Sisters/Cousins

I have been blessed with some very wonderful sisters. (Both David and I have been blessed with wonderful sisters.) I love them and am so grateful for the good relationships that I have with them. Now that my sisters are both married and starting families of their own, I want so badly to have all of our children be close and good friends. Camille is my first niece on the Walker side, and she holds a special place in my heart. I wish that Jenna, her mama, and her lived just a tiny bit closer so that we could see them more often - but I love that oftentimes when they come down to visit, they stay at our house and play with us for several days at a time. It's wonderful bonding time and we always love it when they come to stay. 

Lydia absolutely adores Camille. She hands her toys and makes sure that her binkie stays in her mouth. I can't wait until Camille is just a little bigger and they can run around together - but already they are interacting more and more! Jenna came down to stay the weekend that we had family pictures and went to the Manti Temple with Jacob. Lydia and Camille looked so cute in their matching dresses. 

Then Jenna and Camille came down after Jacob's farewell (on Tuesday) and stayed with us until this morning (Friday). Neither Lydia or I were feeling our very best (we both have little colds or something) but we were still able to go and do lots of really fun things together.  

 

We had been talking all weekend about going to the swimming pool on Tuesday when they got here, but unfortunately it was pretty stormy outside. That nixed our community pool idea, but after a while of hanging out and talking about it, David texted me and reminded me that we could just go to the Lehi Legacy Center to go swimming because they have an indoor pool! We decided that was exactly what we wanted to do - so we packed up and headed to the pool. It was a really nice time, Camille had never really been swimming before and she did really well. Lydia wasn't really keen on the idea of just hanging out in one area and kept trying to go off by herself ("I do it by my-seff!") and didn't really want me helping her. She was wearing a life jacket - so that was fine in the shallow end, but she kept wanting to go out "by my-seff" into the deep water. Ay-yi-yi. She's going to be the death of me. We played on the toddler slides for a while, and even took a couple of turns taking Lydia down the big water slide (which was really fun). If you ask Lydia about the pool, she'll say "I go down da slide - get water in my eye." Haha. Silly girl. I'm so glad that we went though, because it was fun to be with Jenna.  

Wednesday was the day that we met up with everyone and dropped Jacob off at the MTC. Afterwards, Melissa came over to our house and we all went swimming again at our community pool. No one was there, and it was so fun to be with my sisters there. Lydia still wasn't feeling her best - so she was being a little stubborn and didn't want to play with anyone that wasn't doing exactly what she wanted to do at that precise time - but we had fun anyway. After the pool we came back, fed them, gave the girls a bath and put them to bed.  

 

After the littles were in bed, my sisters and I made dinner for ourselves and then treated ourselves to some manicures. Jenna had gotten some sample Jamberry nails as a prize for playing a game in a Jamberry party, so we each picked one sample as an accent finger and I pulled out my meager fingernail polish supply and we spent the evening laughing and talking about random things. (David worked until almost ten, which was super lame - but I'm grateful my sisters were with me and I wasn't alone!)  

David had to work late the next night, too, and Kevin was gone driving truck - so Jenna decided to stay another night because there's no reason for both of us to be alone! We had a more laid-back day, just ran some errands and did a few things around the house, then put the girls in bed again and watched Chopped on TV. Jenna is probably the most fun person to watch Chopped with. She had me laughing the whole night - she's just really clever. It was just nice to spend time together. 

Sidenote: Jenna's trip was not all sunshine and rainbows. We woke up Wednesday morning to the awful realization that we had forgotten to move her car onto the driveway and off of the street the night before. Our lame HOA has a rule about overnight parking and her car had been towed to a shady tow-lot in Midvale. As soon as I realized it in the morning, I was so upset. I cried several times throughout the day, it was so upsetting to me. It's just so lame because, well... we own our house. I felt like I was back in Logan dealing with the ridiculous parking rules in all the apartment housing again. Grr. I'm getting upset again just thinking about it. I'd heard that the towing fee was $300 (and I know that several people have paid at least $250), but when we called the fee was only $221.75. (I know... "only" right?) I felt terrible, and we ended up splitting the cost to get her car out. It's such a ridiculous thing, and I'm really mad about it - so I'm going to stop blogging about it before I start getting really worked up. But, it happened - it was lame - we dealt with it - now I've blogged about it.

Back to how grateful I am for wonderful sisters. Even though I haven't been feeling great this week (this darn cough- I really hope Camille doesn't get it) I am so glad that I got to spend some time with my sisters. I truly hope that Lydia and Camille, and all of the future cousins grow up loving each other as much as we do.