we're social!

It feels so good to have just moved here one month ago and to be so busy and have so many friends to visit with!!

Friday night, we went out to see the Laughlins as we were invited to take part in their second annual summer barbeque. We had so much fun! And it was so nice to know half of the people there!! It was a full house. Both the Rodney Malone family and the Micheal Malone family headed to Columbia to join us, and we got to visit with The Powells who live in Columbia also. Laura and Geoffrey have two little girls; 22 months and 3 months (the same exact ages as Taegen and Tasi), there was another little girl there who was two years old and Sawyer had a blast running around with these little toddlers. Poor Savannah was the odd man out with three toddlers and three infants, but she had a good time anyway. I didn't take many pictures, but Kasey did and if you're interested, you can head over here to see a few.
It was a really late night... full of lots of food, lots of drinks, games, and lots and lots of laughs. We stayed the night so we didn't have to make an hour-and-a-half drive at 2 in the morning.

The next day we had a neighborhood barbeque to go to. One of Savannah's new friends across the street had a birthday (a combo celebration for her little sister's b-day too) and we were invited to join all of their family and lots of our neighbors for a big party. You should have seen their backyard... they had the usual swingset/climber, they have a trampoline, a see-saw, a couple of smaller little tykes climbers, and they had also borrowed an inflatable bouncer thingy for the smaller kids, and a huge inflatable water slide. These were both borrowed from other families in the neighborhood! (so we are set if we want an outdoor kid's party here!!)
It was a really great party, really great time... we are so lucky to have such fun neighbors! Four other families from right here were there and it is so nice to see neighbors be such great friends. And they are all people we immediately felt comfortable with and that we will definitely be seeing much more of in the future! I haven't had "neighborhood friends" since I was 9 years old. Growing up through jr. high and high school, we didn't know our neighbors and as an adult, I've never been in a neighbor-feeling neighborhood on my own. It is amazing there are so many young families here and everyone is so "neighborly". Last year, after we had just one lady from down the street bring us a houseplant and introduce herself, we had to make the effort on meeting the rest of our neighbors and hardly spoke to them again after that.
This year, in the first week, we had four families bring us brownies, donuts, fresh fruit, and wine with their names and phone numbers to say hi and welcome and let us know if you need anything. This is our kind of neighborhood!!

So that was our fun-filled weekend. Lots of stuff going on Friday and Saturday... then we pretty much spent today laying low and recooperating. Sawyer actually slept in today (he's been up by 6am every day for weeks now). We had to wake him up at 9:30 to go to church today. That is unheard of for him!! If only he'd do that more often... or at least tomorrow?....


Geez... I should have titled this post "how many times do you think I can use the word neighbor/neighborhood/neighborly???"