We finally arrived in WV late Friday afternoon. Soon after, Matt and Sarah arrived with Will and Sam, it's always good to see them and see how much their kids have grown. This was our first time seeing Sam, and he was adorable. We fed and held Sam while he quietly gurgled and grabbed our hands. For Will, we pulled out the 48 piece puzzle with colorful sea creatures from the Seattle Aquarium, one we helped him with a bit as he figured out the new colors and configurations; he's speaking in complete sentences and shows all signs that the baby genius tapes worked! :) That evening, I played a quick game of Gene Pool with Dad, and we talked in general about games and some of my designs, prompting Matt and I to begin development on a Reformation game.

On Saturday, the whole Higgs family, Debbie, Jeff, Mathew and Andrew arrived. As Debbie is a game maven, we were eager to play some of our new games with her. We pulled out Carcassonne and had a great time exploring the French countryside building cities and roads, and they really got into the strategy and farmers.

In the afternoon, we packed up into two minivans and headed out the the local animal farm, the Good Evening Ranch (which turns out to have a pretty snazzy webpage..) We first saw parrots and baby alligators inside the entry/ticket building, all safely contained. Outside Laura fed a minature zebra and donkey. There were lions, and tigers and thankfully no bears. We did find a few prairie dogs running around their area and poking their heads up for pictures. Mark enjoyed the ringtail lemurs, his favorite animal, and Laura wandered around the horse barn happily ;)

Returning home for dinner, we had wonderful lasagna, potato salad and many cookies: sugar cookies, and peanut butter cookies. It's always a vacation to the Riches with lots of cookies. To escape the manic activities of too many kids, we went on a calm and peaceful walk and saw many blooming blackberries. My Dad was nice enough to dig one up for us to take back with us; it has been growing up every year in front of the house, despite Dad's best laid plans to smother it. We hope it survives and can populate our yard someday. Tomorrow it's off to church and then back to Wisconsin, for a brief stop before heading to TX and more family fun.