A Visit from the Rusaks

Andy's youngest sister Julie came to visit this weekend with her family. We had a great time! Julie was 14 years old when I first met her. Now, she's all grown up and an amazing mom to three sweet boys as well as a cherished friend of mine. We hadn't seen the Rusaks in three years, which means we had never met this cutie pie...


Upon arrival, Jake immediately entered a nerf dart gun war zone. He was quickly trained by his cousins and placed on the front line.


After nerf guns, playing soccer, climbing in the tree house, and much chatting around the kitchen table, we headed down to San Marco on foot for dinner.


Chelsea wouldn't let anyone else near the stroller - she wanted sole responsibility for Cooper. She did a great job of putting him to sleep so that Julie could enjoy a dinner using both hands! Matthew, Henry, and Jake enjoyed having their own table at Pizza Palace.



After dinner the kids climbed around on the statues of the lions while the boring grown-ups continued our chatting. Actually, Julie and my mom were in deep conversation, Andy and Dave were talking sports, and I was eavesdropping on both conversations while taking pictures of the kids.


The more than mile walk home didn't dampen anyone's spirits!


When we got home Matthew gave a little violin concert for the crowd and Chelsea performed some gymnastics tricks. Patrick, of course, wowed us the entire evening with his texting skills.

After a liesurely breakfast and a little time on the wii on Saturday morning, we headed out to Matthew's baseball game. Matthew showed off for his extended family by pitching two scoreless innings that included his throwing a runner out at home, throwing another runner out stealing second while catching, and hitting an impressive 3 run homer. Quite a game for Matthew! Unfortunately, his team (the Knights), went down 9-8 in a hard-fought game.

A heart-felt thanks to the Rusaks for taking the time and making the effort to drive up to Jax to see us during their busy week's vacation visit to the family homestead in Central Florida. We had a blast!! Here's hoping it won't be three more years until we see them again!