Bean Museum with the Farmer Cousins & Brynne's New Talent

My sister Alyson came to visit with her five boys on Wednesday. Her kids had Spring Break, and decided to spend a night with us. Amazingly, the boys all found something in our "girl-laden" playroom to play with while Aly and I relaxed and visited for a little while. Then we loaded everyone up and headed to the Bean Museum on the BYU campus.

Adam and I didn't make this picture, but here's everyone else: Isaac, Aly, Brynne, Alex, Cayden, Drew, and Morgan:
Brynne wanted me to take her picture with the cute "Lady Bugs." If you enlarge the picture, you can tell that those cute lady bugs are clearly marked as "Japanese Beetles". :)

Here are Aly's youngest twins -- Adam and Isaac -- standing by the elephant. These boys are very, very cute; but they're also very fast! (Good news, though, the worst thing that happened was that the antelope almost got knocked over; and it turns out the alarm in the elevator works great!) :)

After looking around at all the exhibits, the older cousins plopped down on a bench to watch a movie about dolphins. Although they look less than thrilled in this picture, they did have a good time. They especially liked getting to see the tarantula and getting to touch the live snake.

We got home just in time to put on a movie for the kids while we hurried to make dinner. Then we went to the swimming pool in Provo. The kids had tons of fun swimming, and Brynne discovered that she can actually swim! Prior to this visit, she would sometimes put her face in for a few seconds and could "doggie paddle" for about 8-10 feet; but this time she put on the goggles, got on her tummy, put her face in the water, and actually kicked and paddled her arms a few times. Oh the joys! :)

Amazingly, we had the kids all asleep within 45 minutes of arriving back at our house. Can you guess what Aly and I did with our free time before we needed to go to bed ourselves? We sat on the couch and read!! Oh yes, you know you're close with your sister when you can just sit down and pull out some good books without having to feel guilty about not visiting. Life is good! :)