Furlough Pt. 1: Time With G and MaG

Yes, that is our kid at the bottom of a Target buggy and NO, sadly they have not built a Target in Guatemala yet! We were in the States for 18 days this past month. We were invited to a conference in LA. Not often do missionaries get called and invited to a church, usually the missionary does the calling, so that was really nice. We want to take a month furlough every year and a half. This one was 18 days, but it fit nicely into the break at the institute without us missing to many things here, so we decided to go with it.

{I think this photo is perfect. If you tell the boys to smile, these are their "go to" faces! It makes me laugh.}

For us to fly home, it is only one flight because we drive 8 hours to the capital and then usually fly to Miami and drive up to Jacksonville. This time, we flew into Ft Lauderdale and Jimmy's parents flew there from KS and we spent the week together. They say they used their Marriott points for all of us to stay in a really nice resort for a week, but I know they sacrificed a lot to make all of this come together. It was a wonderful, truly relaxing week. It was healthy for our family to have that break and we made so many memories with MaG and G!  

There was lots of swimming, sand, legos, and princess dresses!

It also was Jonah and Silas' 5th birthday!

So what do you do when twin mk's turn 5 while on furlough? You go to Lego Land of course!

{There were lots of car games being played with MaG!}

It was a long drive.

 

Jimmy had told the boys months ago that a place like this existed. They thought that was super cool! Then when they found out their G and MaG were going to take them there, I think their brains almost exploded. 

Jonah, Silas, G, and Jimmy went on a roller coaster first thing. Eden really wanted to go, but she was too short. After that roller coaster Jonah was a little more cautious about agreeing to go on rides! Silas likes crazy rides, but if they spin too much there will be vomit. Then there is Eden... the scarier the better! I think their faces below tell it all:

 

Jonah looks like he is holding on for his life!

 The boys played a shooting game with Dada and MaG.

 

Can you tell who won?

 
They both got bears as a prize. They have joined the few treasures that stay on their pillow.  

 The boats were a hit!

 Well with everyone but E. It seemed like the hours in the park flew by, but I think it was the perfect amount of time for what they could handle in one day.

Someone turned this ride into bumper boats!

 

Out of all the exciting rides, I think possibly their favorite attraction was building race cars with everyone.  

 

There were lots of neat tracks to try. 

The last 30 minutes there was a mad dash to ride as many things as possible before the park closed. Everyone was the good kind of exhausted afterwards.

 

Most of my pictures during that week are from Lego Land,

 

maybe because all the rest of our moments were way too relaxing to mess up with photos.  

 Lots of memories were made. So thankful we all got to share that time together! And we are super thankful to G and MaG for coming all the way to FL and giving us such a wonderful week!