high adventure week

This last week, Shad had the opportunity to go on our ward's High Adventure with the scouts. He biked 50+ miles up in Island Park over the course of just a few days. Then he met up with some of his family for a couple days before coming back home.

While it could have been a very long, lonely week for me, I was certainly blessed to be graced by visits from a couple of my sister-in-laws.

Mary and her kids came Monday night and stayed all the way until Thursday morning.

My kids and I loved having them here.

Here they're chasing our rabbit around.

It certainly made the week go by faster, and it made it much more enjoyable as well.

Nearly every single time Mary sat down to read a book, all the kids would gather around.

Yeah for cousins.

My brother Matt showed up one evening as well.

Lately my kids seem to think that a visit from Matt means an automatic wrestling match.

It's always fun to see Matt, and we had a good visit with him after the kids were in bed.

Ivy and Avery looked on from their side seats.

These two were so cute together. Even though they're two years apart, they played together like they were best buds. It made me look forward to when Avery might have her own sister to play with.

More reading.

Our neighbors had two miniature Shetland ponies at their place for the fair. Lincoln enjoyed looking at them.

Girls playing again.

Picking peas.

Once the kids discovered they could feed a horse through the fence, they spent quite a bit of time doing it.

Jack particularly loved feeding the horse.

More playing.

Their last night here, our neighbor's kitten made an appearance, much to the kids' delight.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but if you look close, you can see Graham in the bottom right corner. He's following the other boys to go feed the horse.

Love these two.

The morning before they left, Jack went to feed the horse one last time.

I'm so grateful that Mary made the trip and we could spend some time together. My kids really had a great time with their cousins, and it was nice to just see them play, play, play.

Just as Mary was leaving, another sister-in-law, Amber, showed up.

Immediately, Drake broke out the games.

My kids have enjoyed playing games and being read to all the time.

If Amber keeps this up, I might be out of a job.

Yeah for sister-in-laws who kept me and my kids company while Shad was away. I couldn't have planned it better.