Family Time

For the first three weeks of July I had a lot of my family in town visiting!  It was fun, and long, and so great having Louis take two weeks off of work!  Those two weeks felt so long too which was wonderful, but also hard once Louis had to go back to work!
Our time with my family was great and we did a lot, but I took almost no pictures!  Here are some of the highlights.

Running a 5K with some of my family.  When I say running I mean run/walk/run/walk/run/walk.

The Aerospace Museum.  When we first moved to Utah 19 years ago my Dad said he'd take me to the Aerospace Museum, a few weeks ago he finally did!  The museum is a lot bigger than I imagined and we all had a good time running around and seeing all of the planes.

The Minion movie.  This was so fun!  I wasn't sure how Mary would do at the theater, it was her first movie theater movie, but she did so great!  She loved the movie and just giggled and said, "Silly minions!" for the first 20 minutes of the movie!  It was a good one!

Long walk around my parent's neighborhood.  Up their GIANT hill!

Cousin time.  I'm so glad that we have cousins that live close by for my kids to play with.  I didn't have that the first part of growing up and it is so nice seeing my kids play with my siblings kids!

Salt Lake and our kids first trip to temple square!  We met up with the Morans for a bit, had lunch and walked around temple square.  I even got Jared to recreate proposing to Sarah in the same spot he proposed to her years ago!

Side note:  Avery really wanted to see President Monson while we were there.  

She even said a prayer that Heavenly Father would bless her and she could meet him.

This was as close as she got.  I tried to get her excited, "Look there's President Monson!"

Her response though was, "No Mom.  I wanted to see the real one."

Family pictures.  All 37 of us were only together for about 2 hours during the 3 weeks we had family in town!  Luckily we were able to get pictures taken in those 2 hours!  I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't happen again.

I'm grateful for the good family I've been blessed with.  I have some amazing people around me!

Happy Birthday Papa!

A couple weeks back we got to celebrate Louis' Dad's birthday!  He is one of our favorite people.  Avery loves celebrating everything and had fun celebrating one of her favorite people.  We decided to decorate their house as a surprise for Joel and he let me know that he appreciated it and it was probably the first time in 20 years that his house had been decorated for his birthday.  I'm glad that this simple idea was greatly appreciated.  We also were able to have a BBQ with the family and of course cake!  It was a fun simple night celebrating Papa!  

Home Again, Home Again!

A week ago today my parents returned home from their two year LDS mission in Milan, Italy.  They were serving there as military relations missionaries.  I think the highlight of their service was teaching seminary for the two school years they were there.
The day they got home those who were going to the airport mot up at Ben's house for lunch.  While we were there we found out that my parent's flight was 20 minutes ahead of schedule!  We rushed out to the airport and seeing as it was a Wednesday and lots of missionaries were coming home, the parking garage was completely full!  We were directed to the economy lot and had to take a shuttle back to the airport.  We got in there and there were so many people waiting for their missionaries!
About 5-10 minutes later we realized that there was a whole other building for international arrivals!  We got over there and Mom and Dad had already come down the escalator!  They said lots of people clapped for them, but they looked around and there was no family to be seen!So sad.  Hopefully Avery made up for it with the 20+ hugs she gave my dad that day!

It kind of felt like my parents had never left.  It was a fast two years.  I think it helps that with senior missionaries you can call and e-mail them whenever you want.  That was really nice to be able to do.
I am very grateful that I had such wonderful parents to raise me.  They have always been a wonderful example to me and taught me to be a good person.  Through out the last two years I have come to appreciate that more.
I am looking forward to the next few weeks as my siblings come in to Utah!  And the half a day when all 37 of us will be together!