Visit From Big Bro

Last Tuesday night, Ryan and his cute family came down for a visit. He didn't only come to visit with us, but also his best friend, Nick, who he went to high school with. Funny story... Nick just lives a few doors down from us! I will rewind a bit so you can get why this is so funny.

Last summer, during sacrament meeting, I was sitting on the stand (because I was the ward organist back then) and I was just looking at all the people in the congregation. My eyes fell on this girl with blonde, short hair and I just had to keep looking at her because she looked so familiar. I couldn't see her husband because someone was sitting in front of him. Dani was visiting at the time and when Sacrament meeting got over, Dani told me she saw Nick Bailey in the hall. I was thinking, wow, what a small world! I was even just thinking that they were there for the baby blessing that was given. The last thing I heard was that they were living in New York, so this was just crazy that they would be sitting in our ward! Well, I found them in Sunday school and found out they moved into our ward! Then I asked them where they lived and when they told me I just started laughing because they were only a few doors down from us! Nick's wife, Jana, and I really clicked and I was SO excited. They have been such a HUGE blessing in our lives and we think of them as our family we just love them so much!

So, Ryan brought his family down to hang out with us and his best friend. Derek cooked up an incredible meal at our house. We had seven kids all under the age of four in our home, so it was a little crazy! We really wanted to have a game night, so we put a movie on for the kids while we played games and it actually worked! Nick and Jana even brought sleeping bags over so their boys could go to bed while we played games even later! Ryan's little girls, however, weren't interested in sleeping, but they were so good. They just watched another movie while all the other kids were fast asleep! I couldn't believe it when the clock struck 1 am and little Kaylie (my neice) was still wide awake, playing like it was 4 in the afternoon! We had a blast though! If we didn't get tired, I think we could have played games all night! We were laughing so hard and just having way too much fun!


Here are all the kids from top left clockwise: Kaylie, Erik, Kyle, Bryan, Bria, Alyssa and Tyler. Aren't they all so cute?!



They all became such good little friends!




The next day, we all went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point and had even more fun! All our kids got along so well and had so much fun together.

This was the favorite room. The kids got to dust off dinosaur bones and they just loved it! This room was a great babysitter because all the adults got to chat while all the kids just played in the sand.



AHH! A shark!



This room was really fun too. The kids got to play in water and sand.




I am so glad that my brother and I are so close. He is such a good brother and I had so much fun visiting with him and his wife, Emily.