Visit with Rachel, Pat & the Kids

On Friday night, Pat, Rachel, Ravyn & Cody arrived at our house. The kids were a little out of it since they had been sleeping in the car. The first thing Ravyn did was walk head first into our closed glass screen door. It left a small red mark on her forehead, but it didn't last long. Luckily, the door didn't break. As Rachel walked in, she knocked over a display shelf & broke a glass candle holder. We were off to a great start! As an added bonus, Rachel brought in a large slug on her shoe (she had on Crocs) and we watched it crawl in a slime trail across our living room carpet. Luckily, the weekend got much better...and we got to have a lot of laughs right off the bat.

On Saturday morning, I cooked some homemade cinnamon rolls & sausage. Cody announced, "this is like a really good breakfast." He said it like it was a complete shock that he should eat good food at my house. It was so funny. After that, the first order of business was to do Ravyn's hair like a "spider web." This is what I came up with.

We got to Fall for Greenville by 11:30am. Our first stop was to find the first mouse out of 10 on Main Street.

As we found more mice, we also found this chicken. Cody has an extreme obsession with all people in character outfits.

As we all grabbed some excellent food bites, we made our way down the street (still finding mice) and got to the children's rides.

St. Francis' Hospital had a free photo booth set up & they gave the kids a free tattoo & silly bands.

We finally made it to the Park at Reedy River.

Ravyn took this picture of us resting on a nice cool stone. It was so hot outside. Yes, I am wearing a turtle neck (it was 50 degrees when I got up that morning). The cool stone worked great in taking the heat out of our bodies.

I tried several times to get a picture of Ravyn, Cody, Rachel & Pat. This was the best I could get out of Cody. Believe it or not, he was screaming "cheese!!!" We walked all along the river & then made our way back up to main street. (Although, Cody did more "Buzz Lightyear" running than walking.)

Another character:

We had such a fun time that day. I've never seen so many people in downtown Greenville. It started getting a lot more crowded around 3pm. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream every time we moved through the crowd. The food was so great & the atmosphere was wonderful. I can't wait to go again next year.

Rachel & I left Greenville around 3:40pm to go back home. We left the kids with Vince & Pat. They took them to Cleveland Park beside the Greenville Zoo. They grilled out hotdogs on our portable grill.

I had agreed to help cater my friend's 30th year high school reunion. Rachel went with me to help load up my car & set it all up. The event was in Gaffney. We brought enough food to feed 100 people.

After we got it all set up, we left & stopped at the outlet mall to eat dinner. Outback was most excellent! It was such a fun-filled & long day. It was so nice having relatives to share the day with.

Rachel & family headed out Sunday morning. We will miss them!