visitors

My brother (Noah) and his wife (Kristi) and their four kids drove on over from San Diego to join us for the VisionWalk this last weekend (and to visit some other family too).

They were so nice to make the trek, especially considering the fact that their last road trip was quite an adventure. Click HERE to read about that one.

Yeah, they were really nice.

Our kids were as giddy as could be waiting for their arrival. They ran in and squealed in delight when they saw them roll in around the corner and we all ran out and peeled them out of the car.
I was so excited to get my hands on their new little baby Bennett who I hadn't met yet:
He was very excited to meet me too. Can you tell?


We spent the evening having a super duper late dinner and watching the kids get along like peas in a pod.
(Do you like Claire's soccer gear? One shin guard over-the-sock, one under. Gotta love that style.)It's always fun to have Uncle Josh around.

At the VisionWalk I don't know what we would have done without Noah to lug Lucy around since Dave and I wanted her to get some good exercise and left our jogging stroller behind. Hmmmm. That worked like a charm.As you can see, they had some free arms and were really in need of something else to lug around...

One of those small children of theirs even got lost for kind of a long time.

They will go back with great memories of that walk, I'm sure :)

Thanks guys.

After the VisionWalk they joined us for a typical Saturday of running from one thing to the next.

We raced over to Elle's tennis tournament first:
Since my brother Josh was with us, he got some cool shots of Elle's serves. It looks kind of cool when you scroll them quick because it's like it's her serve in slow-motion. This is as good as I could do for the blog:
I love the place Elle has her tennis matches. It's beautiful and it's by a really small airport so you get this view from above quite often:
Elle played in the advanced level again and got cremated again, but it was a different level of getting beat. She played really well and tried hard. We were proud of her.

We had to scoot out to Claire's soccer game before she finished (since it was one of the first games of the whole season we have been here to cheer for...click back HERE for our on-the-ball parenting techniques).

Before we left Noah left Elle with a good little pep talk.
Which actually really helped her come back in her last match.

The new temple is going up en route to the soccer matches:Isn't it beautiful?

It was HOT out there.

Thank goodness for umbrellas.
Claire's most exciting part was the drink Grace gave her after the game:
I really should have a picture of her cheering section...all of us huddled under an umbrella sitting on the dirt covered in children of all sizes.

This will have to suffice...leaving the game in all her glory.

We came home to cool off in the pool:
The kids braved the still-pretty-cold water and even the water slide.

Some liked it more than others. I love these expressions:

But they were pretty proud that they conquered their fears.
That night the boys headed off to the Priesthood session of conference:
(Josh went too, but met them there...and Max just drank some red Crystal Light...)

While they were gone Kristi and I talked while the kids created art on the back patio:

That night we left the big kids in charge and headed out to eat with the adults. Then we stayed up 'til 2:00am talking about everything you can imagine...except for the couple snippets where I fell asleep while talking.

The next morning we got to relax a little.

And watch conference over a huge breakfast.

I will say two things about that:

1) I LOVE conference. It's when we stay at home for church and watch all the church leaders give us guidance and inspiration over the television. To catch my favorite talks so far are HERE and HERE (that last one made me cry...especially in light of the VisionWalk and how many people have rallied around us for Lucy's cause)...I'm still catching up on the Saturday stuff we missed.

2) We need a baby.

We made our traditional conference cinnamon rolls:

And I got Max with my traditional "signature" plastic-in-his-food April Fools joke: (this time in his cinnamon roll...more about that HERE and every year on April 1st).

We realized that our kids combined made up the same number in almost the same age-span my parents had.
Can you imagine having all those kids be your own?

Lila's face doesn't show it but man alive these two had fun together.
And each of our other kids could have carried the babies around on their hips all weekend and still not had their fill of them.

We sure love you guys!

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