I know it sounds cliche because everyone says it, but we have been so busy lately. Lots and lots of visitors, buying a house and all of the drama that comes with that and living in a rental that is on the market, busy with church stuff, busy with work, busy with kids...life sure seemed a lot easier when it was just Joni and I.

While we were in the hospital for a week with Reese my mom came for a visit. I'm sad because we didn't take any pictures while she was here, probably because we were all in pajamas and adjusting to a new, chaotic life. She was a huge help to us to mainly just have someone here to entertain Ellie. It's nice to have such strong support, and also nice to taste some of mom's sweet rolls. Between her and all the ward meals that were brought to us, our fridge was full of good food for a long time.

Ellie sure loves her little sister. This is how it usually goes though...Ellie comes up to give Reese a kiss, we say "that's so sweet, thank you Ellie", then she repeats that process 6-7 more times until Ellie realizes she isn't getting Reese's attention so she wacks her, puts weight on her, or squeezes her hand until Reese cries. Since Reese reacts that makes Ellie happy and she laughs. It is stressful to have a 2 year old and a baby, we can't leave Ellie alone in the room with her. We've tried all kinds of solutions but Ellie is just determined enough to do whatever she is going to do.

My dad and Susan also came for a visit. We also didn't bust out the camera other than one short trip to Genoa. We took them up to Inspiration Point. Went for ice cream in Genoa and laid on the grass at Mormon Station.

Ice cream seems to make all your cares and worries go away...as long as you can run it off later. I took my dad golfing, we hadn't seen my dad and Susan since we left Longmont, so it was fun to catch up and hear about all the fun trips they've been taking, and hear about some family we never seem to see or talk to.

Then our good friends from Connecticut, the Barnes, came to see us. They live in Seattle now, and they have 2 girls almost the same age as our 2 girls.

The Barnes are the types of people that make you feel comfortable around them right away, I'm glad they have made the effort to stay in touch because we seem to do a horrible job of that with so many friends. We think about all of our friends from past states we've lived all the time. We just don't make the effort to stay in touch, sorry friends.

We hiked down to Emerald Bay and packed a picnic to eat on the beach. It wasn't crowded at all, I guess the hike scares a lot of people away, we did it with multiple strollers and packs, people looked at us like we were crazy but it worked out.

We all tried paddle boarding to see what all the hype is about, seems like everyone is paddle boarding lately. It was fun but a little hard to balance when you could see 40 feet down to the bottom of the lake, and when boats would come by and leave their wake behind.

Thanks again to all of our visitors, and to all of you who are so good to us when we don't always make the effort to be good friends, kids, cousins, uncles, siblings etc.

We are hoping to move into our new house in October but we've run into some issues with a leaking pipe, hope it all works out. It is a foreclosure so there is A LOT of work to do...as if we needed more on our plates right now right?