the week of the smiths

Otherwise titled:
Things I Never Blogged About, part 1
Also otherwise titled: The most pictures posted in one post. Ever.

So even though we're spending time with the Smiths now, in Portland, in November, I'm trying to spend some down time this trip finally finishing up all these pictures and posts I'm behind on from this summer. You know- when the Smiths came and started our marathon of visitors and vacation in July?!

(this was actually written at the end of the week it all happened, -um, JULY- but never put together with pics or posted due to lack of internet on our following vacation)

Wow, this week flew by! The fam arrived last Friday and then I blinked and it was already Thursday and they were piling into our car and heading to Chicago. (they were due in Chicago for the weekend for Dan's brother's wedding, borrowing our 4runner for the road trip from here)(about two minutes after we waved them off and they had pulled out of our driveway Sawyer came to me with a quivery lip saying "I miss our 4runner!". Yep, not his cousins, just his car!)

But we had a full week of fun.
I especially miss hanging out with this little part of our family... I loved spending a year living by "just" the Smiths way back when, when we lived in Salem, Oregon, and it was hard to move away from that when we left the state. I forget they're "family" because they are just such great friends and we have so much fun together.
It was also sad to leave because these have been my kids' only cousins so far. It was so fun to get to know our little nieces... Taegen and Sawyer are just four weeks apart in age, making her only six months old when we left. Since then they've added two more cuties and so we had a lot of little girl catching up to do!

We spent as much in between time this week as we could at the pool... (which should probably be a post of it's own in the amount of pictures I'm slapping on here!)(sorry!!)






































































































































































































































































We spent a day at the zoo of course...





































































Played in the rain together...






























We had a mini family photo shoot after a picnic...













































































































We explored a new nature park...









































































































The cousins skyped Grandma together...





























We got together with lots of college friends (Ryan and Holly went to the same school) and all their kids.
Here's all the young'ins that day. Minus Tatum cuz she was napping...














We played lots of games, made lots of food, had lots of laughs, lots of fits, lots of hugs and just a great, great time with our visitors...
































So sad we won't be here when they return for a day before flying home.

Thanks for hanging out with us for a week, guys! Can't wait to do it again!!
(or all the time when you move to St Louis....)