Over to Indiana

I distinctly recall telling Ian before Kylie came home that while I had read that people made lifetime friends while on adoption trips, we were not going to do that because our lives were already full of wonderful friends.  We'd be friendly and enjoy our time together in country, but when we got home we'd forget all about travel group 121 (Kylie's bunch)...

...Or now, three years later, we live two miles from one family, fifteen from another, visit several others when we were within 100 miles of their homes while visiting family, and spend lots of time emailing, calling, and checking out blogs of others to stay caught up.  (I guess you could say we've extended our friend base a little)

And so our time in Ohio would include a jaunt over to Indiana to spend about 24 hours with Caroline's family.  It took "the littles" about 4.7 seconds to get over the awkward, "now who are you again" silence and fall into chatter and play as if they saw each other on a weekly basis.  Or at least that's how long it took them to scheme and convince Caroline's brother, Mickey, to pull/push them around the cul-de-sac in the wagon.

Just like that the foursome was playing together as if they'd always been pals.  While our kids were playing on the play set in the backyard, we grown-ups stood around in the most popular room in the house, chatting while Jon showed off his pizza tossing skills from back in the day. What is it about a kitchen that congregates people and allows for the best conversations.

After several scraped knees, a few wipe outs, and an extensive hand washing, the kiddos got to help out.  Caroline's oldest sister, Mindy, oversaw the spreading of sauce, sprinkling of cheese, and placement of pepperoni by those that were interested in participating.  Darcy couldn't be be bothered to break away from the new source of toys...

Our time with the M_____ family just happened to coincide with Ian's birthday, and Grandma Dotty made an angel food cake that doomed to be transformed into somewhat of a pyrotechnic show by Abby and her "unique" candle placing.

I'm not sure if the combined blaze of the candles  or the breaking out of the electric knife to cut slices instead of mushing the cake made us all laugh more, but when strawberries and reddi-whip were added you could hardly see the melted wax that had dribbled all over the top of of the cake during the lighting of the candles, and Ian was certainly well celebrated!

Before long it was time for bed and while the rest of our family was headed next door to sleep at Grandma Dotty's house, Kylie was invited by Caroline to spend the night.  All signs looked like a go when Cindy and I first left the girls reading books and giggling in Caroline's bed,

but it wasn't too long into our "all the kids are in bed now let's catch up" chat session that we heard feet padding down the stairs and a little voice saying, "Ky-wie needs her mommy," followed by another voice saying, "maybe I'll be able to do a sleepover when I'm a little older."
Poor Caroline was heartbroken so we reached the compromise that both girls would sleep on the pull out couch at Grandma Dotty's house where the rest of our family was sleeping.  Sweet Mindy volunteered to take the girls over for us so that Cindy and I could continue our conversation.  Finally around 1:15 we decided we were going to call it a night and headed next door to take pictures of our girls sleeping at their first sleepover together.  We had a good laugh when what we found was Mindy sound asleep on the couch and Kylie and Caroline happily coloring at the craft table.  (I have photo documentation, but I'll spare Mindy ~ this time...)

As it always does when we're with Caroline's family, time passed all too fast on Saturday.  We ate (waaaayyyy too much!), talked, pulled mulch out of the rock pit

spread new rocks,

enjoyed Popsicles,

checked to see just how high we could swing,

shucked a lot of corn,

and finally simply surrendered to the sleepies that all the fun brought. 

And all too soon it was time to say see you next time.

The closeness these two girls maintain despite the miles between our families is precious.  So we sure are hoping that our Indiana friends decide our house is indeed on "the way home" from their time at the beach later this summer.