Gallo Visit

My brother-in-law's law firm has an office that recently opened in LA, and they sent Michael to work there for the week of the Fourth of July. Lucky for us, Rachel and her kids were able to tag along. We are going on vacation with them to Colorado in August so we didn't think that we'd get a visit from them this summer. It was a wonderful, unexpected treat!

They ended up coming during our busiest week of the summer with summer camp in the morning and VBS at night, but we still ended up getting lots of time to hang out with them. 

Hannah was excited to have more little ones around to mother.

 

One morning Rachel and her kids came over while my kids were at camp so I got to hang out with Ben. We had fun getting out Joey's old fire truck puzzle.

Later after camp while the little ones were napping, Rachel played Memory with Joey and Hannah.

On our last night of VBS, Ben came with us and joined Ellie's preschool class.

I went to sneak a peek on them at one point and this was what I found.

They were kissing over and over! They take the term "kissing cousins" very seriously.

After VBS, Ben spent the night at our house. In the morning our neighbor's grandson who was visiting from Nashville (and happens to idolize Joey a little) came over to play.

I got down our old Thomas the Train set for our "boy morning."

Ben in particular LOVES all things Thomas.

One day we went over to my mom's house to spend the day there. My mom unfortunately had the flu all week which was a bummer, but we took all the kids on a walk to our old elementary school.

And we got to show them how we indeed did walk uphill both ways to school.

The week went by too quickly as usual, but I was so glad I got to spend some quality time with my favorite sister and best friend!

I feel so blessed that these five love each other so much, and we're extra spoiled because we get to see them again in less than a month!