April showers bring May...VISITORS!!!

We'd lived in the Bay area for almost a year and hadn't had one visitor. Then this past month we had FIVE! Almost every weekend in May we had someone staying with us. It was soooo good to see our beloved friends and relatives again! Smiles all around!!! 

John's little brother, Tyler, came out from Ohio for a weekend. I'd only met him once before when we went to Ohio for Christmas, so it was so GREAT to get to hang out with him some more! We took him sight seeing in the city, body boarding in Santa Cruz, exploring in Monterey, and ate lots of good food! (No, not at Burger King! We just played with their toys! haha) It was his first trip to California, so it was a lot of fun to show him around! He's so hilarious and I love his contagious laugh. I'm so glad he came to visit! :)

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My beautiful friend, Jessi, was in town with her John (we both married Johns! Yay!) to visit their Uncle and take a little vacation before they have their baby! They made time to squeeze in a little visit and came to church with us, and I was SOO HAPPY to see her again! I haven't seen her in YEARS and it was all I could do to not reach and hug her through the whole Sacrament meeting! I was beyond giddy to have her sitting next to me! Love this woman!

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(Had to get some tough guy pictures of the boys.)

My dad came out to California for a business trip, and then decided to take a little detour to come visit us! His wife Lora met us out here and we had fun with them for a weekend! We went to the Oakland Temple together and then went to Alcatraz. My dad loves the "Escape from Alcatraz" movie with Clint Eastwood! So after visiting the prison in the day, we went back to our apt and watched that movie while eating a HUGE pizza. It was pretty awesome. :) I'm so glad my dad decided to squeeze us into his work trip! It was a lot of fun to spend time with them. 

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My Grandpa from Arizona came and stayed with us on Memorial Day! He is a retired pilot and now builds little airplanes and flies them in competitions. So he'd been up in Oregon for the weekend competing, and then came to stay with us for a night on his way back to AZ. I hardly EVER get to see this grandpa and John had only met him for a few minutes at our wedding, so this was a real treat for us! He took us out to dinner, we took him out for Gelato, he showed us his trophies and airplanes, he kicked our trash playing Settlers of Catan, and then called it a night! haha It was so great. I just LOVE him dearly, and am so glad we got to laugh and have fun with him for a day.

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It's been a good month! I feel very lucky to have had such lovely visitors come to stay. It was a lot of fun playing hostess, I decided! I hope it happens more often... wouldn't that be nice.... HINT HINT. ;)