We've missed Jenna (and Kevin) and the Haderlie kids over the past several months. I can hardly believe it was only April that they moved because it feels so much longer than that. We've been looking forward to them coming back to visit for a long time. I had thought that Jenna was going to drive out later in the week so that they could go to the Nauvoo pageant first, but then I Marco Poloed her to see what her exact plans were and she was already in Wyoming!!! She hadn't even told us that they had started driving! So I threw my kids in the car with a couple of markers and we raced them to Morgan. We only beat them by about 10 minutes! I'm so glad we were there to greet them with posters and huge smiles. (Plus Grandma and Grandpa bought a new swingset for the kids to play on!)
I convinced Jenna to spend a lot of her trip hanging out with me at my house. We did some fun things like walks, the swimming pool, and the splash pad. Plus Jenna helped me clean my basement in preparation for starting some framing-work down there this fall AND she cleaned my oven for me. I asked if she'd just move in, but she said no. (darn)
Jenna wanted to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Walker, too - so we decided to head back up that way for several days. We even convinced Grandpa Walker to take us out on the lake for a boating day.
We were glad that Melissa and Blake were able to join us boating, too. They are just the best Aunt and Uncle in the world. We are lucky to have them in our lives. The kids loved riding on the tube, even the ones who were a little nervous at first ended up really really enjoying it.
And then started our big "cousin-week". Jenna and Kevin flew out to Cambodia for the wedding celebration for Kevin's brother, Stephen. It was such a neat opportunity it was for them. We kept the kids at our house and had a great time. We verbally hashtagged our shenanigans with:
#7kids7andunder #andagrandma
Other people seemed worried about this week, but I knew it was going to be just fine. Mom came down to help, David came home early from work every day, and we had lots of support. (Surprisingly, instead of watching lots of TV - which I had kind of planned on - we just said that it was a no TV week and things went much better than they would have otherwise.)
It ended up being SO much better than good. It was wonderful!
We did lots of fun things- I mean we stayed at home basically all day every day - but when you have #7kids7andunder you can't help but do lots of fun things. Some were initiated by me (rainbow spaghetti) some were initiated by the kids (making plays in the basement). Toward the end of the week we even took them out for ice cream, plus Camille got to go with Lydia and Austin to their summer reading program pool party. Everyone survived the 8 days relatively unscathed, although as the week went on we had an increase in bumps and bruises - I'm just glad we came out as well as we did.
(The funniest story about Jason and Caleb. They got along great, most of the time, but when we asked Jason what he was doing he said "I'm blowing Caleb up so he will get bigger and not bite me anymore!" Poor guy- but great plan!
Jenna came back bearing gifts, and then just like that they were on their way to Idaho Falls for the real wedding. I already miss this Sister of mine, but I'm so glad for the time we had to spend together.
