A Spectacular Weekend Visitor (Part 1)

We had the most wonderful present smack dab in the middle of a very trying month of CT (cardiothoracic anesthesia aka heart surgery) and right when the longest winter ever was about to drive me crazy... Jennie came to visit!!

The kids and I drove to the airport to pick her up on Friday morning ("We went through lots of tunnels.... like 100!" per Nathan to get there, though the actual count was about 5).  I think I told the kids the news about a week ahead of time and of course we had been counting down days ever since.  I had asked Nathan if he would recognize her and he replied "Yes, she has long hair!"  but for some reason I hadn't pulled out a picture to show the kids.  Even so when we spotted her near baggage claim Nathan immediately started running to her and gave her a huge hug, with Sarah just a few steps behind.  For the past few days Sarah kept saying "I want Jennie hold me" and that's exactly what she wanted as soon as she was in Jennie's arms.  I squeezed my way past the kids to get my own hug, and I may have had to wipe a few tears of joy from my eyes.

The kids talked to Jennie non-stop at the luggage carousel, on the way back to the car and the whole drive home.  "Jennie... Jennie... Hey Jennie... Jennie... Hey Jennie!"  We got home, fed the kids and put them down for quiet time/nap and then the next hour just flew by as Jennie and I got our first chance to catch up (I was no competition for the kids up until that point!).  We had a nice afternoon just hanging around the house, then got a great surprise that Brian was going to be home for dinner (he hadn't gotten home from work until around 9 for the past three days).  After he got home we took Jennie down to Bottegia di Capri for a wonderful pasta dinner then Brian bought us all doughnuts as a treat.

Saturday morning we hung around the house for the morning, and Jennie had brought a special surprise that we all enjoyed - photobooth props!!  Nathan in particular was super pumped about this, Sarah was at first but then got grumpy and didn't want to participate.  But (amazingly) some sweet persuasive words from her brother got her into another few shots.  Here are some of the best ones - so fun!

Nathan just ate it up!  What a ham!

I love this "nerdy" look on Nathan.

Is it just me or do I look like I have rabbit teeth under my mustache?

I did pull Brian in for some pictures at the end.  I knew it wasn't his idea of a great time, but thanks for being a good sport honey!

And that was just the beginning of our weekend!