Summery--visitors!

Thankfully, near the end of June we had visitors to break up the monotony of our summer.  Hooray!  Best of all, it was the Thompsons!  Gina and I both moved to Dayton, Ohio the same week--and we immediately became good friends.  We left Ohio at the same time too.  They moved to Colorado, and we went to Texas, then onto Wisconsin.  During the summers that I criss-crossed the West, I managed to see her a couple of times.  But it'd been a long time since then, so I was thrilled to learn they would be stopping here for a few days during their grand summer road-trip.

Nephi and Gina and their boys were so kind, patient, and accommodating during their stay.  We weren't exactly the best hosts ever.  Greg had an important deadline just around the corner, so he was often gone to campus, and, even though I wasn't battling headaches anymore, I didn't feel 100%.  (But I felt closer to 100% than I had all summer!  There was something about talking to Gina and being with her boys that was calming, distracting, and reenergizing--just what I needed.)

I love Wisconsin, and I am pretty obsessed with showing it off.  If I had been my normal self, I would have dragged the Thompsons to every restored European immigrant site within a 50-mile radius.  This time I preferred to sit around all morning in my pajamas chatting while the kids played Wii and/or worked on construction projects in the sandbox--which, come to think of it, was probably a huge blessing for the Thompson boys because, as my kids know too well, you can only see so many old barns.

But we did manage a few things (none of which involved an old barn) like, for instance...

a cookout at Picnic Point on Lake Mendota...

 (This ash-covered sweetie is Benjamin, the littlest Thompson.  I finally got to meet him, and he is a heart breaker.  So darling and gentle.)


and a visit to the Children's Museum...

Isaac and Mary getting their hair set.  (What, your children's museum doesn't have vintage hair dryers?)

We were so sad to see them go.  Boo hoo!  The morning they were trying to leave I kept following Gina around the house talking.  I couldn't stop.  They'd been here three days, but I still had four thousand things I wanted to discuss with her in depth.  Oh well.  The comforting thing is that I know we are the kind of friends who can pick up right where we left off.  (Looking back at Ohio, it seems almost too easy.  Who clicks with someone who will become a lifelong friend the first week you move somewhere?  Me!  Lucky me!)

Mary still talks about "when our cousins were here," and I love the thought that Gina and Nephi and their boys are part of our extended family!  I have no doubt our paths will cross again--I just hope it's sooner rather than later.