A Weekend of Cousins!

(The kids have all woken from naps and I do not have time to edit this -- so in an attempt to get it posted, I will just "let it be" -- sorry!) We went down to Altoona, IA for Memorial Day weekend. Here's a pile of all the cousins. I was pretty sketchy with my photo-taking. I didn't even get a single photo of our great day at the Des Moines Zoo. I was totally impressed with it -- full of kid-fun exhibits. Atticus, Dietrich, and Max even rode a camel! Over the 4 days, we spent so much time with their cousins Max and Ivy. We took the boys bikes and had some great walks along the Altoona bike path. I finished an interesting book on culture-making (Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch) and got farther into my on-going ancient history overview by Susan Wise Bauer. Nancy had pulled out Brad's childhood collection of He-Man figurines and the boys spent great swaths of the visit playing with all the crazy action figures. Brad had so much fun watching his boys dive into a play-world he adored as a kid. Grandma also pulled the giant case of Legos and a box of new books from the attic. I wish I had taken some shots of them immersed in these...We were able to see Great-Grandma Trellis a couple times and even a visit with Aunt Kay and cousin Ethan at the park. It was a good, real vacation where everyone was able to relax together and find some "space" to re-group. Thank you Tom and Nancy! (And thank you, Kara & Brian, for spending so much of your weekend with us!!)

  

Thea Belle, Lincoln & Ivy June!

 

A lot of backyard playing in the sun!

The kids loved playing a rowdy, slightly disorganized version of t-ball with Grandpa Tom, Uncle Brian and Brad!

 

These three really got along well...Lincoln wanted Ivy to know that Thea Belle was HIS baby, but he was his usual agreeable self and enjoyed both the girls.

Bath-time for the girls

 

 

Thea Belle & Aunt Kara

Grandma read piles of books, went garage sale-ing with me, cooked mountains of food, played Legos, and poured on the love for all the grandkids all weekend long (-:

I love this little serious face -- I feel that way about chocolate too.

Great Grandma Trellis with Thea Belle & Brad

I loved getting to know Ivy. I haven't been around her very much -- especially since she has moved out of the baby age. She was so gentle with Thea and a very affectionate little girl. I am looking forward to spending some more uninterrupted time with this little one during the Johannsen week at the Lake coming up in July. Sometimes I feel feel stunted in getting to know children other than my own. I want to know my nieces and nephews as much as I can considering I live far away from every one of them. I really think I need to be even more deliberate with the distance.