Visit from Mark and Deb and Luke's Snowball Softball tourney

Mark and Deb drove down for a long weekend. They missed the weather by one day thankfully! It snowed quite a bit the day after they left and it rained their entire trip up here! Anyway, it was great to have them here for a visit. They arrived just in time to watch the kids so Luke and I could head to volleyball. (It's tournament time and my team is already out!) But we both got back and had time to chat and have a glass of wine. Deb braved the bootcamp workout at 5:30am Friday morning. I think her words went something like "It must be kill you mother-in-law day". She secretly enjoyed the hard work I think. Luke had to work for a short time on Friday morning but we met up for lunch at a new Mexican place in town(not as good as our favorites) Then the ladies went shopping and the boys went to the butcher shop to pick out a few steaks. We played cards during nap time and then made a pretty great dinner with spinach, enormous steaks(yummy salmon for Deb) and a mushroom risotto(very rich). More cards and more wine rounded out the dinner. Those darn cards never work in Deb and mine's favor(definitely the cards, not the wine--we tested that by playing during the afternoon naptime without wine. We went back to drinking wine-more fun!) Saturday was a long day for the boys. They drove to Ft. Washkee?, outside Lander(3 hours away) for a morning of dialysis for Mark. It was an all day event for them, but they made it a good time. Deb and I, plus kiddos, went to the gym for a quick workout and then on to the garage-a-rama. It is the annual garage/junk sale in Cody. We escaped without purchasing anything but made up for that at Sierra Trading Post. We packed up the family and made it out for a nice dinner at the Chop house, where Deb and I got to enjoy an awesome halibut dish(they call it their special, but they have it all the time!) YUM! The kids did very well but ready to go at the end as usual. The best part is that our server was my workout instructor, Mindy! We all had a good laugh about that one. She and I had a secret snicker about how hard it was for Deb to climb the stairs the day after her first workout. More reminiscent of my first days than out of meanness for Deb! We woke up Sunday to a new dusting of snow and it was stilling coming down pretty hard. This is unfortunate as Luke was getting ready for the appropriately named "Snowball Softball Tournament". The tourney was in Powell about 20 miles away and with the weather outside, there was no way I was going to watch with the kids in this weather. Mark and Luke decided to take Emmett with them and left for the game. Luke called on their drive, about halfway to Powell, where there was no snow and the sun was shining. So Deb and I packed up the car and Jolene and headed to Powell(with "special" coffee in hands). It was still a bit cold but fun to watch Luke play. It was a packed weekend and we certainly made the most of it. Always a great time for sure!