Visit from Ecuador

Sammy loves my sister's dog Penny. We watched her one week and Sammy carried her around in his arms the whole week. He wanted her to sleep in his bed every night. She was like his living stuffed animal and she seemed to like it too. Sammy is a nurturer.

 Phoebe started drawing at this easel as soon as she started pulling up at about 6 months. She was so responsible about it too. She knew right from the beginning to only color on the paper and so far she is still doing that. I love to see the kids being creative.

 A Visit from Señoras Ruth, Ruth, y Maria, y Telmo

 Javier's Mom, Grandma, Great Aunt and cousin came to visit us this last April and we had a wonderful time! They flew into LA and Javier flew down to meet them and take them to Disneyland! They were exhausted after that huge trip but I think they still had a lot of fun.

The ladies had so much fun bowling! Sra Maria won the game and it was so fun to see her so excited!

Sammy had an Easter Birthday while they were here. He was so excited about it. They had an Easter egg hunt on Saturday.

Then Sunday we went up to my parents house with everybody and had a nice dinner and birthday cake and Javier's Grandma bought Sammy a Piñata which the kids LOVED!

I made Sammy Monster cupcakes but he was also so excited about the Easter Bunny cake that Mimi made for him :)

Love this sweet 4 year boy more than I could ever say!! This is a picture I will treasure!

We had a lot of fun while they were here. We did a lot of shopping and also a lot of cooking and hanging around the house. We tried to take them to do some fun things too.

It was so cool that Telmo got to fish. He loved it!

These three sweet boys were adorable! Even though they didn't speak the same language they were thick as thieves! Max and Sammy still talk about Telmo all the time almost 6 months later.

Javier really enjoyed getting to show off his school and all the places he had studied and been. I hope that coming to BYU herself maybe will make it a little easier if Cristhian decides to come here.

Good Old Campus plaza Where Javier and I fell in love. We lived in the 2 corner apartments on the bottom floor. That was when Javier was Zach's roommate and I was Natalie's. And we would all get together to play risk...

Our first apartment was a part of the top floor of this house. We called it the haunted house because it was falling apart. We got in by way of a rickety old staircase with red peeling up carpet and chipping paint. It was a lot of fun though.

Javier's Grandma loved the time we spent in Utah, She kept saying it was a dream come true and that she had never dreamed of any place so beautiful and spiritual. Telmo got a book of Mormon and started reading it saying he wanted to be baptized. And of course it was so exciting for Ruth who had heard so much of these places and dreamed of seeing them. The only thing that made it a little hard was that Tia Ruth was mad. Maybe because if the reaction of the others she had something bad to say about everything. That was sad for us a little. But I'm glad the other two had such a good time.

The last day when the ladies and the kids were all beyond exhausted Javier and his mom got to go off o their own for a few hours and that was so special. I am so glad they got to have a little time alone.

Saying goodbye is always awful. We love these ladies!