PA Fun Times!

The day after Thomas's baptism, Steve took Grandpa and Grandma G and McKay and Tricia to the Newark airport.  The grandparents were headed home and Tricia and McKay were flying south to catch a cruise ship bound of the sunny Caribbean.  They were excited to try cruising and celebrating several events including their 16th anniversary and McKay's tenure achievement.

It was helpful that Tiffany and Abigail got to stay a couple of additional days.  It gave the kids something to focus on to ease their missing Mom & Dad.  Our first activity was to take the kids shopping at the grocery store to choose their favorite contribution to a "crazy dinner."  At first they thought that they just ate the item they picked--all of it.  We had to explain that they each chose and item to share with everyone else.  They all chose dessert items.  Surprise!  It's a good thing that Tiffany chose roasted chicken, Steve chose watermelon and I chose corn on the cob and salad.  They raced through a few bites of that "stuff", ate a bunch of watermelon and focused on their chosen desserts.  It was definitely the diversion we needed to keep any serious tears away.

 The day of the baptism, Tricia and I attended Jessica's DARE graduation.  I think they were making an effort to give this a lot of attention.  It took longer than Tanner's high school graduation ceremony.

Sunday we attended our church meetings and the kids had fun playing together.  We read and enjoyed their musical performances too.  It was pretty rainy so we didn't walk that day.

Monday morning Steve, Tiffany and Abigail left early for Philly for an educational tour of our country's founding for Abigail.  They added in a couple of stops for lunch at the Reading Terminal and a favorite donut shop nearby.  I stayed back at the house and got the kids to and from school, washed sheets and laundry, cooked some supper and did a bunch of work for my clients back home.

It seemed liked everyone was back home in no time at all.

Our family home evening consisted of a story and musical performances by all the kids--Those are my favorites.