Precious Family Time

In my previous post, I mentioned that we have been having a wonderful time with family while we are in the States for this short time. Last weekend while Steve was out of town speaking at a conference, his parents took the kids on an outing to Silver Dollar City, a little amusement park a few hours away. Here are the pics his mom gave me from their time there.

While Ben was playing with the other kids in "Splash Harbor", he slipped and fell into a board (or something). He came running out with his face covered in blood (you know how head wounds bleed, then he was wet besides) and scared the poor attendant - and everyone else who saw him. The Emergency Services guy cleaned it up, and while it was deep, it was a fairly small cut on his forehead. The real problem was the huge bandaid they put over it - even getting it into his hair. It took me forever to get that thing off without taking too much hair with it. Then I put a small home-made butterfly bandage on instead. It is looking great now.

Another thing we have been doing a lot lately with Steve's family is wakeboard behind their little boat. It is getting pretty cold for it now, but the kids (and Steve!) have been having fun "catching some air" off the wake. Here is Zach:

Ben has been riding with Steve on the wakeskate (a wakeskate is different than a wakeboard in that it doesn't have boots attached to it)

Mikayla has been catching some air too, but I didn't catch it on camera :( The other day we took the kids out of school for the day and went up to the St. Louis Zoo with my parents. It has been more than 4 years since the kids have been to a zoo, so the boys don't even remember ever going to one. We all had a great time together, and my parents bought little stuffed penguins for the kids as souvenirs.
The penguins were everyone's favorite.

Papa was having quite the discussion with this duck. The look on Mikayla's face tells what she thinks of talking to a duck.

We all loved the bright colors on the birds we saw.

This was about when we started wondering if this camel might be in a spitting mood...and we moved on quickly before we could find out.

The stingray exhibit was amazing. All 3 kids got up the nerve to pet both the little (slimy feeling) and big (sandy feel) ones. Mikayla and Zach didn't need much convincing, but it took Ben a while to do it on his own.

sweet moments

Zach loved these - and got drenched to prove it. Can you see it coming towards him in the water?

Here is the lady explaining how to pet them. I love the look on Mikayla's face as she contemplates it.

Grandma: "It's just pretend; you can touch it, Ben."

Ever-cautious Ben: "You touch it first."

The hippo exhibit was cool too as they were feeling very active while we were there. At one point, Steve lifted Mikayla to "throw her in". Just then, all the hippos started bellowing very loudly. Scared her pretty good.

We are so incredibly thankful for this opportunity to be near our families again for a while, and we are cherishing every moment - whether it's a day at the zoo or just sitting around chatting.