A Day with the Ohio Jansens

David's brother Bob and his family live in Ohio, so we don't get to see them as much as we would like. Bob and his wife Betsy have three sweet girls - Jenny, Ali, & Abby - a.k.a. our nieces & Christopher's "girl cousins" (my brother has only boys, so those are the "boy cousins"). :)

This summer, the Ohio Jansens decided to make a trip down to Florida to visit...and we are so glad they did! The last time they were here, Christopher was only 4 months old...so needless to say, he's done a little growing since they were here last...and so have his "girl cousins" - they were 13, 9, & 6 when they were here last, I believe - now they are all grown up at 20, 16, & 13! Whew...time sure flies! :)

Anyway, we spent the Friday of the week they were here with them. We started out with a trip to the beach for a little sun and fun.

Ali (16) found a very cool sea creature! She actually found it by accidentally stepping on it (not too hard, though - no sea creatures were harmed in the making of this blog)! :) We all had to check it out and got to watch it moving ever so slowly! Great science lesson for Christopher!

After the beach, we went home to shower & change clothes - then we headed back to Grandma Jansen's house (David's mom) for dinner and fun. Christopher talked Ali & Abby into playing Payday with him. He shocked me when he read "Bonus" at the bottom of the board! The boy knows how to read more than he lets on, I think!

Later, Betsy, Ali, Abby, Christopher and I got involved in what turned out to be a marathon Uno game! Jenny joined us midway through and was our spectator/cheerleader! We were going to deal her in on the next game...but the game we had going lasted way too long! Every time one of us would get an Uno, it was followed by drawing half the deck! We'd been playing by the rule that if you didn't have a playable card, you had to draw until you got one. Finally, we decided to just draw one and keep moving - thus finally bringing the game to an end...as Christopher & I (team effort) placed our last card on the pile!

These are the Jansen brothers...David's the oldest, Bob (on the left) is the middle child, and Chuck (on the right) is the youngest.

Above is the "Jansen Women's Club" - (left to right) Abby, Jenny, me, Mom/Grandma Jansen, Betsy, Ali

Hopefully the next visit with them won't be so long in the making. We talked some of meeting half-way sometime in the near future. :)