Cousin Crew

On Saturday afternoon the kids and I drove to Hershey to meet Yvonne who was driving there with four of her kids. Joshua played tennis with his Aunt Joyce while the rest of us hung out in a Subway. The drive there was difficult because of torrential rain. Nadia and Ian left with Aunt Yvonne and Joshua. I came back home with Oliver, Wesley (age 5), Micah (age 7), and Julianna (age 9). I had planned to have Micah and Oliver sleep in Ian's room, but Oliver ended up on the floor in our room that night. The second night Micah and Wesley slept in Ian's room which worked out better, but the third time was the charm as Micah wanted to sleep on an air mattress rather than Ian's topp bunk. Julianna is sleeping in Nadia's room, which is also where we keep our guinea pigs. At night, Milo misses Ian and Nadia because he has to sleep in a crate in our bedroom. I love Milo, but I am not a fan of him sleeping in our room as sometimes he cries and other times he barks because of something he hears outside. He'll sleep in our room for seven nights, sleep one night with Nadia or Ian, and then sleep another six nights in our room while they are all at overnight Camp Good News. He can sleep with Ian the seven nights after that while Nadia is at Camp Susque.

I served the kids tuna noodle casserole for dinenr, and that was definitely the most successful thing I served them so far this week. I need to make a list somewhere of what they do and don't like for future reference. They also really liked the blueberry muffins I made this morning using some of the blueberries we picked yesterday. They had lunch at Kids' Cafe the last two days although Julianna didn't eat lunch there today because she didn't like what they were serving. These kids REALLY like fruit. I took them to Aldi and Surplus Outlet today, and we came home with red grapes, strawberries, peaches, pears, a watermelon, cherries, bananas, and a pineapple. We already had apples, clementines, and blueberries at home. We are very well stocked with fruit at the moment! Nadia will be jealous about the cherries as it's the first time I bought cherries this year. I also let the kids each pick out a candy at Surplus Outlet. Wesley picked sour gummy worms, Micah picked candy corn, and Julianna picked a Kit Kat bar. We're planning on having pizza for dinner at DelGrosso's amusement park on Thursday, and I believe they all like pizza.

On Friday Nadia, Ian, and Oliver were all in a thirty-minute musical. Nadia played the part of a bully, and Ian was the Apostle Paul. All three kids sang in the chorus. Most (or all?) of the other kids seemed to have a pew or two filled with family/friends who came. Paul and I were the only ones there who came to see our kids. My kids would love it if they had cousins who lived a lot closer, but we are grateful for the times we can be together. The cousins we have here at our house will head back to Ecuador next month and most likely won't be back in the USA again until next summer. I could tell that these three had learned some Spanish over the last year because they understood what I was saying when I only used Spanish to refer to the colors and numbers when we were playing Uno. We are hoping to visit them in Ecuador in about 18 months. Hopefully we will be more fluent in Spanish by then.