Catching Up: Gigi & Gjyshe Visit, Part 1

The last three days of Nathan's time away were made much more bearable by the arrival of my parents last weekend.  We managed to keep it a secret from Ellie (given how disruptive it was to her ability to enjoy every day life and focus on important things like school while she waited for Nonna and PaPa's visit earlier this month, secrecy was vital for my sanity).  She was so excited and surprised when my mom walked up to the porch that Ellie jumped up and down, literally squealed (which she NEVER does) and said, "It's Uncle Steve!" 

We kept the visit pretty low key and the kids enjoyed making some memories with their grandparents.  Below are some images of Ellie and Gjyshe building a bird feeder.  They both share a love of birds and after completing this project, made a trip to the pet store to buy some food and play with the talking birds in the shop.

 Here Ellie is screwing in what she calls a little "pokey".

Ellie was hopeful that this bird feeder would be what it takes for a bird to come, sit, and whistle on her finger (Mary Poppins style).  We can let a girl dream, can't we?

Somehow I missed getting any photos of my mom -- though she put Reni in front of the mini dafs for a quick snap.  He didn't stay still very long.

Then the night before they left we picked up these foam squares at Wal Mart so Reni could enjoy the outdoors on our porch with a little more cushion for his knees and less abrasion on his pants.  It also adds quite a bit of color to our entry!  Now, even though the temps have dipped 30 degrees from last week's highs, Reni begs even harder to play on the porch.

This photo is a little out of order, but I wanted to say "thanks" to our friend, Eszti, who is studying in the States from Hungary.  We met her in Budapest in 2006 when she served as a translator at an English Camp with which we were also helping.  She goes to school in Tennessee, but we get to see her occasionally when she comes up to Kentucky to see Mark.  She is SO sweet with the kids and generously offered to come and play with Reni one morning last week so I could get caught up on housekeeping.  She was amazing and Reni cried when she left!  Here's a photo of the two of them together...

We are just so blessed by our sisters and brothers in Christ from around the world whose lives intersect with ours -- Wilmore is a great place to live to get to see them.  Coincidentally, her dad had just been facilitating a training for Christian doctors in Albania! (OK, let's all sing it, "It's a small world...")