Family Time Part 1

It's probably going to take me about a week or so to post about our time with my family. They were hear all last week and it was wonderful! They left this morning after breakfast but it was nice to have breakfast with my mom on Mother's Day. We did a lot this past week but even had a little bit of downtime. One of my favorite downtime activities to do with my parents is play cards.

We especially like Double Deck Pinochle. However, we could not find pinochle cards at ANY store down here. So we bought a 4 pack deck of cards and made our own pinochle decks.

We have a blast playing pinochle. The guys won one and the gals won one. WB and I use a cheat sheet to figure out how much meld we have since we haven't been playing it nearly as long as my folks. I'm getting pretty good at figuring it out without the cheat sheet now.

GQ woke up from his nap and wanted to play too so he sat next to my mom and played with the jokers.

The boys did great playing together while we finished our game after school let out. This is a train and roads table that WB just recently set up per Doc's request (many times over). We finally decided it was time to pull it out and they LOVE it.

Doc decided to join the card game after awhile. He said, "I'm going to win".

I love watching my dad read to Doc. He read probably 4-5 books to Doc after dinner. It was very sweet. I just loved the quality time we had with them while they were here. It was so good for the boys too.

We also took GQ on his first canoe ride! My sister, her boyfriend, and my nephew (my brother's baby) also joined us. We had a good time though my nephew wasn't so sure about the canoes.

My mom held my nephew while my dad paddled. They were pretty quick even with only the one person paddling.

We had to be on the lookout for alligators. Thankfully, we did not see any. I'm not sure I want a run-in with an alligator anytime soon.

GQ sat in the middle of the canoe and did pretty good. He tried to stand up a couple times and we just told him he needed to sit back down. He listened well and nobody tipped over.

 After canoeing, we went down into a ravine and walked in a very shallow, clear stream. It was refreshing and very nice.

We are very blessed that my family was able to come down to spend time with us. I cherish the time we have with them since we can't see them every day. Mr. X was so thrilled to have them here and was rather upset that they had to go back home. He handle them leaving much better than any of us expected though and I'm so proud of him for that.