Family Fun (with silly string)

Jill's Journal: It took us a day to dry out and defrost our toes from the Safari Park, but then we enjoyed some fun time with Kristi and Adam (and constantly-growing puppy Cobin) over the weekend. Uncle Adam made the trip down to San Diego to join in the fun as well.

First up? A silly string fight. Uncle Adam is always a good sport when his nieces are involved.

Adam’s friend Forrest gave the girls the silly string; I don’t think he quite expected to find himself a target.

The adults may have had more fun with the silly string than the kids did…

…or maybe not. Erika was on a mission to get Adam. We need to work on her stealth factor.

We always, always have fun with these people. We are blessed to have such great family.

Madelyn is hugging her future cousin. It won’t be long now! Kristi is pretty much the cutest pregnant woman in history. I hope she has 10 more. :)

And we have another sick little one on our hands. Poor Victoria. Here’s hoping no other family members or any of our visitors catch whatever is going around.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Jill's Journal: After five days totally out for the count, our little Madelyn turned a corner this morning. By afternoon she was getting back to her boisterous, bouncy self, albeit quite a bit thinner and definitely not yet 100%. Poor little thing. That flu, which started off so mild, ended up meaner than I thought. We’re very happy to be on the upward swing.

And here’s something else the girls are happy about (and me too!): Rob is back home from New Jersey. That’s three week-long trips for him in less than three months. Even though he may have to head back out there once more in a month or two, we’re happy to have the bulk of those trips behind us.

Back in Fine Fettle

Jill's Journal: The last two days were spent with all five of us slightly under the weather (we fell victim one-by-one to a short-lived head cold), so we’ve taken it very easy. And that’s the beauty of this trip – we can just go with the flow. I love, love, LOVE “home days,” as my girls call them, but there’s so many amazing things here just waiting to be seen and we need to get going!

I have a feeling our few days here in the Richmond area will simply whet our appetites for more. Today we ventured out for a little drive and are amazed at how rural so many parts of Virginia seem to be. This is one of the oldest settled parts of the country – for some reason, I expected every single piece of land to be populated. Instead, it’s so…well, rural, at least in this area. And trees, trees, trees everywhere. It sure gave me an appreciation for what the early settlers from Europe must have had to go through to clear the land just to build a home, much less actually grow crops.

Now that we’re all back in fine fettle, our Richmond time feels like it officially begins. Tomorrow we head north a bit to visit a dear, longtime friend – I can’t wait!