The Byrd Visit

When we abruptly went off line in mid-December, some of our favorite Byrds had just gotten into town. Actually, Beka and The Cousins were on their way to Kansas City for a visit with family there. We enjoyed having Papa and Mama with us on Thursday and Friday, and Beka and the kids got back to our area on Saturday evening. We treasured every moment until they left on Tuesday morning!

Saturday night, we had seafood chowder for dinner, at the special request of Beka and Ethan. Seafood chowder became something of a hobby (obsession?) for Jonathan and I this last year, and Beka and Ethan were eager to taste the fruits of our experimentation. I think they liked it! I'm working on cutting down the recipe to a reasonable size so that I can post it on Love You Can Eat. For now, here's a teaser...



Sunday morning at chapel we got to show off Beka and The Cousins; then Sunday evening we also got to show off Papa and Mama (they went to meeting in St. Louis in the morning). We don't usually have a Sunday evening meeting, but Dec. 14th was our Christmas Supper and Program. It was neat to have some of the Byrds with us for this special evening. One of the highlights from the Christmas program (at what would generally be considered a pretty conservative church) was the Henkel twins playing their electric guitars. They played their own arrangement of a couple of Christmas classics. I couldn't get the video upload to work, or I would share it with you.

As always, it was such a joy to see our kiddos enjoying their time with their cousins. The deep down, soul-satisfying kind of joy. My brother and I didn't have cousins our ages with whom we could really fellowship, and it is a delight to my heart to see my children play with Ethan, Isaiah, Abigail, and Chloe.

I haven't done a good job of capturing the "little moments" in this post, but I'm so thankful that Papa and Mama came to visit, and that Beka decided to come as well with The Cousins. I wish Eric could have pulled away from work and come, but we are all so thankful for the time we had together. And I'm thankful that they didn't let the possibility (which turned into the reality) of them getting sick from our leftover germs keep them from coming!

Here are some more pictures (you can click on the slideshow to get to the pictures individually/download the full sized files, etc):