Ben There, Done That

Marc has an inordinate number of friends named Ben. In the past two weeks alone, Marc has interacted with no less than five Ben friends. First, there was the Ben that Marc met because his daughter was in the NICU and Marc was caring for her. As it turned out, this Ben also happened to be friends with someone in our ward and he and Marc helped load their moving truck last Saturday morning. Then there is the Ben who is a resident in Marc's program and with whom Marc has a running text message conversation. There are two Bens from Marc's mission, one who is now in our ward and one who lives 2 hours away that we get to see on the weekends. Finally, there is the Ben that Marc met in high school because they both worked in the same ice cream parlor despite going to rival schools. They still play an occasional game together online. Our boys have given the Bens nicknames to keep them all straight. Marc's ice cream friend? "Computer Ben". Marc's resident friend? "Tall Ben". Marc's former mission companion that now lives in PA? "Badduru". That one probably needs some explanation. He has an interesting last name that is our boys' closest approximation of it. They also call him "Big Benjamin" in order to distinguish him from their brother "Little Benjamin". We really enjoy all the Benjamins in our lives. Here is a picture of "Tall Ben" reading to our boys on the couch. He is really great about playing with our kids whenever he swings by.

I also wanted to share these pictures of our trip to PA to visit "Badduru". They came to visit us this weekend and just left this afternoon. We had a really great time with them. It is kind of crazy to get together because between us we have seven little boys ages seven and under. At least they are expecting a girl in July so she will kind of even things out... okay not even close but team estrogen will take all the help we can get. :)

We hit the children's museum in Pittsburgh, PA. Gabriel's favorite thing was this three story vertical maze. All the boys called it the "giant hamster cage".

Benjamin was mesmerized by the spinning disks on this giant screw. I think he would have stayed there all day if we let him.

Elijah loved the make and take workshop with  recyclable materials and tools. He created this egg carton car to take home with him.

David John enjoyed the wheels room which included this tractor tire play area.

 They all liked the studio portion of the museum where you could paint, sculpt and make silk screens. From left to right these are Elijah's, Gabriel's and David John's paintings.

Here are all seven crazies on a trampoline at our friend's house.

We are so grateful for good friends, even if a ridiculous number of them are named "Ben".