Sickness, visitors and hot weather!

Well, summer is here! We were waiting and waiting for the "beautiful" June weather only to have it jump straight to 90 degrees, hot and muggy! Yuck! It was SOOOOO windy today that I was afraid if we went out, one of us would blow away!
Little Zakkai was sick for over a week with some (or a couple) nasty virus:( He had high fevers all weekend and was so quiet, which, considering how loud he is normally, was a definite sign that he didn't feel good! He fell asleep in my arms 3 nights in a row, one night at 5:45pm! Today was the first day he seemed to be feeling more like himself, praise the Lord!! He was walking everywhere today and talking more and smiling! I gave him his own set of keys since he threw outrageous tantrums over mine, so he walked around all day with his "key"..
Samuel is still doing fantastically with his potty training~yea!!! We went to the store to pick out some "big boy" underwear and he chose....Thomas underwear! Who would've guessed??! He usually wears them in the mornings and does great! And a few days ago, he added Gordon to his train collection because he did the #2 on the potty. Yea, Samuel! He was so proud and has taken Gordon pretty much everywhere with him since:) He has now informed me that he wants to have Toby, Rusty and Emily. I told him, "Maybe for your birthday...." We can't believe he's going to be 3 in just over 4 weeks!
My sister Gretchen and her hubby Gabe came to visit our city and we got to see them yesterday and went to the zoo! We thought it would be such lovely weather and were not prepared to sweat our way through our favorite zoo with about 1400 school kids! Samuel had a good time:) We made sure to see many of our favorites like Hudson Polar, the giraffes (Arnietta the baby!!), bison, camels and monkeys! One of the monkeys had everyone clapping to a rhythm and was putting on a show!
Ben leaves for Turkey in about 5 weeks. It is coming up so fast, it is scary! He got his plane ticket itinerary the other day and they couldn't find exact dates so now he is going to be gone 9 weeks instead of 8. (8 wasn't long enough??!!) We are thankful that he'll be here for Samuel's bday (and mine, too:) so we'll find some special way to celebrate as a family. I will keep updating through the summer and will need lots of encouragement since it will be very lonely being "husbandless." But the boys and I are looking forward to lots of Columbus-time!!!