Monica & Seth Visit Us!

I haven't seen one of my best friends, Monica, in at least a couple of years. I was so excited that their family decided to come visit us this summer. They came Monday night on the 8th and stayed until the 11th. We did some swimming the first night. All except Garrett that is. Tuesday morning I took their family and our kids to see the Reach Museum. It happened to be a free entry day. The museum has a lot of stuff about atomic bombs that were created during the war here at the Hanford site in Richland. They also have a section of the museum about wildlife and other things around this area. We were there for about 2 hours I think.

Garrett thought this old typewriter was cool. He wants one.

By the time we got back, the kids and Seth were ready to get in the pool and swim!

That same evening, the adults scheduled to go to the temple right after Curtis got off of work. We went out to eat first at Red Robin. We have decided that it's not a good idea to go to this restaurant before going to the temple. The last two times we've gone with friends, they took a lot longer than we thought and we nearly missed our temple appointment. Fortunately, we made it just in time though (both times)! We even went out for ice cream afterwards at Baskin Robbins.

Monica and I decided that we could try to take the older kids to do baptisms Wednesday morning at the temple. They had enough openings available. Garrett didn't want to go though, so he stayed and watched the younger kids. We were able to get 29 names done that my dad had given me. Seth and Hayden were the ones to do the baptizing. I was dunked by Hayden. It was great to be there with them. Afterwards, we went to Wal-Mart so they could pick out a treat. We wanted to treat them for making the decision to go to the temple with us.

Jack, Caleb, Hayden, Monica, Seth

Curtis had to work, so it was just me and Jack from our family.

It was time again for swimming in the pool! This time I think all of us got in at some point, except for Garrett. I don't know why he doesn't want to swim this year. Even before Milo started swimming in the pool, he hasn't wanted to swim. I don't know why.

That evening, I watched "Wonka" with Monica, Seth and Curtis since Monica hadn't seen it yet. The 4 older boys went to mutual, which was a service project at a cannery in Pasco. They helped sort cans into boxes. All of them enjoyed doing that. 

The next morning was busy getting laundry done and packing up. Monica's and our family were both traveling to Nampa that night. I also had to take Milo to a new dog sitter that I found on rover.com because our usual sitter wasn't available, and neither were other families in our ward that we have used before. With all that going on, Monica and I decided to see how fast we could put together a puzzle. She picked out our winter puzzle. Good to do on a hot day, lol. I wasn't sure we'd be able to do it, but with Seth's help also, we were able to get it done in about 1 hour! It was 300 pieces.

We packed up as soon as Curtis got home, which was a little stressful with all the people we had but it was fun being able to caravan with their family. Both Garrett and Jack took turns driving our van.

Rachel and Alice "hanging" out at the gas station where we gassed up. It was the last time they got to see each other.

We stayed together as best we could until we got off on our exit to go to Grandma's house. They continued a little further to get to her parent's house. Their family lives in Bountiful now and headed home the next day. It was great having them come visit us all the way up in Washington!