Daddy's Back!!!!!!!

Dave was gone for three whole days last week. The kids were a lot better than I thought about it (Anna cried and cried when I told her the week before that he was going on a trip) but we sure were happy when he got home! We decided since we have a little more wiggle room with our vacation days since Dave got an extra week for his 5 year anniversary that he would stay home on Friday and we had a wonderful family day!! It was going to rain around lunch time, so we hurried up and headed to Brown Co. park and went on a lovely hike together. Its so neat doing things like hiking each year as you can really see how much the kids are growing with all the things they discover and explain to you. Benjamin was pointing out bark and the moss growing everywhere as well as many other things.

We saw a couple of these web looking sacks on trees and I was totally grossed out as we assumed they were full of baby spiders. Then we came to this one where it was their birthday and saw these little baby caterpillars crawling out to discover the world. Pretty neat (from distance anyway, as it's still kind of gross).

My little hikers....

We were on a trail that we had never tried before (we're becoming more adventurous now that Benjamin and Anna are more capable) and discovered several natural looking bridges made out of rocks and stones like this one.

Collin didn't participate in the hike for too long before his heavy eyes fell asleep on his Daddy who he was clung to all weekend.

They're off!

After the hike we dashed over to a playground for the kids to play before the rain started. Anna was one happy girl!

This picture is very amazing for two reasons: 1) Benjamin is on a swing 2) Benjamin is smiling while on a swing. :) He has never liked to swing, not even as a little babe. This swing glided really easily so he could control how much it swung and he seemed to really enjoy himself.

My wild girl always loves to swing.....as long as you acknowledge her frequent requests of "Higher!!!"

We had a very happy day together!

Benjamin surprised us on the playground by trying some new things on his own. One of which was going down the fireman pole without his Daddy or I helping him at all. He was so proud of his bravery and new skills!

Collin woke up just in time to enjoy a few rides down the slide!

Then we headed off to one of my favorite restaurants and then after nap time we took the kids to get ice cream to reward them for being so good for me. We are one very blessed family!!!!

(The pictures look blurry for the most part on the blog to me again. They aren't blurry outside of the blog. As I'm not very computer-savvy, I don't know how to fix this once again. Argh!)