Today is Hailey’s first day of 3rd grade. It doesn’t seem possible.

Good luck Hailey!

Wow, what a week! We had so many people come and visit us from Arizona. We got a call from Kevin and Vieng that they were coming up from Tucson so it was good to see them again. They came up for a wedding and stayed a few days with us. Fortunately we were able to find a babysitter and go out to eat with them. I have been working on Kevin and Vieng to come up and live here. I have been using the weather as a weapon every time I would call saying, “Yeah, it’s only like 72 degrees right now. How hot is it there?” When they finally come up, it is frikin 102! Sheesh.

Justin and Tia also came up for the second time in as many weeks. Poor Tia, she wasn’t even coming up for fun. She was coming up for paint. And if she says that is fun, something is seriously wrong with her because that was about as fun as pulling your own teeth out, for no good reason. Justin had a young men’s activity planned where they would be going to Temple Square and then on up to Wyoming to float the Snake river. That was happening on Friday and they invited us to go along. I offered to watch the kids and Juli went with Tia. When Juli got back she was just glowing. She had so much fun and said that it more than met her expectations. Something about fulfilling life long dreams and such. Hopefully she’s not hooked and lets me go next time.

So Tia came up and she painted and painted and painted. I tried to keep the Diet Dr. Pepper and Swedish Fish levels high but man can that girl swig a 52oz like nobody’s business. I think I paid more in soda than I did in paint! Just kidding Tia! You’re the bestest! The kitchen looks great even though it’s not a perfect finish. If you had stayed, I’m sure it would have been perfect but no, you had to leave me to finish it up. My fingers are still sore and raw from applying the glaze! We have more painting to do Tia so when you come up next week we can get started!

I also got the sprinkler system up and running for the front yard. I still have to do it manually but all the sprinkler heads are working now and we have water! The kids love it as evidence that they are constantly running through them. Speaking of which, because it’s manual for now, I had better get to it! I mean really it’s hot here today. Something like 86 degrees or some such nonsense!

You know what they say about fish and visitors don’t you? They stink after 3 days. Well we had family come for 4 days to visit. Enough said No actually, it was a great visit. The kids loved seeing Mombee and Uncle Joey and Stinky Tia and Uncle Justin. Everyone just left and the kids stayed up so late last night they didn’t get up to say goodbye.

Everyone got here at 1:30am Tues morning. I know cause I got a call saying, “Where exactly is your house again?” That was fine because I wasn’t really sleeping anyways. I was excited that everyone was coming. Unfortunately I had to get up the next morning and go to work. That morning, Juli made everyone (except me) a huge breakfast and they just lounged around while I was at work. Do you notice a theme here? I’m at work when I get a text saying they are coming into town. We decide to meet at the Joesph Smith Memorial Building for lunch. We ate at The Garden and then went over and Joey and Mom took a tour of the new Church History Library. I went back to work. After work we met up at the Family History Library where Joey was doing some family history research. He came up for that, not to see us. Jerk. How bout your family in the now Joey?! Just kidding, he is great about doing that and a good example for the rest of us. Once he wrapped up we walked over to the Conference Center and took a tour of that building. 1.4 million square feet if you didn’t know. Afterwards we went home to relax.

Wednesday, Joey and I got up early and went to work. He went to the Family History Library and I worked half a day until we met up for lunch again with Mom, Tia and Justin. I got them passes to the Church Office Building where we went down to the cafeteria to eat. Afterwards, we went to the 26th floor’s observation deck. Wow what a view! Tia post some pictures of that! After the tour we walked over and saw the Joesph Smith movie where Joey cried like an inconsolable baby. It was sad, Joey’s crying that is. The movie was sad and good but man Joey, pull it together. I can say all this now because he is gone and probably wont come back. By the time I see him again, he will have forgotten the sting of my comments.

Friday, I decided to take the day off. We had some house stuff to take care of so my Mom and Joey went back downtown and we were going to meet them around 12:00pm to go to a session in the Salt Lake Temple. We all met up and got a bite to eat, went to the temple and it was closed! Joey knew it was closed but we didn’t listen to him. So Joey went back to the Family History Center and Juli, my Mom and myself went and did a session at the Jordan River Temple. We all met back up and just hung out at the house. It was a lot of fun to have everyone here. Hopefully the basement didn’t freeze you guys out so that you will want to come back.

This is a picture of either Tia not wanted to leave, or realizing that Joslin pee’d on her in the night.

I was browsing through some of my iPhone pictures and saw this one. When we were moving last week, Juli, Hailey, Noah and Joslin went back to the old house to clean up a bit. As time wore on, Joslin got tired. This is where we found her. It just happened to be in the spot where her crib used to be. Pretty sad but very funny.

The kids have started to make the adjustment. They now have stopped asking to ‘go home’ so that’s a good thing.