More visitors!!

On Thursday of that week, our good friends the Statemas came up for 5 days. We had been planning to have them up all winter, but when they decided to move and their house sold, we weren't sure it would work out. But thankfully they ended up having a 5-day gap between the closing of their house in Hudson and the completion of their new house in Nashville. Yes, that's right....another friend moving out of state! Seriously, what's the deal?! But instead of thinking about them moving, we just tried to enjoy our time together before they left. 

We spent a good amount of time over at my in-laws beach....it's shallow for a LONG time and the sand-bottom beach makes for great playing for the kids. Plus, it was a bit cooler so the kids could play in the shallower, warmer water rather than having to jump all the way in!

The ducks didn't take long to warm up to the kids...

Seriously, have you ever seen a mother duck let her ducklings get so close? The kids were petting them while they were feeding them!!

Parker and Sadie are the two animal lovers and they couldn't get enough!

I love Sadie's face after she got to pet one of them!

Parker even picked one of them up but we quickly told him to put it back down as we didn't want to make the mama too nervous....we clearly had her trust already and didn't want to lose it. 

(P.S. Check out all the bites on Sadie's legs--the mosquitoes love that girl and she hardly complains about them!)

I love Kaden's face in this picture!

I was so engrossed in taking pictures that I almost didn't notice why our bread was disappearing so quickly!

Sadie stuck with these little guys long after everyone else 

Wyatt and Parker on a mission to find treasure

And Blake doing what he loves most

Now showing Kaden how it's done...

Parker's attempt at becoming the duck whisperer 

(this was a different family of ducks with slightly older ducklings that, the next day, proved to be not so friendly!)

There were three different duck families that we got to know and the kids became slightly obsessed

Blake wasn't the slight bit interested...

Sadie and I made some drip castles

And the classic Julie pose---"Don't you dare!"

Blake got tired after a long morning out in the sun and curled up in a towel--he actually fell asleep! Seriously this kid is so easy going when it comes to sleep....he'll just sleep whenever he is tired, wherever he is...and thankfully he is my most sound sleeper!

Wyatt seeking solace in the peacefulness of the water.....or just figuring out how things sound under water!