Visit from Murray Kelly's

The weekend after Rachael's birthday, the girls' cousins from Murray came to stay with Nana and Papa for the weekend. Cam will be eleven (?) this November, Kess is 8 and Caden is 5. Overall the kids played well together and Cam was very patient with all the younger kids and dealing with 4 girls! Rachael liked to take care of Caden by bringing him his blanket and rubbing his back. Pretty funny given that Caden is a few weeks older than Rachael.

I am very behind in my posts to the blog - busy doing things to write about so I don't have time to write! I am trying to catch up - my rule right now is less text, more pictures. Pictures usually say it all anyway. By-the-way, notice the pictures below have sweaters on the girls - in July and as I type this it is October 14 and it will be 85 degrees today. Don't tell me we aren't messing up the world's climate!

Spring Break

Spring Break for the girls was March 31 – April 4. The busiest time of the year for my job runs from about February 1 – April 10. I can’t take a lot of time off during this period, so family vacations during Spring Break are out. The good news for the girls is they have Nana. She kept them all week and made sure they had a fun vacation. They ended up having a sleep over at Nana’s on three nights. She took them to their favorite store – Joseph Beth Booksellers and let them pick something out. She also took them to Dairy Queen one day for Blizzards. The visited the duck pond at the Lexington Cemetery (some what surprisingly one of the prettiest spots in town) on another day.

On Wednesday Nana took them to Kentucky Down Under in Horse Cave, Kentucky. This is an Australian themed animal park which includes a natural onyx cave. They spent time in a bird aviary, petting kangaroos and wallabies, milking a cow, and exploring the Kentucky Caverns. From the pictures Nana and Grace took I think they had a great time.

Grace says the bird in the background puffed up really big when Nana was ready to take the picture. Vanity in birds?

I am sure this picture was taken for the bird but I like the sign. It reads "Please do not feed fingers to the birds."

What was amazing is after a long day traveling and visiting Kentucky Down under Nana fixed dinner that night for all of us to celebrate Craig’s birthday. The girls did help make the strawberry pie for dessert but we all know who did all the work. (The second number on the pie is a 2.)

On Friday Nana attended her DAR conference in the afternoon. Papa took the afternoon off of work and took the girls to lunch at a Lexington landmark – Joe Bologna’s (affectionately called Joe B’s by Lexingtonians.) The restaurant is in an old temple with the 41 stain glass windows still in place. Since Papa returned to work about 1 ½ years ago they don’t have the same time with him that they enjoyed during his “retirement.” They savored having time with him and I appreciate his taking time off during the busy budget season.