A long overdue visit...

My big brother and his family live in Greenville, and though we see them on a pretty regular basis here in Atlanta, we have not actually been UP to visit them since Ryan was born at 33 weeks and was in the NICU. Ryan's five now, so shame on us for taking so long to come back.

When we arrived, Ashley and Abby Jane got right to work in the kitchen.

They weren't the only ones working in kitchens. New granite countertops were just being finished that afternoon, and Joy was fascinated.

We got to celebrate turning three one more time!

My brother's a great dad.

Saturday was a gorgeous, perfect day, and we went to the zoo in the morning. This was Blythey's moment. She was bubbling over with excitement the whole time. Before this visit, her only animal sound was the elephant. While we were there, she did elephant, monkey, alligator, lion, and chicken. So all she needed was motivation, apparently!

"Mom, did you see that?"

Joy's reaction was to be content until an animal moved.

Then, at every exhibit, as soon as an animal moved, she would say, "All done! Bye bye!" repeatedly, rounding it out with hand signals.

While Blythe just waved and giggled away.

Two sets of big girl pigtails on Abby Jane and Ashley...

How cute are the orangoutangs kissing? The baby's name is Bob.

All six kids...

Then we went to the Greenville Riverplace, which I was officially obsessed with. If we lived in Greenville, this would be where I would hang a LOT. There was so, so much to do, and all of it OUTSIDE!

Joy refused to be contained in the stroller or anyone's arms and preferred to do her current walk/amble/perpetual forward fall the whole way.

After naps in the afternoon, we hit the neighborhood park, and the twins loved the slides!

Joy's hair is hilarious on end.

During naps and after the kids went to bed, the adults played Wii- it's humbling when you don't play games like that often- but pretty hilarious, too.

We left after church on Sunday. Thank you, Elliott fam, for a perfect getaway and refreshing, fabulous family time! We surely love y'all!!