It's not part of our "job", but ...

... when the kids are as cute and well behaved as these, we offered to stay with them while their parents went to Italy for 5 days to celebrate their 20th anniversary.   Phoebe turns 3 this week.  I spent most of my time with her   :-)  :-)  :-)   while Glenn worked on emails and Hannah and Avery did their homeschool work each day.   One morning during a school break, Hannah and I picked apples off the trees and ground in their backyard and then made applesauce.  Hannah loves to cook!   

Another day, Hannah made sugar cookie dough and cut them with the 101 cookie cutters I'd brought from BP.  We had 10-12 different kinds of sprinkles and Hannah mixed up 5 bowls of colored icing for the cookies.   (My family always uses brushes to paint the icing on the cookies and so we really get into the whole creative thing.)   Hannah decorated most of the cookies as I baked them.  Avery was not as much into cookie decorating as Hannah but she did come down and decorate a few and then sampled her work.

I managed to time Phoebe's nap with while we were baking and decorating the cookies so she didn't get to"help" for most of it.  However, we did save her a couple of cookies to paint and sprinkle with extra sugar!!!

She enjoyed painting the cookies, but I think her favorite part was "cleaning" the plate.  I decided to be the fun "aunt" and let them eat more cookies than I usually would have since this was kind of special.  Boy, did I pay for it that night!  Phoebe had so much sugar coursing through her veins that she couldn't fall asleep at bedtime.  She talked and wiggled and played in her bed for at least 1 1/2 hours that night before she finally fell asleep.

When Julie and Joe got back on Friday, they brought us gifts from Italy.  Glenn got some Italian espresso roast coffee beans and I got these beautiful, colorful Italian pasta bow ties!  They are so pretty and they are now on display in my kitchen.  I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to cook them but I couldn't get them all into my tallest jar, so I cooked up the overflow and made a pasta salad last night for dinner!  Yum!  

They also brought us a huge STARBUCKS Pumpkin Spice latte, hand carried all the way from Vienna!!!  (There are no Starbucks in their town in Czech Republic, so when they flew from Rome to Vienna, they stopped at a Starbucks (maybe in the airport???)  to get us a Pumpkin Spice latte.    It was such a treat, but I could have kicked myself that I didn't take a picture of the Starbucks drink that they hand carried all the way back from Vienna to Brno in their car.  I will never forget that!  That was a labor of love, greatly appreciated!  Double yum!!

On our ride back to BP later that evening, we stopped for dinner at the only McD's on the Hungarian autoroute on the 3 hour drive home.  Not only did they have self-serve, free refill drinks, but they also had crushed ice!!!   The only other place we know of that offers self-serve, free refills is at Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Maybe it is catching on, finally.  (It's the little things in life that bring me such great joy!)

We are home for 5 days and then off again.  

(Our schedule has been so packed and will continue to be through the end of the year that I'm having a difficult time remembering where I've been and where I'm headed next.  :-)   This morning, Glenn asked me where we were just before we went to stay with the girls.  It took me a minute to remember-Germany!  I thought I was the only one having trouble keeping up with our travels, but evidently not!)