goodness & a few cow patties

last week we loaded matt's car up and drove down to paso robles to stay in a big house on a lot of acres for a few days. we met up with jeff, jenny and their little henry, and kim, jeremy, and their amos & eli. 

it was a full house, brimming over with conversation, toy negotiating, more conversation, and dance parties (for the little ones!)

 

 the view from our room.

so peaceful, so much sky, so unlike the view from my bedroom at home.

we ate lots of delicious food (of course) and with five kids running around, 

we took turns reigning them in.

 jeremy's delicious strata!

 and amazing cinnamon buns. i usually only like my mom's, but these were quite epic.

 we snuggled and shared toys and hung out in pj's & informally rotated who was watching the kids

 storytime was a big hit...

jeff was the pied piper of book time

ruby is a bit small for the tub, but next year we'll throw her in too!

 ruby liked flopping around & rolling on the carpet  (not quite crawling yet)

 so beautiful. 

some of us took advantage of the scenery & 

went on long daily walks or runs along the vineyards and fields.

 matt, kim & jenny took the kids out and matt (shocking) initiated a cow patty fight with the little ones. yep- all of the kids were throwing cow poop at each other, thanks to my husband.

poop fight.

 plus a lot of frolicking

(and a healthy amount of wrestling)

dancing

 general silliness & laughter

 middle school dance party

 with m dancing the night away with henry

(look at her staring at him with adoring eyes)

 while amos & eli shared brotherly love

 killing me with their love fest.

 somehow i got less pictures of the grownups,

but suffice it to say we had a fabulous time too.

(not included- photo documentation of our many in depth discussions, loving marital sparring, trips to the playground, all night parenting awesomeness & patience despite two screaming children, reading time, bottomless cups of coffee, the cows right in our backyard (including the calf that matt and i heard being born in the middle of the night!), musings over the duggard family & the show parenthood, and lots more yummy food)

good friends & intentional conversation-so good for the soul.