Columbus

As I mentioned, the night of Eli's birthday, we drove to Columbus.  Our closest temple is the Columbus Ohio temple and we've made a goal this year to attend every month, so we had planned a trip for last Saturday.  Jeremy's cousin Marie is so nice and let us stay with her overnight and then she watched our boys for us while we went to the temple Saturday morning.  Eli had a blast playing with Patrick, Owen, and Rosie.  I forgot to take a picture!  Oh well.  They have 8 kids, 7 boys and then a girl, so their lives are very busy and we appreciate them making room for us to come!  It's always nice to go to the temple and it's especially nice when we can go together and know that our kids are being so well taken care of.

We also got to meet up with our wonderful friends the Cox's!  We were planning on staying with them on our way down to Alabama, but it turns out they are moving pretty much the same day we are, so it wasn't going to work out.  They live in Kentucky, about 3.5 hours from Columbus, so we decided to meet that day and spend the day together!  We were so happy it worked out.  They are just the most wonderful people ever and we have been great friends with them since our BYU days (and know we will stay friends for eternity).  It's a busy time for all of us, but I'm so glad it worked out.  BJ is just about done with Dental School (woohoo!) and they are moving to St. George next week.

We met at the Columbus "Center of Science and Industry (COSI)" to play for the day.  We had hoped to go to the zoo, but it was really cold and raining.  Seriously, it felt like winter.  So lame.  But the museum, or whatever it's called, was great!  There were endless things to do for the kids, and they were very entertained.  That gave us lots of time to chat and catch up - which was the point! :)  They had a little kid floor that we spent most of the time on.  It had a train table, giant lego blocks, a water table, giant helicopters and ambulances to "drive" and so forth.  We also meandered through some of the other floors, where BJ and Jeremy had more fun than the kids.  They had a "gadgets" section that was fun and it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

My only decent picture:

But here are 2 more anyway:

 Our kids are all about a year apart.  McKay will be 4 in June, Eli just turned 3, Benson turned 2 the day before Eli, and Connor is 13 months.  Oh, and Rachel is due in August with a girl!  Hooray!

 We stayed until it closed, and then we went to get some dinner.  After striking out a few times with long wait times, we finally found an empty little burger joint that was just perfect.  The kids could yell and run around, and it didn't matter!  Perfect.

It was such a wonderful weekend.  We hope it won't bee too long before we get to see them again!