{we love}family visits

last week my brother and two nephews came to visit from nevada. here are some pictures of our adventures!

sutton was in heaven when the boys were here! she loved having extra bodies in the house and the more people to entertain her, the better. she especially took a liking to mateo, who is 6. i loved watching them play together. we went to the zoo, swimming, to the oregon coast (it was ethan's first time going to the pacific ocean!) and ate lots of yummy food. mateo said he wanted to move here as soon as he discovered that we live across the street from a nice, big park. i asked him if he would miss his mom, dad and emmery. his response, "but we have a baby here". that's what i like best about the kid, he's always thinking. 

i said smile kid, not grimace

that's more like it!

this is the park he wanted to abandon his parents and baby sister for

we had a great time at the zoo. i always have a little bit of parking anxiety when we go, especially during the summer months. i know, i'm weird. i own it. anyway, it was a cloudy day and the forecast called for light rain and apparently that scared tons of people away so we ended up having the whole place to ourselves. it was awesome. and it didn't rain one single drop. 

pure joy

we went swimming a couple of times while the boys were here. they had a blast.  i think they really appreciated swimming in clean water. not the mystery farm irrigation water in the ditch back on the ranch, aka "farm swimming pool". swimming in the ditch was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. now i say gross. but hey, maybe that is why i have such a good immune system. maybe swimming in cowpie infested water wasn't such a bad thing. 

peyton working it. well, that was until she realized that teo was only six. waaaaay to young for her. she quickly moved on to ethan when she realized he was 16. old enough to date. she told him she was 8, no 12, no 15. she must have been flustered to not even remember how old she was! 

sutton blue didn't really want to give piper a ride but persistent piper wouldn't take no for an answer. 

she preferred people watching over swimming

we decided to take the boys to the oregon coast for one night over the weekend. john has a patient that owns a motel right on the beach in rockaway. we had never been there before so it was a fun adventure. i think john and i can both agree that we don't really need to go back. it was fun to stay right on the beach but the town wasn't our favorite. the highway runs right through the middle of it and it's safe to say it lacked the charm that some of our other favorite beach towns have. however,  john and the boys had fun playing football on the beach with headlamps at night and the boys (mainly isaac and mateo) had fun getting in the ocean. john and i got up early the next day and went for a run with sutton and then packed up for the drive to manzanita, which is our absolute favorite beach town. we grabbed some breakfast at wanda's (super yummy) and continued onto cannon beach. it was such a perfect day! the boys played around haystack rock and in the ocean while sutton and i hung out on the beach. she loved how the sand felt and was perfectly content just sitting there watching all the people and doggies go by. we had to hit up bruce's candy kitchen and grab some fish and chips (another first for the boys) before the ride home. ethan and isaac loved them and teo...well, not so much. i did give him two thumbs up because he tried it 3 different times with different sauces. looked like he was going to barf with every bite. so i fed him fries and cotton candy instead. it was a great weekend and i'm so happy to be able to say that ethan finally got to experience the pacific ocean for the first time ever. 

i love this picture of the boys racing to the water 

we had to stop by the tillamook cheese factory for some lunch. aka ice cream. 

big girl chompin' on her big girl cone

i loved having the boys here and we were sad to see them go home. there was minimal fighting, only one broken picture frame, no one peed the bed (yay!) and i think i taught ethan how to wash dishes! sutton kept looking for everyone for a few days after they left. tear. i just asked her tonight if she wants to go see the boys at grammie's house and she nodded yes. she doesn't say yes or no but she sure shakes her head to let you know what she is thinking.