Great Weekend with Friends

We loved having friends here from Little Rock last weekend!  We had been looking forward to their visit for months.  We went to Silver Dollar City and The Butterfly Palace and the kids tried to swim, but it was too chilly to last very long at that.  

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The Butterfly Palace was a fun place to spend a couple of hours on a rainy day, and local discount tickets are only $5 instead of $19.  In addition to the butterfly aviary, it also includes a mirror maze and an area of exhibits called the living rainforest science center.  

Above:  musician playing hammered dulcimer in the aviary & kids in the crazy mirror maze

Below:  kids exploring and identifying butterflies (I love the explorer hats!)

You can get a close-up look at frogs, geckos, turtles, salamanders, etc.  It was feeding time for the chameleon, so we watched him catch crickets.

They wouldn't allow you to touch the butterflies, but you could ask an employee to catch one for you and place it on your arm.  The girls wanted to do that!

It was also fun to get to do SDC with friends!  It was very crowded (Saturday), but the kids had so much fun riding all the rides together.  Lane and Rhett took a separate car, rode a few rides then left early to go see the new Avengers movie.

First stop:  the new Fireman's Landing.  Alexee and Crosby both tried some new rides this time.  They used to be afraid to ride almost everything (Like me...because I was scarred for life when I got sick on The Barrel during a Dogpatch USA youth group trip), but they are getting better about trying new things.

*Side note, we did not make Crosby wear long pants and a jacket while everyone else wore shorts.  This is his favorite outfit, and he insisted on wearing it--jacket zipped up and all!

So thankful for these dear friends!  We miss seeing them on a regular basis, but when we do get together things are "just like old times"!

Emily rode the new hot air balloons with the girls, and I rode with the boys, then the kids rode a tea cup all by themselves.

They really liked these new rides too!

On Monday, we packed a picnic lunch to eat at the park next to the swimming pool.  The kids played on the playground for just a little while, but they were very excited for the first swim of the season, so we walked over to the pool as soon as it opened.  It was only about 68 degrees though, so they didn't swim very long.  It was just too chilly to really enjoy it.  There will be lots of nice, hot days to swim though!

Crosby went straight for the diving board, and even tried the climbing wall (with Rhett coaching)!  He improved so much in the water last summer.  He and Alexee start swim lessons again next week.

A & K did a talent show for us too.  They sang, danced, did gymnastics, card tricks and jokes.  :)  They have such a good time together and get along so well!  Their chalk drawing "never going home" was sweet.  It was hard to say good-bye to them and send them back to LR.  We wanted to hop in their car and go back with them.  So thankful they made the trip to see us!