The cousins come to town.

HANG ONTO YOUR BUTTS, this is gonna be a doozy. Probably a two-sie. This is like that time we went to Prague and made a list of all the things we wanted to do, and then did those things. Only with way less day-drinking.

Mike and Leah and their progeny pulled into town two Saturday nights ago, and I let Eleanor stay up for the occasion because it's not every day your cousin shows up.

The littles were like, Nice to meet you, charmed, I'm sure, etc.

Sunday morning, we just went to Kinsmen for a low-key morning to let the out-of-towners adjust, and to blow bubbles.

And to build sandcastles.

Sunday evening was the last day of the food festival, so we stopped by the weir to check out the pelicans

and then headed off to eat a bunch of noodles

deep-fried Mars bar

you know the drill.

Monday morning we went to the Berry Barn.

The saskatoons were peaking, and grew in massive clusters. You could pull them off by the HANDful.

We ate, just, so many.

And then we played on the playground because obviously.

And then we took pictures in the giant chair

and on the giant bear

because obviously.

And then we got waffles.

Because obviously.

Monday after naps we went to paddle in our little pool while it drained.

The girls got their hands on a boogie board and that's all they did for like half an hour.

Tuesday morning we went to Pike Lake.

You know. Did lake stuff.

Ate sandwiches out of doors.

Ate a lot of things out of doors, actually. Tuesday after naps everyone was still pretty wiped from the lake, so we hung around the back yard and the girls played on the neighbors trampoline until they had heat exhaustion, basically.

And then they played restaurant

and read books

until the food showed up

and then we gave those two sweaty, sandy monsters a cooling bath.

Wednesday! Wednesday we walked down to the splash park, stopping at the ice cream bus.

That's Eleanor's 'waiting for ice cream' face.

That's her 'eating ice cream' face.

Geneva got an empty cone that she was THRILLED about.

Frankie figured out where the goods were coming from, and that she was being shafted. Hello? I would also like one of the melty things?

Anyway. Splash parkers be splash parkin'.

Babies be babyin'.

Was it only Wednesday evening that we were back at the little pool again?

It must have been.

Because Thursday morning we went to the zoo.

And fed the deers.

And had a picnic.

And then Thursday evening we were at the little pool until it drained.

And thence to the park because summer evenings are LONG and the light lasts FOREVER.

Friday morning, our guests transitioned to the other family they have in town, and Eleanor moped all day ('I'll go to the pool, and I'll play with Jen [one of the lifeguards], but I won't have any fun.'). But we saw them again soon.