The Relatives Came

 There's this book called "The Relatives Came" and it totally describes how I feel whenever we load up our van with suitcases and bags and drive across the country to visit people we love.  We sort of just show up at houses and drink all their root beer and eat all their popsicles and turn their regular lives upside down for awhile.  I love this picture of the car just crashing through the fence, bags flying and everyone smiling and waving.  We've never wrecked anyone's fence but oh, this is so us!

 Then it's into the house for so much laughing and shining faces and hugging in doorways.  Those relatives!

That's how it feels to see all the people I love.  So many relatives!  Here we are at Grandma Joycie's house.  I can't even describe how much I adore my grandma.  How much I love visiting her and being with her.  She is still just as classy, charming, and entertaining as she ever was. 

She served us all root beer, cookies, cherries, and sandwiches.

These girls just love her home. Everything fancy!

The boys love playing pool and foosball.

And opening her big trunk of toys.  These kids could have stayed all day.  Oh wait, they did!

Clayton is taller than Grandma Joycie now. 

But Eliza's not.  Oh, how we love Grandma Joycie!

We also crashed Vivien's birthday party.  I don't have any pictures of their amazing new home in North Salt Lake (boo. . .) but I did snap a few at Kangaroo Zoo.  These kids went nuts together!  I loved it.

Here we are visiting Mandy's beautiful new home in Ogden. I love her decorating style. The highlights for sure (as you can see from the picture) were Baby Eleanor and Rowdy (best dog I have EVER met.  Seriously made me rethink my no dog policy)

The kids also enjoyed playing in the backyard.  We even came back the next day for more fun.

And watching the chickens next door.  Rowdy kept a close eye on those hens as well.

Aw, look at those eyes.  This dog doesn't smell, doesn't shed, doesn't beg, doesn't slobber or sniff in places he shouldn't.  He doesn't bark - EVER.  He sits.  He plays catch. He obeys. I mean, seriously!  I love this dog.

Here we are visiting Grandma Nina in Provo.  She is as sharp as a tack (reading Hugh Nibley!) and so much fun to visit.  She has a room full of Beanie Baby animals (left over from Grandpa Jack's pharmacy days). She always let the kids pick something they love to take with them.  These special animals are so treasured.

 The girls are petting the "deer" in the backyard.  They thought this baby was real and kept telling me to shhhh, be quiet not to scare the baby deer.  So cute.

Grandma Nina also gave Clayton a whole ream of old computer paper.  Which he went to town with in the car making origami everything.  He used is multi-colored pen from Disneyland to decorate them.  Then he gave them away as gifts to all the relatives.  That awesome Clayton!

The next stop was Aunt Jackie's house.  Where we enjoyed a refreshing rest from our long drive.  We ate up all her popsicles and depleted her supply of ice water.  We also ran off our energy with a few rounds of backyard baseball.

There were baby birds inside this tree knot.  We could hear them but we couldn't see them.

Love this picture of Clay. . .

Lydia is deciding if this serious owl is real or not.

Aunt Jackie is showing Eliza the little green apples from her tree.

The game was over every time Brig was up at bat.  The ball was lost over the neighbor's fence.

Aunt Jackie's roses were gorgeous.

So was this tree with pink leaves.

We love all our relatives.

And whenever we leave, this is how it is.  Waving and calling our goodbyes until our relatives our out of sight - leaving their homes quiet and back to normal again.