Sunday, 9/18, we had another family get-together, this time a baby shower for Jenn and Kevin, whose baby girl is due next month. The grandsons were over with Dawn, and Lynne's sister Ruth came over as well, and with Elex and Mom, we had a full house.

John, the youngest, had been out in the yard with his brother Andrew, doing their usual routine of "Critter Hunters of Clayton", looking for lizards or frogs or pretty much anything that moves. I had just taken a couple pictures of them just 'being boys', The camera hadn't been down but maybe 30 seconds when I heard in an excited voice... "Mr. Tom, come quick and bring the camera!! John found some TURTLES!!!!" Sure enough, we all go rushing down to where I had just taken a picture of John and Andrew at, and there he was, showing off his newly found hatch of 4 turtles!!!! In the pictures, Andrew is holding 2, and John has one. The 4th one we left down by the nest while we looked at these.

The amazing thing about this is....we didn't even know we had turtles on the property, let alone a turtle nest! Had the woodland garden paths not been raked that morning, and had John not been out there looking for 'his' critters, we wouldn't know today that we had these cute little newborn guys in the yard. What made it really special, though was seeing the sparkle in the boys' eyes with their new discovery.
In the last picture, Brad listens in, while Dawn, and Jenn, our expectant daughter-in-law, discuss the most recent additions to the family- as Andrew heads off with 2 of the turtles for he and John to take home to their yard.

Life is well in the Heartland.