It's already Monday?

Hmm, what happened to Friday evening through Sunday? Oh, that's right, it was a whirlwind of activity ~ not really unusual around here...

Friday afternoon we happily spent a little time putting clean sheets on beds and generally straightening up the house to prepare for a visit from Nellie (one of Kylie's "Lianjiang sisters") and her family. Once the house was ready, Kylie and I took a Maya for a walk to get out some of her energy before our guests arrived. Note that Kylie decided to take her new Hello Kitty lunch box on the walk with her ~ it has gone with us just about everywhere since we bought it on Thursday night. (I realized Thursday morning that while Kylie's lunch was already made that we didn't have a lunch box to put it in...)

Finally the door bell rang and despite the fact that Kylie had been running around saying, "I woo ya Nellie!" and "When Nellie come?" she clammed up and acted shy for the first 15 minutes. Finally Nellie's brother Carlisle won Kylie over with his sweet smiles and in no time he was pulling both girls around in the wagon.

The kids had fun sharing (somewhat anyway) toys and we adults caught up on the past 15 months since we'd seen each other. We stayed up way too late ~ including the children ~ and finally decided that we'd better get some sleep around midnight. Saturday morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then saw Wendy, Mike, Carlisle, and Nellie off on their way to Charleston, SC to a wedding. I suppose it is somewhat unusual, but we really have enjoyed keeping contact with our China travel group. We were blessed to be with a wonderful collection of people and now I'm more excited than ever for our entire group reunion later this summer!

Then we were off to a wedding ourselves. Jennifer was in the youth group while Ian and I were volunteers. As I watched her walk down the aisle I had flashbacks of her riding in the back of our car on the way to a retreat when she was in the 6th grade. Where does the time go?

And then it was back to Camp Loy White for the kick-off cook out to celebrate the beginning of the 21st summer of ministry for Carolina Cross Connection. It was HOT, but we enjoyed getting to meet the parents of most of our college age summer staff and of course, Kylie was quite her entertaining little self. I don't remember now what got her started, but she really hammed it up when she learned the expression, "Oh my word!"

Yesterday we had our typical Sunday, church followed by lunch at Mama's. But this Sunday was special as we welcomed the "lazy summer Sundays" by taking our first dip in the pool. Despite her hesitation of the water last summer, Kylie was thrilled with the pool and couldn't get enough. She cried when we dragged her out because we had to go back to church for our evening activities. I think we are in for some fun afternoons lounging poolside this year...

"I schwim wif Mommy!"

"Peek-a-boo!"

"Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey have nothing on me and Mommy!"

The weekend was fast and furious, but it was good!