The Keppys' Come To Visit!

We haven't had company at the house for a long time so were excited to have Jessi, Gary and the kids come down during Evan's spring break - it still seems strange to me that Evan has "spring break" because to me he should still be in pre-school!!

 

I spent Saturday morning preparing dishes to eat during the weekend so I wouldn't have to spend so much time in the kitchen - in fact, I tried 4 new recipes!!  I'm not usually one to try new ones on family or friends but all the ingredients sounded OK so I knew I couldn't go wrong!!  All 4 were listed on Facebook and they all come out just great!!  But only 2 are going in my recipe book because the Lemon Dessert was good but it's basically the same as my pistachio recipe except for the flavored pudding, and the Foil Potato recipe is what we always do when we camp except this recipe had more flavorings on it which I can remember without writing it down!

 

The two that are going in my cookbook are Strawberry Cheesecake Salad which is SO AMAZINGLY good that it shouldn't be categorized as a salad but a dessert and the Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Bake - this casserole was a pain to make because of all the pans you have to use AND the time it takes to make it but it was really good!!  I did make it ahead of time and stuck it in the frig and I believe doing it this way caused it to be "drier" than usual - so when I make it again, I will add some more liquid if I refrigerate it first!!

 

The Keppys arrived around 1:00pm on Saturday and after a quick lunch we headed over to Mueller State Park!

The kids enjoyed showing their folks the nature trail as Gary and Jessi hadn't been on it and we also took an "adult" hike which was close to a mile!!

It was chilly out but the brisk walk kept us warm - there was even snow on part of the trail which slowed us down!

We also hit the Visitor Center which is a cool place to walk around!!  There was a guy there with quite a gem collection and the guys and kids really enjoyed listening to him talk about rocks!!  I opted to just sit and relax during that!!

After an early dinner, everyone but Glenn went to W. Pk to see the movie "The Croods" - I owed Evan a movie and popcorn for part of his birthday present so this was the perfect time to take care of that!!  Everyone enjoyed the movie - it was REALLY a good one - and then it was back home for dessert and a game of Mexican Train!!

Evan chose to sleep upstairs with us which is his usual request and Kenzie took over the toy room for the night - even Gary who was fighting the tail end of a cold slept great!!  To be Cont'd........