The Beach Bum Returns

We just had a wonderful week and a half with our family visiting, and if you've read Hillari's blog you already know all about it. But I thought I would share a few pictures also. First, Cassidy flew in from Hawaii. We have not seen her since August, so it was great to see her! James couldn't come with her, so we missed him. Here she is at the airport.

We had a few days before the rest of the family was coming, so we made the most of it. We had a list, and we finished everything on our list before it was time for her to go back home!

First we ground our own wheat and made whole wheat bread. (Little red hens!)

Looks pretty good, don't you think? Next, Cass wanted to learn to embroidery. So we started making some new dishtowels for her. She caught on quick, and soon mastered the art, even the dreaded knot tying! We finished them with our initials and the year so that she could look back at them someday and remember our time together.

We also wanted to have some lunches and dinners outside on the patio, and managed to do that a few times.

If you're wondering what Jeff was doing all this time, he stayed pretty busy too. Here he is working hard in the back yard. But he did manage to sample some bread, and have lunch with us!

Cass wanted to make a craft of some kind, so she made one of the Noel block sets I made at Christmas time, since they don't have very many Christmas decorations. Hers turned out very cute.

The next day we went to the Temple. The Temple in Hawaii is closed for a year and a half for renovations, so Cassidy was anxious to go.

We had also cooked up an elaborate scheme to surprise her with her older sister Holli Jo flying in from Atlanta. I told a white lie and said we had to go to the airport to pick up a friend. The problem was, having known for weeks that Holli was coming, I had accidently almost given it away so many times that I thought for sure Cass had figured it out and was just playing along with us. The real truth is (as she later admitted) she just thought I was losing it when I would say something strange, mentioning Holli and then make up some lame excuse as to why I said it. You don't know how hard it was not to blow it!!! Anyway, the suprise was fabulous, and she insisted she never once thought Holli was coming. (Just that her Mom was off her nut.)

It was so fun to see the surprise on Cassidy's face. It was also joyous to see Holli Jo and her little boy Rhys. We have not seen them since Christmas, so it was time! Holli's husband John couldn't come either, so he was missed as well.

Little Rhys is the cutest little butter ball. He was so full of smiles the whole week he was with us, even though he had a bad cold.

Some other things we did were scrapbook, paint our toenails and fingernails, and I taught Cass and Holli how to crochet Grandma's famous scrubbies. We had such a good time, and Cass was thrilled with her crafts. This is where this blog is going to end. The rest of the family came a little later, and we had many more fun things I want to share, but that will be in the next blog.