cousins

Our time in the U.S. is going too quickly. It's been already one week since I travelled back from Nashville. I was so grateful for all the hugs and stories, for the girls' flowers, and all the artwork from camp when I returned. William's expression was like "hey I remember you!" Grant gave me a big hug and said "Daddy..Daddy..Daddy." It was like he was filling me in on his week.

Saturday the big kids had their last day of acting camp. They were all involved in the final filming of their movies. I was grateful that they all made friends.

Sunday evening was a barbecue at Granddad and Judith's house with Shannon and Jennifer, and friends too. Rain blew in as we were leaving. It made a nice walk home.

Monday morning, it seemed, was entirely dedicated to re-bathing and a surprise gathering of all the kids' church clothing, dirty or not. Daunting. Grandma Julia and Grandpa Bob invited us to attend the open house of the Ochre Mountain LDS temple. I'm grateful that the children made temple memories.

In the evening we played with cousins at Grandma Julia's house. Grandma Julia fed us all spaghetti.

On the way home we picked up Kyle's best friend Hunter. He is also in the U.S. now. His family is staying with his grandma because their house has renters while they are living in Beijing. Hunter stayed with us for a few days.

Tuesday we went to the Scera water park and barbecued hot dogs in the park.

Wednesday the big kids went to Harry Potter 6 with Rob and their cousin Kayla. Grandma Julia and I took the younger kids and cousins to a free showing of the Incredibles. Then we took Hunter home.

Rob ran in to Smith's on our way home. It was fun to see him come out with a big box of doughnuts, one of our favorite things to eat while in the U.S. We shared them with Granddad and their cousin Shannon Wednesday night. We watched a scary movie with a pretty bad plot. Having Shannon there kept the mood light, but a few of us still had trouble sleeping.