We love Visitors!

 We really like bridges, so we went to Bowl and Pitcher to see the oldest swinging bridge since it's not far from our house. It was SCARY!!! It was swinging all over the place like a crazy pendulum, and I became even less confident of it's structural safety when tour guide Robert told us it was made during the Great Depression. I wouldn't have blamed them if they were thinking more about trying to put food on their plate than screws in a bridge, and mid-bridge Noelle and I were panicking that any minute we were gonna be drowning in our zebra dresses.
Turns out, the bridge was totally safe, so that's good!

 Once we stepped onto solid ground we went on a little hike. At first it was all little boys and big trees, but then we came to a part of the path where two roads diverged in the wood, and we took the one less traveled. I'm not just quoting Robert Frost, we really did. It was fun!

And then, I totally impressed my whole family by  my fancy log acrobatics. I'm not sure why this old dead log was safer than a bridge, maybe it was cause I felt Nick Wallenda, tightroping the Grand Canyon, except for mine was only about a 10 foot drop.

 

A couple days later our bff's the Johnsons came to visit us. It was 15 days of fantastic fun!

 We went to the Children's Museum, and the kids built this perfect little crooked house from scratch! Their teamwork was adorable, and their diligence was impressive! I gave up helping them after like 30 seconds. It was hard. We were so proud of them!

 Meanwhile, Winston dressed himself as a dog and rode a bicycle. I could not stop laughing!

And then it was off to the boat races.

 We had lots of outdoorsy adventures too. This giant tree is like a never ending game of tag.

Tim made Stanton a bow n' arrow, which made Stanton a very happy boy!

 

The kids played an intense game of hide n' seek. Noelle found the best hiding spot. Other than getting her head stepped on a couple times, it was the perfect cover.

We went to Couer d'Alene Lake a couple times. The kids were like little fish, and I was pretty proud of my sand castle!

Winston and I teamed up to make a whole sand neighborhood. We used sticks and flowers for chimneys.

 Another day we went to the Japanese Meditation Gardens. I love their sassy, cool kid poses!

 

We went to the Arboretum a couple times. It's all of our favorite place! It's so naturey and beautiful and peaceful, except for the dead raccoon. 

 They rolled down the hills and frolicked around the flower gardens, which we call Versailles.

We made delicious smores in our backyard.

 We celebrated 4th of July together too! Melissa and I were totally convinced that we were going to teach our kids the Preamble to the Constitution, the Pledge, the beginning of the Declaration of Independence and all 50 states in one afternoon. It seemed completely doable in both of our minds, but all we ended up with was life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so we switched gears to making flags, writing letters to the soldiers, making an America cake and going to see a fireworks extravaganza, much more fun!

 Our kids also set-up their own pedicure stand, not sure where they got that idea???
They dressed up in costume and tried to lure passing cars with the prospect of painted toes, raisins and Diet Coke for a dollar.

 

I was their only customer.

 We also spent a day at the pool. I think we went down the big slide 25+ times.

 

Another one of our favorite places to go is the farm.We picked like crazy!

 

 Sugar snap peas,blueberries and cherries.

 

We partied at some parks. This day was one of my favorites! After the splash pad, I hung up some towels under the jungle gym to make a fort, then sat back and watched childhood at it's happiest! 

Pretty soon, almost every kid at the park was picking grass for "carpet" and rocks for "food." The boys told each girl that they could choose one boy to boss around, and then they all made up secret handshakes, nicknames and passwords. It was so cute to see all of the kids making friends with each other and including everyone.

Then I sneakily slipped a note inside that said, "Pirates coming to attack. Beware!" In doing so I accidentally framed an innocent old man who happened to be standing near the fort. Noelle rallied her troops to question him, but I quickly talked her out of her witch hunt. Instead they just ran around screaming "alert!" 

It was a great day!

We had some fun nights too, every night actually. We stayed up late watching documentaries with our husbands and then watching girl movies when our husbands were out seeing guy movies. They came home to us crying over 13 Going on 30 one night and signing online petitions to make the world a better place another night. That was the night I threatened to chop off Melissa's hand when she tried to sign an anti-soda petition, so many good times. I wish we were sisters, or at least neighbors again!

 

We also hung out at Riverfront Park a lot, the rides, the splash pad, the homeless guy making balloon animals, the recycling goat, the enormous wagon slide and the street musicians. It was really the most glorious two weeks, and showing them around our new city really made us love it here more! We were so sad when they left, but SO happy they came! Noelle was sobbing after they left, and then she stopped crying and said, "I'll just think of a tooth dressed up in a marching band playing the tuba. That always cheers me up." 

Those are the things I always want to remember!

 A few days after Tim and Melissa and their kids left Alex came to visit us! He just got off his mission, and we were so excited to see him after two whole years of missing him like crazy! The kids waited up for him, and when he got here at midnight, the first thing did with them was to have a light saber fight, such a good uncle!

 The kids had made a list of things they've been waiting to do with him, including legos, board games, eating gross Harry Potter jelybeans, watching 2 years worth of kid movies he hadn't seen, swimming, going o Red Robin and Chuck E. Cheese. We got to do them all!

 Alex and I also concocted a made-up story about a treasure buried by an ancient Japanese king, so we took Alex to the Japanese Garden to help us dig it up. The kids believed every word, right down to the half-burned note left by King Teramagachi. After about a half hour of climbing on the rocks, digging in the dirt and splashing/searching in the ponds they found it, a treasure chest with shiny rock gems, gold coins and a skull bracelet. They were ecstatic! Then Stanton mentioned that he'd seen it at Walmart, which was cause for suspicion, until I explained to him the definition of a replica, and everyone was ecstatic again.

 

Alex saw this sign on the way out. I pretended that I hadn't seen it on the way in...oops.

Then we spent another Saturday on the lake, paddle boarding. It's our favorite thing to do! It was a great way to spend our last day with Uncle Alex!