Fun Times with Good Friends

Imagine our surprise when, a few months ago, our good friends, Matt and Susie, called and said they wanted to spend their family vacation in Iowa this summer. We don't exactly have people knocking down our door coming to visit us so we were in complete shock when, not only did they want to come visit, they wanted to use precious summer vacation time to do it. We were so excited about having visitors other than our parents and couldn't wait to have Matt, Susie, and their great kids, Dominic (6), Gianna (4), and Philip (2) at our house for an extra-long weekend. Owen was beside himself with excitement!

For those of you who don't know (or who have mom-nesia like me and can't remember anything), Cody grew up with Susie and her brothers and sister. Although the O'Brien household was already packed to the brim with 5 children, the O'Briens treated Cody like he was one of their own. There was even one year that Mama O'Brien insisted Cody be in their family picture! When all the kids met Matt in high school, Susie started dating him and he become one of Cody's best friends. The best part about this is that now our children have another set of grandparents, and a host of aunts, uncles, and cousins, who are all very special to us. They are the kind of friends who are more like family than friends and those are just the best kind of friends to have!

Matt, Susie, and the kids arrived on a Thursday night and stayed until Sunday. We packed the weekend with lots of activites and both the kids and the adults had a great time! Our first stop was the Science Center of Iowa, located in Des Moines, where the kids had an entire afternoon of hands-on, scientific fun!

Owen tries to operate a crane



Philip tried his hand at it, too.

They even had a train table there and you know my children gravitated to it like they were being pulled by some sort of magnetic force toward it. They can spot a train table from a mile away!

Gianna enjoyed a little lego-building time with her daddy, Matt.

The oldest of the bunch, Dominic, showed us just how big he is really getting!

What a face! And this little guy has a personality to match it! He is so cute and funny!

This was, without a doubt, Cameron's favorite activity of the day. It was a spiral thing with golf balls. You put the golf balls in the top and watch them spin around to the bottom. He could have stayed there all day!

Owen and Gianna behind the curtain getting ready to put on a puppet show. These two are only a few days apart and are just so darn cute together!

Gianna hanging out in a tube. She might be the only girl in the bunch, but she can hold her own with those boys!

Dominic does his best to reel in a big one!

Uncle Matt helping Owen and Gianna measure their fish that they "caught."

Cameron plays with Lego blocks bigger than he is!

A great time was had by all! I have so many good photos of our weekend together that I decided to split them up into a few different posts. Stay tuned for more!