Lora and her family came on Friday, the 13th of August. I could not wait until they got to the house and I cleaned the whole house while I waited to keep me from looking at the clock every minute. Immediately out of the car the Livy and Tori were instant besties and went inside to play. (Tori and Livy had a love/hate relationship while on this rendezvous. One moment they were besties, holding hands and sharing and the next it was pushing, hitting and coveting. What more do you say about a 2 and 3 year old...sounds typical to me!) I missed Lora a ton (although I talk to her almost every day), so she got an instant hug. It was great to see Oscar (who is getting so big and is so ridiculously clever) and Jake too.
During the duration of the Idaho shenanigans the "Big Ball" was the coveted spot in the house for jumping, acrobatic and viewing movie pleasures! Uncle Jason was at the lead teaching them how to land cartwheels and such onto the Luv Sac! These pictures of the girls were taken the first day.We had amazing sleeping arrangements. All of the kids were in the girls' room. Livy and Oscar were on a queen sized air mattress! That week Brookie was a bit congested and we were in and out of that room a lot in those tight quarters. Lora has some great pictures of Livy and Tori up at night talking to each other. One night (I think it was Saturday because Jake was still here) we hear Livy yell for Daddy and he goes in there to find that Tori had yanked the nightlight out of the socket (Livy likes to have a nightlight) and her exclamation, "Daddy, she ruined my life. She ruined my freaking life!" Ha ha ha! It was hilarious. It definitely left us all in stitches.
It was definitely hotter in Idaho that week than in California (my sister and family live in Alameda, the land of forever 70*, or at least we thought...) and her kids were melting in the heat (although we were in air conditioning most of the time). Meridian, ID is not exactly the funnest place in the universe for little kids either, but we did our best. When it wasn't too sweltering we let the kids play outside. They climbed our willow tree (which now has become bark dust...more on that story later), ran around on the lawn, picked flowers, played in pool and played soccer with Uncle Jason (there is no contest on who the favorite in our family is!).But we do have a few things here that the Olesens do not have in California: Flatbread Pizza and a free Community Water Park. Jake was here both weekends and we had to go to Flatbread Pizza both weekends! (There are always pounds to be added when you get together with family!) We didn't get a picture of us eating their scrumptious food, but if was fabulous! Their pizza is as close as you can get to Italian pizza in the states.
Oh the water park. I love this park that we have in Meridian...it's called Settler's Park and it has everything you can think of for little kids to do: climbing rocks, musical instruments, swings, a small jungle gym for the little kids and a humongous jungle gym for the big kids and a nice water park that is free to the public during the summer. Lora has the pictures of the kids playing at the park, so when those are blogged or sent to me I will make another blog of the missing pieces. The kids had a blast (especially Oscar) and Tori even got a little wet in one of the mini sprinklers.
A few more pictures of enjoying the outdoors.
This is the only picture that I got of my sister with Brooke, and the worst part...it is blurry. In black and white it is not as bad, but I was very sad. This was kind of an illegal shot too. Lora didn't want me to take a picture of her without her new haircut. Lora might have some more pictures though, so more to come. (And of course there is only 1 picture of the 2 of us! figures! we need to get out from behind the cameras!)
Pretend that this is our refrigerator. The kids were very artistic this week. Especially Oscar. He drew pictures of all of his super hero guys. I think that they are pretty impressive. (Except that Lora helped Oscar spell Modock when it was supposed to be Doom...so there is 1 mislabeled). The pictures with the 4 suns and flowers is Livy's. I asked her what her painting was and she said, "In my world there are 4 suns!" Well, there you have it. 4 suns and beautiful purple flowers. Tori made her first stick figure person (lower right picture). I drew Daddy, Mommy and Brooke (she added Brooke's shoes) and she drew a picture of herself. Although the figure does have 5 limbs, I think that it is very good for her first time. I think that there are people in Tori's picture in the top right to. What do you see?
Sunday was crazy because we had to get two families ready in the allotted amount of time. But we were a success. We made it to church on time and the kids were good. We took a whole entire middle row too! Brooke looked so cute in her dress that we had a mini photo shoot.
So Brookie got a lot of lovin' out of this get together. Both Liv and Oscar loved and were a bit obsessed with Brookie. But I guess who isn't? Oscar was constantly looking for Brooke, giving her hugs and kisses, giving her toys and trying to hold her. Livy was just amazing with her and would give her toys and sing to her when she cried. I don't have many pictures of Oscar, but it was fun to watch old school Transformer cartoons with him and to steal some kisses from him. Just because, he would say "I love you Auntie Kendra" and it would just make the day 100x better! He is so sweet.
We ventured out a few more times during the week (Lora has all of the pictures from the Birds of Prey museum), but my favorite time was just hanging out with the kids and with Lora and Jake. We sure miss you guys and it makes me really sad that we don't live closer and can't see each other more often. It was really fun to hang out with Lora at night and reminisce. I MISS MY SISTER SO MUCH!
Now I am remembering what it was like just the two of us hanging out on our trundle bed wondering what our futures would hold...dreaming of the time when we would marry identical twins and live right next door to each other. Well, at least our husbands like each other and we don't live on opposite sides of the country...but I still dream of the day when we live closer than this!
P.S. I totally cried while making this blog because I miss them so much already (I am such a cry baby!). Thank heavens for Skype, cell phones and Blogs! I think I would be a wreck without technology!
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