This is gonna be a long post.

Where shall I begin? I suppose last Friday, July 18th would be a good place. Lex and Brandon had plans to drive up here for a visit. We were super excited, of course! They left SoCal around 4am, and arrived here around 11:30am. They made excellent time! We took them to California Roll that night for dinner, and as we were talking I said to Shawn how much I would like for big Brandon to be there Saturday (CV had a show, and he is probably their #1 adult fan, besides Shawn and I) and with that nifty new camera it sure would be cool to have him tape it. Anyway, I had tried (without success) to convince big Brandon to drive up with Lex and lil Brandon and offered to pay for a flight home. He said it wouldn't work out. Well, as we're sitting there eating, Shawn gets on the phone with Brandon and offers to pay for a flight up and back. It was still a "no-go". Then, shockingly, Brandon says he's willing to drive up with Danielle, Payten and Seth. (Sadly, Aaron was on a camping trip with his Mom). And we we're like "yes, of course!" And so they did. Talk about a complete shock! They left SoCal around 9pm and arrived on Saturday a little after 4am. So cool!
So, here we are at the show at Club Retro. Seth was a little unsure of all the noise, so we got him some ear plugs.

Bailey and Payten enjoyed spending time together. I think they really enjoyed the monster-sized snowcones that we purchased for them outside. They were huge and only $1.00!

Silly Brandon. Kind of reminds me of his Dad, when we try to take his picture. You can see Shawn and Kale in the background.

Us three girls. Yes, it was hotter than heck in there, as is apparent by our glowing faces, and at least in my case ... limp hair.

Yikes. Not sure what I did here? Probably a high ISO, plus the flash, and I'm too lazy to photoshop it. Sorry Brandon and Shawn. But had to get a shot of the camera dudes.

The three amigos. Haha. Kale, and two friends: David Adao and Mike Feb. It was Mike's birthday, thus the sombrero. Of course, Mike would probably wear a sombrero even if it weren't his birthday. Nice kid.

Austen getting the show started.

And Mr. Seth, up close and personal. Love the little purple ear plugs, and that precious face.

All five band members gettin' low (a term they use).

One of my very favorite photos ever. Love these two faces so very much.

This one is a tiny bit blurry, but oh ... how I love those smiles. Priceless.

Good little buddies, and gorgeous to boot. They sure had a great time hanging out.

And this sweet girl (young lady ... sorry Lex). Dang we sure love this girl. So happy and grateful that she was willing to drive she and Brandon up. We were so blessed and lucky to have them here. I'm not gonna lie. We had the best time together.

I told Payten we'd do some crafts and we did. I think she and Seth had fun. Bailey helped Lex paint a box (I think she was on craft-overload, as we do so many). Haha. Payten and Seth both painted boxes, too.

Cute picture of Alexa and Bailey. Having so much fun together.

Seth painting his pirate themed box, that turned out so darn cute! I forgot to take "after" pictures, but it was adorable. You'll just have to trust me.

Oh my. This face. I just want to kiss those cheeks! So glad they came to see us. Just can't thank them enough for doing so. Of course, we wish Aaron had been able to come too!

Miss Payten painting her ceramic ice cream. She did an excellent job on all of her crafts. She is very creative!

He was serious about painting his ice cream, too. He also did a great job. After this, he got bored and went on to painting a paper plate.

Brandon, Danielle, Payten and Seth headed home Monday evening. We were sad to see them leave, but so happy to have had the short visit.

Tuesday I announced that I wanted to go to Petroglyph to continue my dinner plate tradition. Gradually over the years I've had various family members paint me a plate. Of course, I pay for it, but the catch is they must leave it with me. Tricky, huh? My plan is to one day have a plate from every family member. Since it can be pretty pricey, I've slowly been adding to my colleciton. So far I have: two from Austen, Kale and Bailey and then Shawn and I did one, of course. Then I have: Grandma Cathy, Grandpa Dennis, Pat, Alexa, and lil Brandon. So, as you can see, I'm missing quite a few people! But I hope as time goes on, I can add to them little by little.

I can't tell you how pleased I was that the boys were willing to come. I wasn't really sure what they'd think, but they all seemed happy to be there. Well, let me re-phrase that. Happy may be a stretch. I'll leave it at willing. Haha.

Bailey will paint at Petroglyph any day of the week. Seriously. After she whipped out her adorable plate, she went on to paint a relish dish. Of course, she painted it in about 5 minutes, so there wasn't much creativity or thought put into it, but I'll definitely still use it. I just didn't take a picture of it. :)

Here's Bailey's finished plate.

Lex put a lot of thought and care into her plate. Okay, maybe not a lot of thought (she does live and breath peace signs), so that part came to her pretty quickly, but she sure did a wonderful job. I love it, and it's so her. Love that.

Here is Lex's finished plate.

I'm just gonna call Austen "Speedy Gonzales". His plate took about 2.3 minutes to complete. Teehee. Well, maybe 10 minutes, but not a second more. And as you can see, he painted something near and dear to his heart. That works for me.

Here it is all finished.

I think Brandon really enjoyed himself (he said he did anyway). I hope he did. He seemed to really put a lot of thought into his plate. I like it. A lot.

Brandon's plate, all shiny and colorful. I love it when they're glazed.

Kale is my artist, of course. He actually printed out the logo for the clothing brand The Hundreds. It's the little bomb with the eyeballs there at the bottom. Then he used the yellow and red, that usually accompanies the logo. Pretty cool.

Here is Kale's plate all finished and cute (I mean cool.)


Must Be Nice.

Lex can pull of any color hair. Literally. I think she's probably used nearly every color of the rainbow, and pulled it off brilliantly. So, when she arrived with blond hair ... I liked it. But I didn't love it. There was just something about the roots that I wasn't feelin'.

After spending some time with a friend here, she came home with this hair color. I loved it. So pretty.

Well, if you've gotten this far, I'm shocked. Haha. This was a loooong post. There was a lot to cover, and I really had been lagging in the bloggin department. :)

Let's see ... what else did we do? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, My Sister's Keeper (Lex, Bailey and I saw it), another CV show (at Pop-ups), Prime Wok, Red Robin, infamous morning donuts, lots of Guitar Hero, Night Slides at Sunsplash (Austen, Kale, Brandon and Alexa), and make-out sessions with Roxy (Brandon). Good, good times.

Lastly, I'd like to say again that we were just so thrilled to have visitors this summer. It always means so much to have family here with us. We truly love it. Once everyone leaves, I always feel a little bit sad, but hopeful for the next time we'll have visitors.

And finally to Lex, Brandon, Danielle, and Payten: thank you so very much for your kind words written in my guest book. I will cherish them always.