A Visit from Mom & Dad!

I can't believe it's been almost 7 months since my last blog post.  Major fail!  We've had so many changes in our family recently -- I'm sure I'll be catching up for the next several weeks.  The two biggest changes have been buying our first house and getting a puppy!  I'll do posts about each of these with pictures later, but I thought I'd mention them because they show up in the pictures for THIS post:  a weekend visit from my parents!

We haven't seen my parents (who live in Utah) since the beginning of January, so you can imagine how excited we were to have them come for a visit!  With the way the airline schedule works here, they could only come for a weekend.... but we packed a TON of fun into those few days :-)

Here we are with my mom in front of our house.  We should have snapped one then with my dad too, but we forgot!

The most noteworthy part of the weekend was when we went to the 2014 World Championship Squirrel Cook-Off, located at the town square here in good ol' Bentonville, AR.  This was the third year for the cook-off, and I read that it helps Arkansans embrace their "hillbilly heritage" or something like that.  The competition attracts people from all over the world, and there were approximately 40 teams this year competing for the title "Best of the Best."  Also, apparently it's illegal to sell squirrel as food, but if someone happens to be cooking it (say, by the side of the road) and you try a free sample, then it's legally okay...  So we wandered around the square and tried several different squirrel foods:

Our First Bites of Squirrel (squirrel meatballs)

Dad's First Bite of Squirrel

Steve's favorite.  They're some kind of deep fried squirrel and cheddar ball.

Squirrel Taco

Surprise! Steve found buckshot in one of his meals...haha

Squirrel Ice Cream.  This was my favorite!

Squirrel Meatloaf.  I guess this was the winning item this year.

And here's a picture of one of the funny guys cooking the food!  What a character.

We found some funny t-shirts at the squirrel cook-off, and couldn't resist getting them!  On the back they say "Squirrel: It's what's for supper!"

 

We also showed my parents the farmer's market, Walmart museum,  Walmart Home Office (where Steve works), Flying Fish Restaurant, and many other places!

Fun art wall by town square

This is at the Flying Fish Restaurant, where we tried catfish.  So many new experiences!

It was so great to see my parents and show them around our corner of the world, and it was especially nice to have them in our new home!  We talked and laughed, played some games (which made us laugh ever harder), and simply enjoyed being together!  Oh, and we couldn't forget to take some Sunday family pictures :-)

My parents and I (plus Oscar the puppy)

Steve, Heidi, & Oscar

Thanks for coming to see us, Mom and Dad. We had a blast and we love you so much!