brief visitors

Also on Friday, same day as the bat cleanup in the last post, I briefly got to see my cousin Brian and my uncle Kieth.

{pictures from years past, unfortunately I didn't catch any of them on Friday}

Since we got the Expedition back in March our Explorer had just been sitting in the garage.

Its registration expired in May and we had to decide whether or not we wanted to pay to register/insure/upkeep a vehicle we never use anymore.

We chose not.

But, I didn't really feel comfortable selling as its history is kind of a family car.

It started as my uncle Scott's, he passed it on to my grandpa, grandpa passed it on to Melynda, and then we got it from Melynda when we needed a second vehicle when I started staying home after Desmond was born.

So I started feeling out family. Immediate family didn't want/need it (obstacles of it being a gas guzzler and sort of being located across the country from anyone contributed).

So on went the search to extended family.

Thus the happy ending of Brian flying out to drive it home with him, Keith coming to help with the drive as he was on his way home from a work trip anyways.

Perfect solution, and it was really good to see them both, even if it was only for a morning.

And they made it home by Saturday evening.

Whoa, that's almost 30 hours of driving with little to no breaks.

 

visitors from Gainesville: bat cleanup

We were really excited to have Curt's brother, Jeff, and family come up to stay for a bit last week.

Des and Riley are only four months apart and they have baby Taylor to squish and kiss and cuddle on.

Thursday Alison and I just hung out with the kids as Curt had work and Jeff spent the day job searching.

 {Evie is in love with baby Taylor}

 {showing Riley 'the rock'}

{so, so cute}

 

Friday we all got to hang out again as the boys (Curt and Jeff) were on bat cleanup duty.

We had bats in our attic. A part of our attic you can't get to from the attic access. And bats are gross and poop a lot.

Luckily they vacated on their own so we didn't have to get on the roof to install a bat door (which lets them out but not back in).

But we needed to take the ceiling down in our bonus room to clear the guano and seal up our house.

{see all that daylight? yeah, not impressed with the contractor who put on the addition. openings like that should not be there}

 

 {the boys taking a break in their gear...suits (with hoods), goggles, respirators}

{Evie wanting to be like the older boys and hang from some swinging handles, she actually did pretty awesome}

  On Saturday we went to a ward lake day.

The kids had fun playing in the sandy mud.

{Evie and her pen art on her legs}

Sun + play = zonking out on the way home

 Sunday we went to church and then our visitors headed back south.

We had a great time.

visitors from North Carolina

I probably shouldn't have titled the last post 'visitors' because it's likely four or five of the next posts could also be described that way.

What a fun thing though, to have more visitors on the near horizon than we had the entire five years we lived in Michigan.

At any rate, this past weekend Ryan and Kao Nu came down from North Carolina with their Bella, whose birthday is only two weeks away from Evie's. They were so very cute together. In fact, as I'm putting this post together every time Evie sees a picture she interrupts with an excited pointing and a "Bella!".

It was really awesome to see good friends.

{lots of hand holding and hugs}

As seems to be the thing we do with visitors, we went to Stone Mountain.

Good thing we got the annual parking pass.

But this time we went for the day time activities instead of the night.

We took the lift up to the top and took a look around...

 

It had rained the night before so any depression in the stone was filled up, which the kids loved.

 There's a way to hike up to the top from the back side that we might come and do with the kids in the Fall or Spring when it is cooler.

When we came back down the park had a guy making bubbles in the big field for kids to chase.

I think this was a bigger hit than anything we paid for :)

 

{those curls}

{not my kids, but I thought the bubble mid-pop was cool}

{this aptly shows how much fun he was having I think}

Then we went on a train ride around the mountain.

I don't quite think that this was worth it. It was hot, hot during the wait. The train barely went fast enough to stir a real breeze, and it wasn't that scenic. 

But hey, I guess we can now say we've experienced it. 

And we'll end with some Evie cuteness, hot and sweaty curls included.