Memorial Day Weekend, part one

Warning!  This will probably be my longest post ever.  We had a wonderful, four-day Memorial Day weekend, each day full of picture-worthy moments, and I'm going to do it all in one post.  (Well, actually, I changed my mind!  There will be two parts.)  

But first I want to show you the beautiful planter that Lori and Anthony gave me for Mother's Day.  It cheers me up every time I come home.

On Thursday evening we had our last choir practice before our summer break, followed by our praise band practice.  To my delight, near the end of practice we got some visitors!  Sam and Jenn and the kids were on their way to our place and stopped in.  I'm almost too embarrassed to show this picture that Sam took, because I look so ridiculous, but Bianca was delighted to sit at the piano with me, so I'll humble myself, haha!

When we got home after practice the kids got right down to doing some of their favorite things.  Bianca never tires of pretending she's cooking, usually spaghetti.

And Sammy just loves the piano.  I could hardly believe how big he looks sitting there.  Wasn't it just yesterday I took that hilarious video of his bare chubby self sitting on that piano bench, haha??  

Sam and Jenn went out, so the rest of us had a treat too - ice cream sundaes, complete with big red cherries on top.

Sammy looked around my house and said, "I can't believe you still have your house decorated for Fall!"  I asked what Fall decorations he meant, and he proceeded to point to my kitchen curtains and everything else in my house that was Fall colors, which was pretty much everything except the blue in the guest room, haha!!   Hmmm.

Friday morning was just a lazy, relaxing time around the house (except for Dick who had to go to work.)  I made pancakes and sausages for breakfast.

The weather was a bit iffy, but we decided to go to the airport park, and even though it was windy, the sun came out and we had a great time!

We came home for naps, then around 5 we left to go over to Anthony and Lori's.  Dick went there right from work.  Then we all headed over the mountain to our favorite BBQ joint, Doan's Bones.

Somebody wanted to do funny faces!

Their ice cream is delicious too.  The perfect dessert after a scrumptious BBQ meal.

Austin was ecstatic when he saw their VW bug!  There are certain cars that he's just crazy over, and this is one of them.

They loved running around the picnic tables afterward.  You can't tell by the way they're dressed, but it was downright cold when we left the place.

On Saturday morning we got an earlier start.  I made eggs and bacon for breakfast, then we headed over to Anthony and Lori's.  Since dogs aren't allowed here in our community (so far we've never gotten in trouble for having our granddogs here with their owners, but we are very careful), Bella was needing a place to run.  Boy did she ever get exercise!  AND she surprised everyone by jumping into the pond to catch a ball.  She had never been in water before!  But once she got a taste of it, the game was on!!  She just loved it!

The rhododendrons were as full and gorgeous as they've ever been.  I'm glad I got this shot, because just a day or two later they started to droop and wilt.

Hunter chose this weekend to start walking!  For a long time he's been walking while holding one hand, but each day this weekend he got braver and braver about walking without any help.  Here he was making his first climb up that steep hill, with Mommy's help of course.

Lori and Anthony were planning to host a farewell party in the barn for one of Lori's co-workers the following day and had a lot of cleaning up to do, so Dick stayed to help them, and the rest of us went to the lovely park in Bellefonte.  What a beautiful day to be there!

Austin would have spent our entire time there just looking for precious stones if we had let him!  He did find some really beautiful ones at the train tracks.

They have recently finished a new walkway that we enjoyed strolling on along the water.

After we came home I made grilled rye and cheese sandwiches and cream of tomato soup.  It felt like a lot of energy cooped up inside our little house, so Sam took the dog and the older boys down to the baseball diamond below our community to run off some steam.  Eventually Dick came home and soon Lori came to pick up her boys.  Here are two cute pics I got before they left.  

I still have so many pictures to share from Sunday and Monday, so I'll end this post here and do a separate post of those two days.