the photo challenge: joy. and jen-and-pj's visit.

Alrighty. First of all, the Paper Mama started this and it's her gig. 

Second of all, this isn't my kid. No way, no how....like, what on earth did i post that i said this in the original post?! [sat jan 15 2011]

Third of all, I just ground the last of my Bolivian Blend whole bean coffee from Trader Joe's, and mixed that with a bit of Gevalia coffee (given to me by that sweet lady at church) --that being flavored raspberry chocolate. But for some reason, it smells and tastes faintly of bananas. Not a bad thing, but not raspberry-chocolate. Ya get what I'm saying?

Anyhow.

Whether you're followin' me thought process or not, Monday we get co-op and more Cafe Altura dark roasted whole beans. Mmm. (Sorry for the Irish accent with the 'me' instead of 'my'; I just spent 1/2 an hour with Gerard Butler and others, creating the funkiest card you ever did saw for our dear Heather's 2-th birthday...Harhar.)

'Kay. Onto the picture.

A few minutes later...

I admit failure. I'm not too sure I can do it right now... don't have a kid, don't want to ask permission to post a picture of a smiling child we know, and . . . can't find any pictures of us kids when we were little, with a joyful face . . . I'm not digging through photo bins right now. Nope.

So.

While I was looking through my laptop at pictures for a joyful one, and I ran across these from January 2010.

This is Grammy's kitchen, and last time they came, in 2008, we took one just like it then. But I'm not posting that one.

Well, maybe. You asked for it.

See how much difference 2 years can make on a person? Okay. Moving right along.

We went to the cute coffee shop up town. These are in random order... 

Anna and Jen made tiramisu... Mmmm:)

Jen was a dear and helped Caleb with his dishes after dinner. :)

PJ and me, against the cool brick wall in the random courtyard down from the coffee shop.

Okay, so for the first night I made mocha cheesecake. It turned out amazing. We had such interesting conversations while eating the last huge piece at Grammy's after dinner with the family at home. Hahahah. 

Fun, fun. Jen, you're getting static. :)

Okay, so we tried something different. It was hard to look this good, folks. ;)

Awww, look at our gorgeous older sisters. We were all ready, waiting for the ride to church . . .so of course we used this time:)

There's me and PJ. Tired as heck.

After church, in the evening, while watching the newest version of Emma, we did henna tattoos. I was the artist...and it was very, very, very fun. Too bad they didn't last longer. 

There I am, doing myself. That was fun. It was a great experience, and we threw around ideas that my coffee shop someday will have henna tattoos available. ;)

Everyone got a henna tattoo. Except for Mom and Dad. Heh heh.

In Grammy's kitchen again. Look at the height differences. I love it:)

Looks like a group hug. Around PJ. And then, our type of 'silly' photo. Harhar.

Okay. Anna made us take a bunch of pictures outside. Let me tell you again that this is winter. January. In the Midwest. 

Freezing!!!!

Nice and solemn. I personally think I suck at solemn faces... and gosh, Jen. What a smile:) 

Yep, this is our try for a gangsta look. I love the bare hand and the mitten. Harhar. 

Ha, we were cold. PJ's teeth were chattering. No, mine were. But she was colder than me; see the difference in sleeve length on all of us. 

We were f-f-f-f-fah-reeeeezing. 

But we smiled. So oh well. 

Love this. She always says she feels like a shrimp around me, but there's really not that much of a height difference.

Okay, I said they were in random order. We played piano, and it was beautiful. :)

There's us: Jen, Anna, me, and PJ. Ironic thing is, we're holding the salad Anna ripped up, and they're holding the thing they made. Ha. We were...doing other things. Not in the kitchen.

I love sitting on benches, don't you? ;)

Okay, I'm going to start boo-hooing. Tearing up. Maybe. This was the last night, on our walk to Gram's. It was snowing. It was beautiful. *sniff, sniff* It was their last night. The next day, back on the tram down south for (6-7 hours in a van) a few hours.

That's the street with our footprints in the glow of the streetlight. There's our hands, after much talking, laughing, conversing, eating, drinking tea/coffee, and praying.

This was the next day. Them and the little girls before saying goodbye, and that's a shot of the road that I took when we were on our way to pick them up from the Tram.

Us, outside of...well, you see the sign. Mom took this from the van. We went in and sat to drink coffee and talk with Heather and Stephanie for a while.

Click to view larger. We had a lovely time. Coffee and good friends? Wonderful. :)
I love sisters. And friends that are sisters.

Well. That's a post on joy if I ever saw it. :)
But I don't expect it to qualify for any sort of challenge, so breathe deep.
Oh, random fact? The other day I finished the book of John. So good.
And I have dishes to wash. And I'm hungry.
Have a lovely night:) I'll write some other time about the storm we had last night.

p.s. Check out Madeline Bea--beautiful pictures:)

Just thought you'd want to know that. ;)