Jess, Adam, and Olivia visit

My sister Jessica, her husband Adam, and Olivia came all the way from California to visit us for a couple of weeks and we really packed in the fun! The pictures are in no particular order and are not all inclusive. We had some great game nights where we played Blokus and Settlers of Catan (Jessica's favorite) that I thought were some of the funnest times we had! It's just so lonely out here sometimes that it was nice to have someone to play games and go have fun with!


Of course we had to go to a Baltimore Orioles game! It was a fireworks night too! and we won!





Lots of swimming at the pool! Olivia taught Ryley how to swim and now she can go across and back without help!! Amazing what peer pressure can do.


This is an east-coast game called "Duckpin" bowling. It's almost the same, but you have a smaller ball and smaller pins. better for this kids i think. Olivia actually almost won, but Jess ended up pulling ahead in the end.

We met Grandpa Paul, Coleen, and Aly at the D.C. Zoo where they spoiled the kids with panda bears and cute T-shirts! Pandas really are as cute as a stuffed animal.

We saw the Joseph Smith movie at the D.C. Temple. I think it was my 6th time seeing it and I still cry every time. It's such a great reminder.

Our longest day was treking around downtown D.C. looking at the monuments and museums with 3 whiney kids. We did see the Whitehouse, the Washington monument and the museum of Natural History. That was enough for one day.

We love the farms around here. The countryside is so beautiful. Jessica spotted a half dozen houses that she wanted. Jensen's favorite part was the blueberries! Be glad you didn't see his diapers the next day.

I Looooove Blueberries! Even the green ones! We made blueberry pancakes, waffles, milkshakes, and even blueberry syrup...mmmm

We also got cherries at the same farm! What luck! Have you ever tried Cherry Jam? It's delicious, we made some. We also bottled 6 quarts because we had so many!

Olivia didn't bother putting them in the bucket, she just ate them.

We also took them to our favorite ice cream place called Tropicool! It has really good "gelati" and I found a new favorite flavor-- it's rootbeer flavored shaved ice with the vanilla soft-served. MMmmm.

We celebrated father's day,

and Olivia's birthday at the same time, with the same carrot-cake batter. We're so efficient.

At Ocean City we rode some of the carnival rides.

Even me and Jess got to ride the zipper! My childhood favorite! and the boardwalk fries were amazing.

Catching crabs at the beach! More like, torturing crabs at the beach.

Don't we all wish we could have bleach blonde hair and tan as easily as Ryley.

Little Mermaids

I like Camping!!

We camped at a place called Assateague Island right by Ocean city. We got rained out the first night so we had to eat our hotdogs in the tent.

There are wild horses on the island, and we found out that they're almost as bad as the bears at yosemite. This one pryed the lid off our food tupperwear somehow! They're kind of fun though. At least they don't eat people.

Grandma Jensen visit

This is all still catch-up work. My mom came out to have a job interview in June and came to see us for a couple of days. She graduated from nursing school in December but no one is hiring new nurses in California, so she came over to the east coast (the better coast) looking for work. She landed her dream job in a level 3 NICU in West Virginia and so they're moving out here this fall! They'll still be 3 hours away, but that's a lot better than clear across the country! I'm incredibly excited. We had a great couple of days while she was out here. We went to "the bouncy gym" to jump around, swimming at our apartment pool (thank goodness for that pool during the hot summers out here!) and we went strawberry picking at our favorite farm. She's such a pretty grandma! Everyone in my ward thought she was my sister.