Visit from the Lambs (2017)

My oldest sister Miriam and her family came from Texas to visit a few weeks ago. It's always fun to see my nieces, and to be able to spend some time with them. I always enjoy talking with them to see what they're up to, how school is going, etc. Some of the highlights from their visit were watching the Johnson family slideshow I made for 2016, playing Apples to Apples a few times, watching the movie "Lion" (which is really good, by the way), and spending time with Chandra and Christian. They came over nearly every day, and the girls especially loved seeing Christian. The girls usually ask Chandra to braid their hair, and she's always sweet enough to do it for them. She spent several hours doing their hair, even though she didn't feel well, and ended up throwing up multiple times later that afternoon.

We took a few pictures of the girls after their hair was finished. The first picture is just the girls, and then Miriam joined them for the next pic:

We tried to get a picture of Christian with his cousins, but he wasn't interested in posing. As you can see, he couldn't wait to get away so he could run around:

We also took some pictures after church. It was awfully bright, and I had a difficult time keeping my eyes open. (We took a lot of pictures, and my eyes were closed in so many of them!)

Christian and Miriam's youngest, Victoria (who is five) were buddies. It was so cute watching them run around together, and hearing Christian say, "Victoria" as best he could. He was still calling Victoria's name the next time he and Chandra came over, even though Miriam's family had already left to go home. I thought this picture of the two of them was awfully cute:

Minnesota Visitors

I just realized that I never made a post about the visit from my grandparents and aunt and uncle over Memorial Day weekend. My uncle Steve and aunt Jackie drove my grandparents down, and they arrived on Friday afternoon and left early Monday morning. It was a quick visit, but lots of fun. My sweet grandpa—who is 95—had just had surgery to remove colon cancer six weeks previously, but he was doing well enough to make the trip. We had fun visiting, reminiscing, doing crossword puzzles, and eating good food.

We took a few pictures on Sunday afternoon. Here's my mom with her parents: 

And her brother, Steve:

And Steve's wife, Jackie:

NOT the best picture of me, but I still wanted to document the moment.

Chandra's family came over on Sunday afternoon to hang out with us. Christian did not want to pose for pictures—he wanted to run around, as you can see from the pictures below. Chandra had to wrestle him to be in the picture, and he was trying to get away!

Christian wouldn't even look at the camera and/or give his mom a smile when she was trying to take his picture. That's okay, running around is probably more appealing and fun when you're only 20 months old. 😎