Aunt Emily's Visit

It was SO nice to have my sister Emily here last week. Before she came, I was anticipating how nice it would be to see her and spend time with her. But I had no idea what a huge help she would be. I'm constantly running around with the kids - it's unusual to be at home for an entire day without leaving - and it was incredible to have an extra pair of hands around. It makes me want to get a nanny! j/j :-) Although it does remind me how much I miss having family around. It was good to just hang out with her and get to know her better. Anyway, I was worried that she might be bored here for 9 days so I tried to plan as many activities as possible. I had a lot of fun and I hope she did too. Here is a break down of our visit.

Sunday, May 28 - Her plane got in 20 minutes early so I didn't get there to meet her at baggage. But she did great and found her bags and met me outside.
Monday, May 29 - Memorial Day (see post); that night we went back to the Bailey's house to spend the week there. They have an extra room in the basement so she got to have her own room as opposed to sleeping in the den with us. We stayed there until Saturday morning.
Tuesday, May 30 - We went grocery shopping and then to Great Falls national park. It was fun to hike a little and look at the waterfalls. It was pretty hot!
Wednesday, May 31 - Strawberry picking! That night was Bible study and she was gracious enough to babysit all of the kids.
Thursday, June 1 - I introduced Emily to Indian food. We went to a buffet for lunch. I think she liked it! That afternoon I took her to a mall (a huge mall) and we shopped.
Friday, June 2 - We went to see "Mr. Knick-Knack" at the mall. He is a children's performer who performs in the play area every Friday. We used to go see him a lot but hadn't been in a while since I'd been working. We ate lunch and then we back to the house and Orin and Skye swam while Emily laid out. I took a nap! That night we went with the Baileys to the "Herndon Festival". By the way, it is so nice to have friends with our schedule. Most people we know with kids are early rises and the kids go to be early and stay on a pretty fixed schedule. The Bailey's are very laid back and spontaneous as are we. They also let their kids stay up late and sleep in. :-) We didn't get to the festival until 9pm. Orin was sooooo excited to ride on the bus from the sparking area to the fair. We sang "The Wheels on The Bus" almost the entire way. Once we got there we grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the area where the rides were located. We noticed a sign that said "Fair Closed" which didn't make sense since there were TONS of people and all of the rides were going. After some questions, we found out that they weren't selling any more tickets for the night and we couldn't get into the main area. :-( I was most disappointed since I wasn't going to be able to get cotton candy. There was a booth to get Funnel Cake so we stopped and ate for a while. Micaiah was fussing a little so Damien did something I never thought I'd see. He was dipping his passy into the powdered sugar and giving it to him! Needless to say, Micaiah loved it. After the funnel cake we all got some ice cream. The only ride outside of the main area was a Carousel so we bummed some tickets from people (actually, we offered to buy them but they gave them to us for free) and got enough to get the kids on. Orin really loved riding on the horse with Aunt Em-O-ly. Damien got a snow cone which Micaiah chowed down on as well. We left around 10:45pm to head back to the cars. Although we didn't get to do what we wanted, we had a blast and I think the kids had fun too.
Saturday, June 3 - We moved back to our place. We relaxed most of the day and went to church at 6pm. I didn't realize that we were already in June and didn't know I was suppose to supervise the nursery so it was good we went. After Church we went to a good friend Brandon's house to hang out. We had been trying to get together with him for a while. We came back to the house at 10 (Brandon came back with us) and watched the movie "Jesus Camp". It was a documentary about a Pentecostal camp for kids in North Dakota. I feel asleep around 1:30am but Brandon and Damien stayed up talking until almost 4am which happens every time they get together.
Sunday, June 4 - We were supposed to have a church-wide picnic at a local park but the weather was bad so they moved it to later in the day at the church. So we hang out at the house until the picnic at 4pm. After the food was an "Evening of Worship" that our church as once a month where we just sang for about an hour. It was great because the kids were with us and Orin enjoyed watching the guitars and drums.
Monday, June 5 - We went to a Chinese Buffet for lunch with friends. I wanted to take Emily to the pool at a local park but when we got there it was closed. So we went to the local Rec Center and swam at the indoor pool. It was great because they have a pretty nice swim area for kids and some water slides - all indoor.
Tuesday, June 6 - Took Emily to the airport. As we were leaving the house, Orin saw us bringing the suitcases and ran to get his Elmo suitcase. He brought it with us to the airport. So cute! We were able to get a pass to walk to the gate with her. Orin was a little disappointed because he wanted to go on the plane. We said our goodbyes!