A Country Cousins Weekend-Part 1

I will start out this post by saying that I do love my family and am thankful God put me where He did. But I equally love my married-into family and am thankful God blessed me by allowing me to be a part of them.

A few weeks ago, we went to visit Eric's sister in northern MN. Heidi and her family used to live in the cities, and we saw them often (before Ohio). I have had the privilege of knowing Heidi as a single adult, a newlywed, and a mother, and I am always impressed with her kindness, her manner, and her love for others. In short, how much grace God has given her to be like His Son. She, along with her husband, also has a gift for hospitality, and so our whole family was so tremendously blessed to be guests in their home for a weekend.

We arrived Friday night, just as a very special event was taking place. See, in Eric's family, there is a tradition to celebrate certain milestone birthdays with a surprise party. This day was Eric's cousin's 40th birthday. She didn't know it, but when she arrived at Heidi's, thinking she was dropping off her son so that Heidi could baby-sit while she and her husband went out to dinner, there were about twenty-five of her family and friends waiting for her inside, decked out in black to commemorate this event. It was great! The best part was that Nadene's sister Janene flew in from Australia as a surprise, and Nadene didn't even know she was there until after everyone stopped singing and she removed her black veil (this family really goes all out and has a lot of fun!). We also got to visit with Aunt Linda from Wyoming as she happened to be in town as well.

So while we had planned this visit to Heidi's before the party was planned, we were so thankful God worked it out for us to be there for the party. We had loads of fun and basked in the love of our wonderful big and fun family!

Sophia was especially excited to see Auntie Pam. I don't know why, but ever since we saw Pam earlier in the summer, Sophia has been talking about all the things she wants to show Auntie Pam. Mostly, she wanted to show her how high she can jump, which I think she did.
It is always great to see Great-Grandma love on our babies!
Lydia was also pretty excited to snuggle up to Nadene, especially since she was wearing all these shiny necklaces.
We couldn't even get Lydia's eyes off of them long enough to snap a photo.

Of course there was cake, complete with black frosting. And of course, cake is always better when you enjoy it with a buddy. Ethan and Mari are less than four months apart in age.
I think Ethan looks so old in this photo, and even though he has black lips, I think he looks dashing!

Since Janene had to miss the family reunion earlier this summer, we were showing her videos of the skits we did in honor of Great-Grandma's 90th birthday. They were hilarious. I told you this was a fun family!
It was a great evening, and only the first night of a great weekend.