Oh, what a night!

Our dear friends the Grosses are leaving this week and we're all a bit tender about it at the moment.  Fortunately, we planned a slam bang finish to our time in Italy together...

We have had the chance to host Hannah (5) and Veronica (4) overnight on two previous occasions - once when their parents hosted a church outreach that went late into the night and the second time was a two night stretch when their baby brother Benjamin arrived in August.  Well, Karla and David were desperate to return the favor, but wanted to wait until all their household goods had been shipped...so...on their very last week in Sicily, with a completely empty house, they invited Elise and Caleb over for THEIR very first sleepover away from home!  The Grosses set a very high bar for all sleepovers to come - WOW! - here's a quick run down of the evenings events:

**Incidentally, I did not go undercover to take these pictures.  The movers packed Karla's camera battery, so I loaned her our camera for this historic event!

Gotta have a bouncy house!  (and, yes, it was INSIDE their big empty house!)

There was cookie baking...

...Elise, Caleb, Lucas, Hannah, Veronica, Benjamin, Brady, and Juliette!

...and rib eating...

...and special snacks galore thanks to Mr. David's sleepover shopping trip...

...and s'mores...

...and ice cream...oh, my!

The big tent in the living room!  When I chatted with Karla the next day she said "Oh, they did great!  I think everyone was asleep by 10:30."  (That would NOT have been my response!)  The kids went to bed with stories from Miss Karla and then drifted off to sleep while Mr. David read to them from Psalms.  So sweet!

Trek around the neighborhood the next morning.  Everyone was up at 6:30 a.m. - what else were they supposed to do?!

Brady was in charge of the map. 

Tired and HAPPY!

Wow...that was fun!  Thanks David, Karla and kids for making it such a special night!