Family Visit 2013

We have a wonderful life here.  We have a great neighborhood, home, job, and baby, and I enjoy living near Erik's family.  With that said, I hate not living by family.  I am so jealous of my friends who get to hang out with their moms and sisters all the time, and my house would be 1,000,000 times cuter if I could engage my dad in slave labor more frequently.  It's probably not a huge shock that I get super excited whenever my family comes to visit, which thus far has been every summer for 3 or 4 days.  This year I was especially excited because my dad and my brother hadn't met Clara yet.  It felt weird to have a child my dad had never even seen.  We had a wonderful time, and when they left I cried like I had just found out Parenthood had been cancelled.

The biggest reason that they came on this particular week is that last Sunday Erik gave Clara her baby blessing.  Erik did a wonderful job and delivered a beautiful blessing.  Afterwards we had some friends and family over for a small lunch. I ordered 2 6-foot-subs from Walmart, which proved to be about 2.5 times too much sandwich.  Whoops.  Clara wore the same blessing dress that Nina and I wore, but I can't say that she particularly enjoyed wearing it.

My dad-project this summer was a garage door makeover where we put hardware and fake windows up.  This was a relatively simple project, especially if you were me and basically sat on the driveway and watched my dad do it.  In that case, it was an extremely simple project.  Our garage door sticks out quite a ways in front of our house, so I feel like it made a huge impact to spruce it up a bit.  We also made him hang a heavy picture in our bathroom and fix our fence.  My dad really knows how to vacation.

I didn't take a before picture.  Just think of a boring, ugly, plain white garage and then be impressed with how much cuter it is now. 

We also hung out at the lake.  I went tubing for the first time since giving birth, and was a little nervous about it.  This didn't stop Erik from throwing me off the tube.  I guess he forgot who controls how much sleep he gets at night and the fact that the whole forgive/forget concept is lost on me.

We did lots of other stuff too.  My parents babysat Clara while Nina and I did our runs and while we went to the movies.  The girls did a coconut oil hair mask, which made my hair soft and shiny, but also a little greasy.  We watched 17 Miracles to help Nina prepare for Trek, which only reinforced that I would have been the worst pioneer ever.  Seriously, I would have just gone into the woods and waited to die, but I digress.  Having my family visit and having all the people I love most so close to me is my favorite week of the year.  I am bummed that they are gone, but glad to have Nina with me for a couple more weeks, and excited to come to Idaho in August. In the meantime, I am just trying to figure out an app that would enable my dad to complete home improvement projects for me via facetime.  When I get it figured out I'm totally buying myself lipo-suction with my earnings.

Sweet Nona and baby

Coconut oil hair masks.  Not all that amazing, Pinterest lied.

Clara would like to point out that their visit was not all kicks and giggles