painting & playing

So what do we do on a free Friday afternoon after Grant's family leaves? Well, Ivory and I are awake, after sleeping all the way home from Guadalajara (2 hours)! She is enjoying a meal of toast and strawberries, and I am sitting here avoiding the pile of dishes that has been waiting to be washed since last night before our game of Settler's. I realize this reveals something less-than-impressive about my priorities. But it was a good game, even though Grant won.

Oh, and Grant is sleeping. We kind of just waited to catch up on sleep until his family was gone.

Laura and Greg already gave you a pretty good idea of the week, but I thought I'd do a quick catch-all summary with a few more pictures. To start, here are a few from Uruapan, the National Park that we went to (Greg talked about it earlier).

Ivory with her orange peel at lunch. She finally popped a tooth this week - after gnawing on everything in sight!

Sliding down a big slide. Not so impressed. 

Elise & Noah and a waterfall. 

Back in Ixtlan...

Elise and Noah made great friends and memories playing soccer and other games with the schoolkids. They did a good job communicating in spite of the language barrier.

My painting crew was FANTASTIC. Dad did all the trimming. We got the living room, the hallway, and the one wall of the kitchen painted. Many thanks to Dad, Laura, Todd, my husband, and of course Mom, Elise, and Noah for all the babysitting.

Greg got to spend a lot of time with the schookids, which he enjoyed. Here he is helping out with their PE class. 

Elise was a great babysitter while we painted. She and Ivory kind of match in this picture.

Overall, Ivory got a sufficient amount of attention, to say the least. I thought she wouldn't know what to do with herself when they left, but she played quite contentedly on the floor this afternoon... so she must have a little bit of her daddy in her (people wear her out). 

And here is my painted living room!!! I love the color it turned out to be, and I finished my curtains before Grant's family got here so that we could put it all up together. The first coat was the wrong color, but then we bought another gallon and the second and third coats used that up completely and covered the wall in the color I was looking for.

We also have a whole smattering of individual pictures, which we put to good use doing "Elf Yourself", which we will not share. :)

Overall this post gives you a good idea of the "big moments" of the week, but it doesn't capture the in-betweens, the quotables, the Settlers games, and the Leman Christmas skit planning, which were actually for me some of the best parts of the week. We enjoyed a quick burrito lunch on the way back to the airport before sending them home today. They are all dreading the return to Illinois weather and especially the walk to the van once back at O'Hare - considering that it has been an absolutely gorgeous week here with no rain and no clouds.

As for us, we will be spending the next 5 days doing laundry, packing, putting the house back in order, and preparing for our trip home on Thursday! We are looking forward to seeing many of you.

Thanks, Dad & Mom, Greg, Laura, Todd, Elise, and Noah for coming... we loved having you here and can't wait to see you soon!