August 16

Our friends Shawn and Rachel and their four kids spent the past not-quite-24 hours with us.

What fun, but what chaos!

We visited the zoo this afternoon and had fun, despite the heat.

The hippos were sleeping (one with his face smooshed up against the glass!), but Caleb was delighted to watch the fish swim by.

Though you can't tell from this picture, he was also thrilled to have his photo taken with the elephant.

Then more fish. Big, slow, silent fish.

Daisy enjoyed everything from her seat in the BOB. I'm pretty sure the fish were her favorite, though she did fuss quite a bit when we left the elephants, and stopped fussing when we hit another elephant viewing area.

Later, Daisy helped me unload the dishwasher. 

(Yes, this is yet another example of my "get a picture, THEN stop the nonsense" philosophy. She may very well have broken our dishwasher door by doing this, but it was too cute to leave undocumented.)

One thing Daisy didn't do was take an afternoon nap. She was too thrilled by our exciting company. So after dinner, I put her straight to bed.

Caleb, meanwhile, got an extra-special treat: he got to stay up an hour past his bedtime and watch a movie with his friends. 

The kids (Kailee, 6, Caleb, 3, Aliyah, 6, Shawn Jr, 4, and Eliana, 2) snuggled up on the couch and watched some Mickey Mouse Christmas special. It was pretty great. And don't mind the chocolate smudge on Caleb's face. It's just a remnant of our delicious dessert!

Now our friends are back on the road, for a long night of driving. I have a feeling both kiddos will be sad when they wake up in the morning to see that the party is long gone!