July

After much anticipation, July finally dawned last week! My wonderful friends Emily and Cindy bought plane tickets to come out for a visit on July 1st back in January, and since then we have all been anxiously awaiting the day their vacation arrived. I've only seen Cindy once since I left Utah two years ago, and Emily twice-albeit one of them was for Ammon's funeral, and therefore hardly counts. The best part of this trip? EVERY child was being left behind. In the spirit of the trip, I also arranged for my children to go visit Grandma and Grandpa for a few days while Emily and Cindy were here (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!). We packed every moment of our kid-free time. They arrived after midnight on Wednesday, and by the time we arrived back at my apartment after collecting luggage, we didn't settle down to go to sleep until nearly 3 am. After a few hours of rest, we set out on Thursday morning to King's Island.

Those of you with children will recognize Cosmo from the cartoon Fairly Odd Parents. I took the photo thinking Jeremy would be really excited, but upon seeing the picture he informed me that this looks "nothing like Cosmo. And where is Wanda?" Tough audience.

Emily and Cindy waiting in line. It's early in the day, so the crushing fatigue and throats worn raw by screaming haven't set in yet.

I located a kind-looking random stranger to take this picture.

On Friday, we again woke early and and drove to Columbus to attend the temple and do some church work. Friday was also what would have been my 9th wedding anniversary, and was an extremely emotional day. I sobbed my way through the temple ordinances, and cried again in the car afterward. Determined not to ruin the day, however, I pulled it together and we drove to lunch at Applebee's. The presence of an extremely talented balloon artist helped to further lighten the mood.

We received a monkey in a banana tree, a flower, and a pink flamingo. He was amazing!

Saturday was the 4th of July, and after a sweaty session at the YMCA, we all showered and headed up to Dayton to pick up my kids. We ate lunch with my in-laws, loaded the kids up, and drove home. For the rest of the day, we basically took it easy. We played, we grilled diner, and we barely acknowledged the passage of the fourth of July. Last year, the fourth was a tough holiday for me. The same held true this year, and I was content to not force myself to attend any of the festivities. I'm grateful for friends who understood this. By Monday afternoon, after another session at the gym and swim lessons for the boys, we went miniature golfing.

The kids had a great time going through the course at their usual speed, and since we were hoping to make it to a movie after golfing, we made no effort to hold them back. We wisely only paid for the boys to golf, which allowed us to move quickly through most of the course.

We took a few pictures while waiting for the golfers ahead of us to finish.

Our final big activity: we deposited Brooklyn with my nieces for a couple hours, and took the boys to see Disney's UP in 3-D. It was so neat! I was absolutely enthralled with how the images jumped off the screen, and was disappointed that the boys didn't want to wear the glasses.

I'm so grateful that Emily and Cindy took the time out of their schedule to visit us here in Ohio. I was also able to schedule a gathering of some close friends from my church on Friday night, and I think everybody enjoyed sitting around and chatting about life in general. I scheduled the party that night in an effort to show Emily and Cindy what it is that I choose to stay in Cincinnati--I have a family here, and they are amazing. I'm so grateful to have been able to share part of that with some of my Utah family. Thanks guys, and I'm already counting the days until next year!