A Blaschke Visit

The Blaschkes are our friends from Texas.  They are also Anders' godparents.  Back when we lived in Denver, Kathy asked if we would like to use their playset for the boys.  This isn't something you want to move around so we were waiting to find a house to buy...and then we moved to Illinois.  While Hans was concerned with other aspects of a house, I always made sure to look at the yard to see if would accommodate a nice sized set.  We settled into our new house, took a vacation and then the Blaschke family came for a visit.  I was very excited to see them and even more excited that we lived in place big enough that we could accommodate all of them.  I should have taken a picture of the set when it was still in pieces on the trailer.  There wasn't room for one more thing.  We found a semi-level space in our yard and went to work.  I actually didn't do any work, but I did feed everyone.  That counts, right?

Just the beginning.  The boys were getting excited.

While they waited Kathy put the slide on the hill and added some water.  This occupied them for quite some time.

John got a little restless and wanted this project finished pronto.  He decided to help dig for the sand box.

Kathy carted dirt around to various low parts of our yard.  -Notice Hans is absent...

Hans' absence in the previous picture was due to the fact that he was taking a break and playing a Wii game with Matthew.  Even though this picture is a bit blurry, I love it for several reasons:

1.  Hans is trying really, really hard to win.

2.  Matthew is laughing at Hans' insane determination

3.  Hannah is trying to figure out what Hans is doing

4.  Gus knows what his dad is doing and is saying to himself, "Oh, Dad.  Give it up."

 John couldn't wait any longer to try it out.

 He loves being in the 'treehouse' part.

Gus would get up to the highest part and then get too scared to come down.  That lasted a couple of days before he figured out that he needed to get down himself because his mom was not going to climb up there every five minutes.  I'm so mean.

Just precious.

 Gus discovered that he liked swinging high and fast in the baby swing.

 I think Mark did this several times.

Gus had so much fun he fell asleep.

Speaking of sleep...

It was a long day of work.

Even Fritz was pooped.  Fritz and Hannah hung out most of the weekend.  I think Fritz still misses Hannah.  She took such good care of him.

Needless to say, all the neighborhood kids end up in our yard now.

Thank you, thank you.