Fun and Frogs

The last stop of our trip was the icing on the cake and a great way to wrap up our travels. We went to the house of our friends, Tom and Debi Pfaffenberger. We slept in, relaxed, and enjoyed ourselves so much we stayed longer than planned just because it was to nice we didn't want to leave. We are so thankful to them, not only for this time they provided for our family, but for their years of praying for us and loving us and taking us in with open arms. You guys are great!

It truly was the perfect way to end the hectic days of traveling and constant coming and going - for three days we just laid low and enjoyed things close by and the beauty of the area where they live in Indiana. One of our outings was to a Flea Market and you'll see below what the kids favorite part of that was=) (*My favorite thing was a trip to the local Amish grocery store - too fun!)

I couldn't believe it - those kids had a blast! Alana was the most shocking of all because she was in no way scared and just jumped her little heart out, laughing the whole time. Between her and Logan they drew quite a crowd since they were among the younger jumpers, you had to weigh at least 30 pounds.

Zach, of course, had the best stunts as you'll see in the video - basically anything athletic and he can do it! I took one of Logan and Alana also but didn't know until after that I had the camera zoomed in too far to get the whole thing to fit on the screen so it's not very good.

Another thing the kids enjoyed at Tom and Debi's was just the fun of getting outside and playing in their yard - they had a pond out front that Logan pretty much wore a path around in the time we were there. He was up and out of the house first thing in the morning and had to be called in at night spending the entire time in between catching frogs, tadpoles, and turtles. He was in his glory! In the meantime Zach borrowed Tom's bike and rode all over their property while Alana and Jesse enjoyed the sandbox and Monica sat on the front porch swing.

And did I mention Daddy helped?

Here are a few frogs of the many they caught - you should have seen the bucket of tadpoles, there were between 80-100 of them, I'm guessing. It was disgusting, the boys would reach in and take out handfuls of them....yuk!

Here's Logan with one of the many turtles of many sizes that the boys caught.

Two little tiny turtles actually came home with us and are still surviving - Zach and Logan now have new pets, Crush and Squirt. They are about the size of a quarter and of a nickel but may grow as big as the one in the picture above. But below you'll see the coolest turtle encounter we had - with a snapper! Toward the end of the video I forgot I had the camera still on which is why you get a rather odd view of things.

All of us had so much fun enjoying the creation that surrounded their house. We went to sleep to the sounds of the geese on the wetlands and the bullfrogs in the pond. We would wake up and look our the window the see the birds overhead and the cows in the pasture next door. We found a couple nests and watched the number of eggs in them grow over the time that we were there - like the picture below, there were 3 eggs by the time we left=)

Of course the best part of all was spending time with our friends, and making new ones, but more about that next time....!