Allen's visit

A long awaited visit from the Allen family finally came this July. They had a family reunion in Yosemite, so they were able to come our way and stay a few days before heading for their long trip home.

It was so great to see Kelsey, Amelia, Gwyneth and Liesel pick up their friendship right where they left off three years ago. These girls have been such close friends, it is great to see that the distance didn't interfere with that!

They came in on Saturday afternoon, and after a quick trip to the laundry mat and some rearranging and cleaning of their car, they were good to go. We invited the Greenall family over and the kids had fun jumping on the trampoline and playing twister dance.

(To follow up on my last post, you can see how much more my garden has grown)

We were able to have Jason Clinton and his kids come visit on Sunday and Jenna and Erin spent the night so that they could spend more time with them while they were here in town.

Monday afternoon, we arranged to have a pool party so that Laura and the kids could see many of their friends. The Greenalls, Plasters, Brands, and the two Clinton girls were able to make it for a fun afternoon in the water.

We decided to do a quick photo shoot while we had the girls together. I still need to get some help learning how to photoshop the pictures to doll the photos up, but they turned out pretty cute anyway.

The girls had fun taking hundreds of photos and as always, I really enjoy taking pictures. I was pretty frustrated that my image stabilizer was switched off without me realizing it, so the photos are not as crisp as they should be. Luckily, it was a quick fix for future pictures, but one of my favorite pictures of the girls turned out blurry because of that darn switch!

To follow up a photo shoot, what more could a girl want than a trip to the mall? The girls had been begging to go to Claire's since Saturday, so I decided to take them before heading home. Kelsey was able to find some cute earrings that will hopefully not infect her ears and Gwyneth and Leisel each found a pair of sandals. It was a fun trip with these friends!

We can't wait for our next opportunity to spend time with one of our favorite families!