"Old" Friends and T4G

We took a trip as a family to Louisville last week. David went to the Together for the Gospel Conference (T4G) and the rest of us visited "old" friends and places. We drove by our old house, went to the big thrift store (got a slew of good kid books 29 cents each!), went to "our" mall and had pretzels, went to the Stam's house and after to the prayer meeting at Clifton and saw a bunch of great people.
We visited the Fullers and went to the zoo with them. Louisville Zoo is the best zoo we have ever been to!

We had a picnic with the Copelands at the seminary. We saw Craig Johnson too.

We had dinner at the Murray's and the girls actually got to sleep over! They were ecstatic! A few of our kids have always looked liked theirs. Cory and Emma:

Caitlyn and Claire:

It's nice to see things haven't changed that much!

Wanda Gag

We have been reading some excellent stories from Wanda Gag this week. She is so cool! Just look at her:







My favorite so far is the book "The Funny Thing". It is about a little man who makes food for the animals in the woods. He comes across this animal that he doesn't know. It turns out that it is not an animal but an aminal (my mom would like that one!). This aminal eats little children's dolls and the little man thinks up a plan to change that. You'll have to read the book to find out how!

This next picture is from the book "Millions of Cats". I think by far it is her most famous book but ALL of her books are just as good. She has such a unique style of writing and illustration don't you think?




Here is the cover to another of her books that we read this week:



This story is about an invisible dog named nothing-at-all. He doesn't mind his invisibleness until some kids come and take his siblings but leave him behind because they couldn't see him. He is told by a bird that if he spins every day that he will go from being "nothing" into "something". While he spins he chants "I'm busy getting dizzy".

Happiness is... cooking dinner while Caitlyn and Ben are in the livingroom "busy getting dizzy"!

April Showers....

Here in Minnesota spring comes slow and steady and this year we weren't sure it was coming at all! Well yesterday it finally rained! Yes, water did come out of the sky and it didn't stick to the ground. In fact I actually ran out in the middle of it to clean up some outside toys and I wasn't even wearing a coat!

Today we were out and took some pictures of things that are starting to grow in our yard.

Our lilac tree:

Some day lilies:

A weed/tree thing on the edge of our "woods":

A hosta:

And of course these little guys: