Alisa and Natalie come to visit!

*(all of these pictures are courtesy of Alisa)

My dear friend Alisa and her daughter Natalie came for a visit during April. 

We hadn't seen them since we moved away from Arizona and we were all really looking forward to their visit. Alisa and I spent many a evening hour in AZ chatting and being each other's mommy-to-young-kids sounding board. And because we are kindred spirits we picked up right where we left off.

And the kids seemed to not be shy at all and had a great time playing. So fun to see them and to introduce them to our newest family member!

We enjoyed a tour of Darley Farm. This is a large horse farm owned by the Sheik of Dubai. 

Here are the kids posing in front of the super expensive trophies their horses have won. 

Cute mother-daughter picture in front of the fountains at Darley. 

Spring in the bluegrass is pretty, ya'll!

The kids spent hours one day digging in the dirt around the mailbox. I'm not even exactly sure what the goal was but they sure enjoyed it! The weather was lovely!

Heidi and Natalie discovered that their piano skills were about comparable to each other and that made for some pretty fun duets and tinkering around. There was a lot of piano playing that week. They also had both learned to read well since seeing each other so they thought reading books to each other was pretty neat. It was really fun to see how they both have grown and changed since seeing each other last.

On Friday we braved the crowds and caught the races at Keeneland. It was the final day of the spring meet and boy oh boy, it was crowded and crazy! 

The excitement ran high with the crowds!

After a couple hours of watching and keeping track of four small children, the mommies were ready to call it a day. Cute Matthew boy was a good trooper and called a lot of attention to himself as one of the youngest spectators.

On Saturday we went to the Arboretum to celebrate Arbor Day.

They had free admission to the Children's Garden and we took advantage of that. It is such a fun place for little ones and Heidi and Natalie had a grand time. Nathan had opted to go to the plumbing supply store with Trent instead. (That boy has his priorities right where he wants them to be!)

The girls had fun rubbing leaves in the "schoolhouse"

Exploring the little creek and playing in the vegetable garden. 

The week seemed to just fly by and we were so sad to see them off to Arizona on Sunday. Thank you so much for coming to Kentucky, Simonson girls!! We can't wait to see you again.