A fun day!

This morning I loaded the kids in the car and we took off for Atlanta today to meet some dear friends for lunch. We met Tammy and Marty in the Moscow airport in January 2006 when we went to visit Alexander the first time. We also had the pleasure of spending 3 1/2 weeks in Russia with them on our 2nd trip. They picked up Mason when we picked up Alexander. Since they live in Iowa, we don't get to see them nearly enough, but today they were driving through Atlanta on their way to Florida and I couldn't let this opportunity to see them go by! We had a great lunch and had a chance to catch up on what's been going on. They were able to meet Xavier and we got some cute pictures of our 6 kids!

Here is our group from today. Mike was a party pooper and had to work, but we still managed to have fun without him! :O)
And here are our 6 beautiful children! Alexander and Mason:

And just to show you how much the boys have grown, here is a picture of us at a restaurant in Krasnoyarsk just a few days after picking up Alexander and Mason.

Thank you Tammy and Marty for taking the time to meet me and the kids today. It was so great to see you and I hope we won't have to wait so long for the next time!

In other news, we've been busy getting some things done around the house. This past weekend I pulled out some juniper bushes in the front of the house and replaced them with 5 new holly bushes and have 36 lariope plants on order. Those should be in this week. Oh, and while digging out the juniper bushes I was visited by a big black spider.....with a red marking on it......otherwise known as a black widow. YIKES! We'd been warned that they are around here but I was hoping not to actually see one. I contemplated wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt after that, but it was too stinkin' hot for that so I just made sure to be very aware of my surroundings! Mike also purchased a big load of lumber so that we can replace the boards on our deck. It's in pretty bad condition, but the foundation is fine, so we're taking the easy way out and just laying new boards. Hopefully it will turn out nicely! And we're hoping to have the house painted fairly soon, too. Just trying to spruce things up around here a bit!

Enjoy your week! And I know my grandma does not read my blog, but I still want to wish her a very happy birthday today! We love you, GG!!!

Love,

Kristen