joshua had seen it before and he and I warned the other 2 of everything that would frighten them before it happened. Annabelle asked questions the whole way through, true girl! ha ha Have a great night all, I think it is time for bed.