Dave's family visits

Dave's family came to visit and meet Chloe last week. Because of his dad's failing health and dialysis 3x/week for the last few years of his life, it had been five years since his mom's last visit to California.

She didn't want to fly alone, so Dave's sister Christine came with her two kids - Noah (16) and Celestial (14). It was their first time visiting California.

One downer was that we were sick for the first few days of their visit. There have been so many mean viruses going around! Dallin had a stomach virus, and Dave, Brennan and Levi had fevers and such that lasted for days. My mom, Kristen and Nathan and several of their kids were sick too - some of them for weeks. We were SO glad our company didn't get sick - whew!

We set up our badminton net and Foosball table, which gave people something to do while we were hanging around the house.

I love this picture of Levi on the zip line!

I pretty much stayed home with sick kids and Chloe while they managed to get around a little bit. Thursday they went to Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo, where they ate ribs, watched a play snippet and stuck gum on the wall of Bubblegum Alley.

Friday (after taking snickerdoodles to Tyler's class for his birthday) we signed Spencer and Tyler out of school a couple hours early, and they all went to Morro Bay. They shopped, watched big waves, ate crab and fish, and bought lots of salt water taffy.

At the Salt Water Taffy place we like to go to, the owner let Tyler have a lollipop with a cricket in it.

Tyler: Oh cool! How much does this cost?

Owner: $2.

Tyler: Oh, darn!

Owner: How much money do you have?

Tyler: None.

Owner (laughing): Okay, you can have it.

Noah chose this hat and sweatshirt for his birthday.

On Saturday we went to In-N-Out for lunch. We were hoping to go to a beach again, but it rained. That was the other bummer about the trip. The first couple of days were sunny and warm, but then it was rainy, cold and windy.

On Sunday we watched our church's semiannual General Conference on T.V., and Dave's mom went to mass at the San Miguel Mission. Then we had my family over for dinner and cake. Tyler and Noah share the same birthday, so we celebrated them together.

On Monday they went up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I stayed home with Levi and Chloe.

I probably should have put my regular lens on my camera before I gave it to them, because my new one is a little finicky if you're not used to it. Group shots are particularly hard because the focal length is so small and it's hard to get them all in focus at the same time. I just thought it would have been perfect for low light pictures of fish.

I think Celestial really enjoyed it.

Tuesday was their last day here, and we all went to the beach. First we went to see the elephant seals. The adults had gone back to Alaska, leaving just the babies and teens. It wasn't as exciting as the last time we went, when we saw mating and fighting. And it was freezing cold and windy!

I don't have any pictures of Celestial at the beach. It was too cold and windy for her, and she spent most of the time in the car.

At least it was warmer and less windy at Hearst Beach, which is why we usually like to go there.

This was Chloe's first trip to the beach. Poor thing pooped through all her clothes and had to be wrapped in blankets because I forgot to pack a change of clothes for her. I have since bought a diaper bag so I can be more prepared for outings.

Dave and Noah went kayaking, but the waves were bigger than normal and flipped them over a few times on their way out.

Noah is such a cool guy. I'm glad we all got to know him better.

Christine was going to go boogie boarding, but she put her feet in the water and decided it was way too cold for her, even with a wet suit on.

The boys spent the entire time building a dam and sand castle.

And eating, of course.

Brennan loved having Spencer pull him around on the boogie board. Kids don't seem to notice the coldness of water. Plus they tell me it isn't nearly as cold in the creek, which is why they spent all their time there. I'm glad I was finally able to get out of the house a little bit while they were here.