Beautiful Feet

(Disclaimer: If you don't like looking at feet, you should probably stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.)

We had a fun little mother/daughter outing today with some of the friends we've made this month. We girls all went to get pedicures!The little girls actually got their fingers painted too, while the moms just enjoyed having their feet taken care of (another mom and I were both told that our feet had "big problems," so apparently it was high time!). The pic above is Lee Anna with her color selection. It turned out really cute!
She went for the alternating look, and then the girl who painted them added lots of cute decorations on top of that. Here's a close-up of her fingers:
And here are Lee Anna's toes, along with her friend Annabelle's. I think it's fun that she has a friend here named Annabelle, since her nickname since birth has been "Lee Anna Belle."
Here are all the girls with the ladies who made their nails beautiful. I know we were a more, um, exciting crowd than their typical customers, but they were very kind and liked seeing how excited the girls were.
And here are mother's and daughter's feet. I don't know that I've ever had a color quite that bright on my toes, but I was assured that it's a great summer color. I do really like it.
And last, you can't see our toes, but here's me with some of my sweet new friends.
It's hard to believe we just met these guys a few weeks ago. They feel like family now, which means we've got some hard goodbyes coming up in less than a week.

Fast Friends

We have really enjoyed getting to know some other families who are here this month. There are lots of kids all around the same age, and they are having a blast together. They spend all day together while we're in our meetings, but they still want to play more after we pick them up! It's so neat to watch how quickly they have grown to love each other. We will have some sad goodbyes to say next week (but we'll be excited to see the sweet friends who are back at home!).

Seeing the Sights

We're away from home this month, visiting Jordan for a work conference. We've gotten to know some other great families, and this weekend several of us went together to visit some of the sights. It was very, very hot, but we laughed a lot and loved getting to see such neat places.Here are the kids on Mt. Nebo doing their best Moses impression. We're pretty sure that's how Moses looked gazing off into the Promised Land, except maybe without the guard rail.

And here we are sticking our feet in the Jordan River. The kids weren't thrilled at how green it was, but they had fun putting their toes in.

We also got to visit the Dead Sea, but we didn't take any pictures. Lee Anna got in the water briefly, but did not like the way the salty water made her skin feel. On the way home, we stopped at a tourist shop and were looking at some magnets for sale. Lee Anna saw one that said "The Dead Sea" and she said, "We could get that, and I could write underneath it, 'I DON'T LIKE IT'."

Sorry there aren't more pictures. We totally forgot our camera on this trip, so we are relying on other people to document the cool things we're doing. Good thing we have nice friends!

By the Sea

This is where we spent last week. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Mimi, Papaw, and Uncle Andy all joined us for a week by the sea. It was great to see them all, and even greater to spend time with them in such a beautiful place!

Sarah Claire loved the water and tried hard to keep up with her brother and sister.

She did not, however, get a turn on the Waverunner. Maybe next time.

We swam, saw some dolphins and fish, and thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet!

Hooray for Vacation!

On a sadder note, when they left at the end of the week, they took Aunt Claire with them, so we're really missing her. We LOVED having her with us this summer. Luckily, we've got another trip coming up soon, so we don't have much time to sit around and be sad. We're definitely having an exciting summer around here!