Friends, new and old, in one week Pt. 1

As many of you know, my family loves meeting people, and I'm generally known for being especially that way. This past year I've met numerous people on HSA. Recently one of these people, Gavin, wrote to me and asked if we could get together while he, his dad and one of his sisters were in town. Our answer? Of course! Come for supper! :)
So, we waited impatiently for the designated day, everyone looking forward to it. Monday I spent the evening cooking: lasagna for Tuesday supper and some more lasagna and enchiladas for a lady at church who had twins this last week. Cooking is not my specialty in most cases, but I'm convinced that that is because other people (the "better" cooks in the family) get to cook the fun stuff while I'm stuck with boring food usually. :P LOL! Anyway, last week I had fun stuff to make: lasagna, chicken enchiladas, fruit salad (that was SOOO hard... NOT!) and cookies, though the fruit salad and cookies waited till Tuesday morning.
So, our guests arrived about 3. Gavin and Katherine were to stay here for a couple hours before their dad returned for supper. What is a homeschool get-together without volleyball? Well, I could do without it but apparently my brothers can't so they roped Gavin into playing v-ball with them while Katie and I talked, jumped on the trampoline, looked at some stuff inside, and talked some more. :) But then we all got together to play some card games.
We started with Dutch Blitz (one of my favorite games) and then moved on to Pit. I had never played Pit before though my siblings had. For the first little while I didn't play, but watched (1 too many people for the game) but then Angela had to go do something so I took her place. It was fun!

Pause for a group shot!

After supper everyone older than me stayed inside and talked while the rest of us went outside to goof off (played a game or two and ended with sitting on the trampoline telling a story that... well... let's just say, it was BEYOND interesting!). But then it was time for our new friends to leave so we went inside and snapped some pictures.

Katie and me

Younger set of kids (ages 18 and under)

What we had originally thought would likely be the only time to see them ended up being only the first. Before they returned to their hotel for the night we had plans to get together Wednesday afternoon. Once again Mr. Greg dropped Gavin and Katie off at our house, though this time it was closer to 1:00 instead of 3.
Upon their arrival we went outside to play tag and whatever else we could come up with until Mom got home from the store. When she arrived she showed me a bag of marshmallows she'd gotten. Consequently, we chased each other around with marshmallow guns (made of PVC pipe) blowing little white bullets at each other. Then we trooped off down the road to the park.
On the way we crossed a little wooden bridge and apparently someone had decided it would be fun to write his name all over the railing. Needless to say, Gavin got picked on at this point...

And of course, having a sand volleyball court, there was volleyball. I actually played a tad bit at first but then got out and took pictures.

Daniel and Katie ended up on one side...

While Luke and Gavin had the other side

Meanwhile, Ben played in the sand

Scheming? Or triumphing?
Lovely... :P

All of our shoes waiting for the game to be finished

Returning home through the "trenches" until we reached the second tunnel and found it full of water. Then we took to the road.

Well, at last Mr. Greg returned and we said good bye again. By now they're home in a different state but hopefully we'll get to see them again... and meet the rest of the family. :)
If y'all read this, thanks for coming and we really do hope you'll come back sometime! We might invade your area sometime too if we're in the area. ;)