Nana's visit

I mentioned in another post (here) that we all choose how we spend the money we have.  I feel very strongly about that, but sometimes I feel disappointed that it's not possible to just hop in a plane (all 11 of us) and go see all the beautiful places in the world, and visit family that lives so far away.

It has been 10 years since we have gone to visit Dave's family in Illinois, and at least 3 since Dave's parents have been able to come out here and visit us.  In fact, we haven't seen Dave's youngest sister for 6 years.

Until this past weekend Dave's parents hadn't met Lea or Landon, and the last time they saw Elli she was a tiny baby.

That's really sad to me.

Hopefully Big Mama can change that a bit.........though it's still hard to drive across the country with such a large family!

Dave's mom was able to get time off of work to drive out here with Matt (coming back to school at BYU-I), and then she planned to fly back home after a week.

Mom and her boys

We had lots of fun making blankets, playing games, eating all the fondue leftovers, reading books, and just letting her see how we do things around here.

She's a really great woman and we all love her!

Everyone cried when she had to leave, and the kids moped around a bit for the rest of the day.

We've already started planning our trip out to Illinois this summer and we're so excited!!


good things:
a mother-in-law that is like my 2nd mom
heart-to-heart talks
65 degrees in December