Kenny's 1st Communion

Beth and Stephen in the trike-a-thon at Beth's preschool... Beth, where's your helmet?? We've had a busy few days. Below is a picture I took while on a field tour of some very old (5-6,000 year old) Indian mound sites in northern Louisiana last weekend:

The orange mesh fence was laid out to keep people from running their 4-wheelers up and down the mound. We were able to have this tour because the storms that pounded Mississippi had passed through not even a day beforehand... The biggest event of this last weekend was Kenny's First Communion, of course. Below is a suave lookin' Kenny with his proud grandparents and Father Philip Reaves, our current pastor:

Here's Kenny's entire First Communion class:

Much smaller than the big groups we went through as, eh? This will be Father Philip's last group in Monticello--he is being transferred to some parishes in northeastern Arkansas, and we'll be getting a new priest in June. Below, Kenny consumes the host:

We all then went over to the parish hall to consume a hearty brunch prepared by the parish:

About an hour after we had this brunch, Hope, Kenny, and I joined a couple other families whose children had gotten First Communion for another luncheon. We sure ate well this day! We then spent the afternoon at home, with the kids swimming in their backyard pool and a few intense games of badminton, courtesy of the set Grandma got the kids:

Before Hope's tasty venison burgundy supper, we flagged down the local ice cream truck--even Grandpa & Grandma got in on the action:

Don't worry, before enjoying these frozen treats, we had our regular supper. Below, Grandpa enjoyed his frozen dessert with his grand kids:

There were more games of badminton to be played--check out Grandpa's effort:

On Monday, I stayed home most of the day--in part because of our guests, but also because I came down with a nasty little cold of the sudden. We had a good day's worth of visiting, and then in the evening Grandma and Grandpa joined us for Kenny's Little League game:

Kenny's team is still struggling with some of the basics of fielding and hitting, so they lost another contest. However, Kenny made an excellent catch of a ball hit hard to him in left field, and though he didn't get a hit, he made really good contact with the ball when batting, grounding out both times. Below, Kenny steps up to the plate:

Kenny seems completely healed from his twisted ankle of a couple weeks ago--we had been worried that he wouldn't be able to play when his grandparents were visiting, but this fear proved unfounded. On Monday, Hope and Grandma did a little shopping, and picked the boys up a set of matching jammies:

We had a really nice visit with Grandma and Grandpa--they left this morning (Tuesday) for Houston, Mississippi, to visit Bonnie Vance before heading back to Wisconsin. I came home early today from work to rest up from this cold (and now I find myself working on the blog, instead of resting!). We're looking forward to seeing a lot of you over the summer!!