Visiting the Donnenwerth's!

I'm coming off a little high from spending the weekend with our wonderful friends, the Donnenwerth's. Every time I see them, I love them a little bit more.  We go waayyy baack with Mike and Amy.  We all basically lived in the same house together in college.  (I say basically because it was actually Mike and Cary that lived there...Amy and I were visitors.)  ;)  We were with them the night they got engaged. Cary designed and printed their wedding invitations in his college room.  We helped them paint their first house.  We had babies 5 months apart...twice!  We did the softball thing together one summer. They've gone to Ely with us three different times. Amy and I went to grad school together and spent at least one evening night together for 2 years.  They have known us at our best and worst and they are just so much fun to be with.  I feel so blessed to have Amy as a friend who, although I only see her a few times a year, is one of the best friends a girl could have.  Cary and Mike have a fun relationship too and everything is just easy with them.  Luckily, our kids all get along so great too.  Carter and Macy are destined to be friends for life...I sort of hope they get married someday.  And Drew and Brynn are starting to be friends too.  This weekend ranked right pretty high in my book.

The Donnenwerth's now live in Winona, MN and Mike is in his first year of working as a Podiatrist.  I so miss the days when they lived on Loomis Avenue in Des Moines, but they've made their way around the country over the last three years.  We're just happy to have them less than 4 hours away. Their new home is beautiful and they welcomed us with open arms for the weekend - even when Carter threw up on their carpet within the first 5 minutes that we'd been there.

We spent the weekend just hanging out.  We ordered in pizza and stayed up talking way too late on Friday night.  On Saturday we toured the town, went to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard, ate the best donuts in town, made homemade pasta sauce, sat outside and watched the kids play, watched football, ate dinner, and stayed up again way too late into the night talking.  We came home yesterday with smiles on our faces and tired eyes.  As we pulled out of Winona Carter said "I wish they lived in a house right next to our's."  We couldn't agree more. But we love that we got to dedicate an entire weekend to just being together!

So many pictures...