Latelies

The lovely Spring weather always brings me the AH-life-is-so-good feeling. Lately we've been feeling extremely blessed by a) good friends, b) exhilirating weather, and c) the obvious hand of the Lord in our lives. Here's some of our latelies...

I have fond memories of doing this with my dad and it's so fun to see my kids playing horsey with their dad.

Our sweet neighbor, appropriately named June, she's a florist, planted these last year along with some other flowers in our yard and we've gotten to enjoy them coming up.

I didn't get a great picture of the whole group but these are some of our fun new friends, the Baileys. We just barely met them but it was an instant "click." Angie is a woman after my own heart and loves to get out with her kids every day. All of our kids get along so well and we've had so much fun on our recent adventures.

Kev doing the grunt work so we can enjoy a family bike ride. Thanks, Dad!

Some other great friends, Nadieska, Eric, Davyn and "Curly" Ethan. They are such a laid-back and fun family. It struck me the other day how amazing it is that Nadieska and I see eye-to-eye on SO MANY things when we were raised so differently. She was raised by a single mom who is a judge in Columbia. She's a lawyer herself, joined the church and met her husband about 11 years ago. Pretty different from my life story, and location! I love it!

Going on a hike with Peter is pretty much torturously slow these days as he picks up any stick he finds and pokes the ground for about ten minutes in any given spot. (But because I'm his mother I think it's adorable.) It is pretty much the opposite of Ethan who leads the pack at a full run the entire time.

At the ship yard in Boston

Kevin with a favorite mission companion, Kent Hansen, and the kids

U.S.S. Constitution

We had a blast staying with Kent and Melanie in Boston. They stayed with us back at our Shaw apartment when they were engaged and they're some of our favorite people to talk with. Their little man, Hendrick, is four months old and definitely got a lot of attention from our kids. We had to watch them closely when he was in the swing so they didn't send him into outer space. Kevin and Kent spent some time discussing dry walling and closet building, along with a Toll House Cookie Run/Festival that Kent and and Melanie are thinking of starting. Just let us know when it is and we'll be there with bells on! Thanks Hansens!

We ran a fun race recently that our church did in conjunction with the Feed the Need Foundation. The entry fee was nonperishable food items and we thought that was a brilliant idea. We're considering the West Point 10K next but need to work out the logistics.

Kevin and Mike Turner, another friend from his mission who is in a neighboring ward, at the race. They just had their 5th child and all their kids, and his wife!, were participating in the race!