Happy Labor Day!

We've enjoyed this 3 day weekend so much! When Kane was in grad school he worked most of those "extra" holidays, so we haven't really been able to enjoy them as something special until now. Now that he is a faculty member, he actually gets these kinds of days off to be at home with his family---what a treat! We are still realizing all the benefits we have gained, now that Kane is done being a student (forever).

My sister Heidi and her family came to visit this weekend and we had a really nice visit. They had not seen our new home yet, so it was fun showing it off to them and hosting guests too, now that we are pretty much settled.

Grant asked me how all my furniture got here (to the new house) from our apartment. It was funny watching him realize that all the stuff that was here he had seen before, just in a different context. He seemed pretty impressed with the whole moving process as we explained it to him. I love watching kids learn things about how life in general works. They really do learn or discover something new everyday!

Anyway, back to our weekend. The Guinans arrived on Saturday afternoon, after spending the morning doing some van shopping in Atlanta. They found a van they liked, bought it and drove it to our house in Rome. So, we were the first people to see it! That evening they kindly treated us to supper out in celebration of Kane's recent graduation since they hadn't been able to be with us since he had finished. So, we enjoyed dinner out all together. I even got to drive their newly purchased van to the restaurant. It is very nice, I might add. :) Thanks for a yummy supper guys!

Sunday Kane and Jeph worked all morning and into the afternoon in the back yard. Kane has been working for awhile on assembling a shed we bought from Lowes after we moved here. Since we only have a carport (not a full garage), we needed some sort of outdoor storage where we could put all those odds and ends, tools, lawn mower, etc....thus the shed project. Kane had pretty much built the flooring and Jeph helped with getting it moved into the proper position in the yard as well as helped a ton on assembling pieces of the shed itself. They didn't get it quite finished, but made a lot of headway. Kane now thinks he should be able to finish it up in one day, hopefully next weekend. Thanks Jeph for all your help while you were here!

Heidi and I spent the day grocery shopping and preparing food for our All-American-Labor-Day-Meal. You know---we had everything you normally have on these patriotic sort of holidays---hamburgers with all the fixins, mom's baked beans, mom's potato salad, chips, dip and of course cottage cheese. You can never forget the cottage cheese. (That is, if you grew up as a Burton, which of course we did, so we had to have that item on the table as well).

We decided to do our big meal together on Sunday afternoon, rather than Monday since they had to head back to Alabama today and we knew it would feel more relaxed if we did it Sunday instead. It all turned out really good....almost as good as it would have been if my mom had been here to make her recipes herself. Mmmm!

Yesterday evening the men rented a "guy movie" and stayed home to watch the kids and get them to bed early while the ladies went out to the movies. We went to see Julie and Julia, which I really enjoyed! :) It was just fun to go out with my sister knowing our kids were being well taken care of at home by their loving daddies. It was a treat for us both.

Monday before they headed back home we all headed over to Chick-Fil-A to take advantage of their Labor Day special. If you wore your favorite team color t-shirt then you got a FREE chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A. So, Heidi, Jeph and Grant all wore their University of Arizona shirts, Mara Kate and I wore Georgia Tech and Kane wore his new Shorter College tee and we all filled up on some yummy Chick-Fil-A. It was a great way to end a fun weekend with family.


Oh, and we also managed in some time to go feed the ducks in the pond in our neighborhood.

"I need more bread, please!"

And this is what the kids were up to while the dad's were outside working and the mom's were in the kitchen cooking...

Having lots of fun playing with ALL of Mara Kate's toys----it's just what cousins do!