Auntie Liz Comes to Town

My sister and her two adorable kiddos arrived in town last night. I am so excited - they are here a week early for Ian's birthday party and we are going to have so much fun visiting and catching up! Liz and I haven't lived in the same state in FIVE years, so it's always exciting when we get to spend time together in person. We were planning on seeing them last night, but unfortunately, Aiden - her four year old - was sick, so we ended up waiting until today to see them just to make sure the cousins weren't passing bugs back and forth.

We started out the day by leaving her kiddos with Nana and Mr. Frank and taking Ian with us to the annual Arlington home school book fair. Neither of us had been before. Liz, who is in her third year of home schooling, is a pro, while I am still just learning the basics of which curriculum is which. We had a good time and got a lot of good information. Biggest pros (for me): the $2.00 soft pretzels and nursing mother's room. Biggest con: no strollers allowed. We didn't see one stroller on the way in and thought it a bit odd with so many little ones. We should have gotten our clue then! Fortunately, they had a check room where you could check your wheeled bags and strollers for free.

Here's Auntie Liz and Ian hanging out.

After we got home and had lunch, we went to play outside. Nana installed a new tire swing in her back yard for the kiddos and the cousins had so much fun swinging around on it! (More pix to come later.)

Then Shanti texted me and said they were in town at Chick-Fil-A. Woo-hoo!! Shanti is a very good friend of mine. We grew up together in Midland. We had sleep-overs, went to Girl Scout camp, and talked on the tty a lot. She is one of the sweetest, most patient people I know and we were excited to get to see her. It had been a loooong time since she and Liz had seen each other, so they were glad to get to catch up again!

Friends for life!!

Donald, her hubby, gave Ian tutoring lessons on signing "more" (a sign Ian still hasn't mastered) each time before Mommy fed him some yummy cookies and cream milkshake.

Donald and Ian had a lot of fun playing around! Ian has always liked Donald - he's very good with kids.

Thank you for coming to visit, Shanti, Donald, and Leah! We had so much fun getting to see you again and can't believe how much Leah has grown!