___: Nieces, Nieces Everywhere (and a Nephew)

The past couple of weeks we had a lot of fun family time because I watched my niece, Amika (Michael's sister's daughter) while her mom went out of town to visit our other sister in law who recently had a baby. And then we found out that my sister, Michelle, and her husband, Jake, and their kids, Lizzie, Sadie, & Robbie were coming to stay at my parents' house for two weeks. So we had lots of fun.

Amika had a great time playing with our dogs and jumping on the trampoline. And I got my girl fix (I did her cute hair -- I'm not used to doing anyone's hair except my own, but I'm finding with little girls they need their hair done at least a couple times a day). :)

And Amika got to go along on all sorts of adventures, like the big annual Cub Scout Blue & Gold dinner, driving carpools to school, family home evening at Nana & Papa's house, volleyball, Courtland's joy school preschool class at our house, and brunch at the Pancake House. The funny thing was that after being with us for a day or so, Amika was my little buddy. She cried uncontrollably if I left her (even when I had to leave her with Michael). But hey, it's nice to know you're wanted, right? We had a good time.

And we tried to spend as much time as we could with Michelle and her family while they were here. We hung out at Nana & Papa's house, the kids had a lot of fun playing in the back yard, they got to have a movie & ice cream cousin night,

Lizzie & Sadie got to come to Courtland's joy school class at our house one day, my mom and sister and I got in as much Bohemian genealogy translating as possible, and the three of us also got to go to a little genealogy conference one Saturday where we went to a great class about translating Latin records.

Michael and Jake and our older boys got in lots of board games, and Jake tried his hand at some archery in the back yard. We had lunch dates, the moms got in a little shopping, and swimming in the pool (kids in the pool, grown ups in the jacuzzi), and Courtland and I enjoyed a fun day out at Balboa Park with the cousins while the older boys were at school.

And of course Courtland and Lizzie are still inseparable buddies. Courtland asked me multiple times a day when we could go to Nana's house to play with Lizzie & Sadie. (And we noticed, too, that Courtland has had a little growth spurt lately -- last time we were together he and Lizzie were exactly the same height, and now he was a good 3 inches taller than her).