a grand weekend

I like it when our weekends include things that stray from the norm, and this weekend was full of them.  First, my parents came to visit. Yay.  They hadn't been here in a while, and I think the last times we were exploring NYC or jetting down to Baltimore.  Now that we're getting a little more settled here I wanted them to see our life and this area.  So the visit included trying out new restaurants, a trip to a local farmer's market, a lot of shopping {more on a good find in another post}, helping Dexter get a bike {Merry Christmas, dear}, and just generally enjoying each other and the spectacular weather.  After church on Sunday we walked to a little bagel shop for lunch.  I needed to get a few photos of them to prove they were here!

 {Kyalo found a stick! and we could not get him to put it down.  Dexter had to wrestle it from him when leaving}

 finally, some pictures with me in them!

{ready for church}

The park where we took the pictures was very pretty, but a little more shadowy than I would have liked.  Oh well, the memories aren't shadowy!  And just like that, off they headed to Massachusetts.  Instead of heading home ourselves, we hopped in the car and headed west a couple of hours through rolling country and farmland of Pennsylvania to see this girl:

Since the last time we saw Jenny was February in Kenya, we weren't going to let a little two hour drive get in the way of a chance to see her.  It was a short, but sweet visit.  I love reconnecting with friends, especially ones I knew in Kenya.  And seriously, the drive was pretty spectacular.  I don't know if you can really tell from the pictures, but the area was SO BEAUTIFUL.  Dexter's ready to hang up dentistry and go into farming.  I'll keep you posted on that.

 The lighting in PA was so awesome; I wish we had gotten a lot more pictures.  These will do, though.

{shadows}

I will live in hope for more impromptu, unexpected visits from friends to brighten our weekends!