he past week, along with Kay's birthday, Tracy's sister Julie and her two kids, Ced and Solly, arrived from Costa Rica, the first time Julie has been here in 9 years! 
They arrived late Wednesday night and after collecting them from the airport and bringing them home they had something to eat and the boy's promptly fell asleep. We visited with Julie for a while and planned the next few days.
Meanwhile our kids were up at 7:00am looking for their cousins and we had to run interference until they woke up around 8:00, and thus the mayhem begins. Jimmy and Ced are the same age and are great pals. The caught up as only 9 year old can and in no time were playing PSP games, baseball in the back yard, basketball, more PSP and an occasion TV show mixed in. Solly and Bill are kindred souls and were co-creating Lego Cleations as well as having the Indy 500 on the floor in Bills room. They are also both Star Wars fanatics. Julie was treated to a 'Spa" day from Kay and looked splendid in her sky blue eye shadow and bright pink eye liner.
Tracy took Friday off work and we made a trip to the pool. The pool also has a couple of water slides which Ced and Solly though were the highlight. We spent the whole day just hanging out and doing summer cousin type things. We had a fire in the backyard, (which was intentional and not a uncontrolled burn) and cooked S'mores. The kids climbed tress and rollerbladed, rode bikes, you know summer cousin things. The kids decided on Thursday afternoon that they were going to make the basement into a sleeping fort. They dragged all their stuff downstairs and every night the five of the cuddled up and actually slept. The basement gets quite dark and much to our surprise they slept in!
Saturday, Tracy's mom and Dad arrived and we took the group over to the Dragon Boat Races in St.Paul, which also featured kiosks of different Asian arts, crafts and food. The festival was more local vendors trying to get your e-mail id, however we watched a Martial arts exhibition which featured a couple of the instructor's from Korea Camp, and of course Jimmy knew them by name. We wandered around the kids collected bags of candy, just like Halloween. After we had an impromptu baseball game at the park (which after 3 innings was called due to excessive heat... taken literally to mean the kids were done). Julie is an awesome masseuse and knows several different types and both Tracy and I were gifted with an hour of relaxation each.
Then, the mayhem of Kay's birthday ensued (as you can read below) and they were off for Michigan to see our other sister.
It was SO fun to be able to hang out, play and just be together with family.
Ah.....summer....:)
