Visitors from Colorado

Over Memorial Day weekend we were lucky enough to have Dan's Mom, Sister Angie, Brother-in-law Shane and our niece Lindsay visiting us for a long weekend. Mom stayed with us while the Ransoms booked a room at nearby hotel with a pool!

Highlights from the visit included a trip to the Botanical garden where we climbed trees:

Mary, Lindsay and Angie climbing "trees"

 Strolled through the iris and peony gardens.

Lindsay in front of the Peonies

Sonja, Mary and Angie in the Peony Garden

Dan and his Mom in front of the Iris Garden

 We also toured the butterfly garden where one of the volunteers enticed a butterfly on to Lindsay

Lindsay and her Butterfly

 After seeing the volunteer capture a butterfly Dan successfully caught one too and made good friends with it.

Dan, the Butterfly Whisperer

 We also enjoyed  a walk through the Japanese stroll garden. A group of overprotective geese were not, however, so happy we were waltzing through their territory close to their goslings so we had to reroute our path on a few occasions.

Mama Goose protecting her Goslings

 The geese were also interested in the fish food we had for the koi. At one point Lindsay was surrounded by goslings who wanted a piece and one brave one went right up to her and gave her a little peck on Lindsay's leg to make sure she got her share!

Lindsay and Dan feeding some Koi fish

One beautiful spring evening we went downtown to watch the Springfield Cardinals in action. Unfortunately we did not get to see a Cardinal victory, but we did get to see a Cardinal home run :-).

Shane, Angie and Dan at the Ballpark

 Another fun part of their visit was our trip to Fantastic Caverns where we rode through a massive cave system and got to experience "total darkness".

Stalactite and Stalagmites Galore

Angie modeling her new Coon Skin Cap