I never told you...

 of how my mom and brother came to visit us on the very day we moved because we thought my dad would be driving his truck out to help and he wasn't able to so the house was filled with boxes and it was so hot and humid and the mosquitoes were at their peak and usually my mom stays for a couple weeks but because of the chaos she decided to go home with my brother and I knew it was for the best but my heart still hurt and this is the only picture I have to show for it.  Not even a photo of my mom and brother, just Lily in a bucket that my mom got the biggest kick out of. 

 of how a couple weeks after moving in one of our trees was so infested with bugs that a huge part of it fell into another tree so we decided to have five trees removed because we heard it is cheaper if you do them all at once and our house needed a facelift anyway.  Lily got front row seats watching the men at work.  I had fun watching what they did, too.  For a homebody such as myself, I love that kind of right-out-our-window entertainment.

 of how I can't shake the worst case of homesickness I've had since moving out here and my old mission companion decided to visit us again and instead of spending a day with her we got her for TWO days and three nights.  It helped me more than she'll ever know.  (Lily is in to the "try everyone's shoe on" phase.  It was cute and funny at first, but now she literally runs up to people, especially those wearing flip flops, and practically takes their shoes off to wear them.  When we go to the splash pad or other places where you have to take shoes off, she will run up to me wearing random people's shoes.  I'm not even that into shoes.  My mission companion was kind enough to let her wear her flip flops a lot, as pictured above.)

 

 of how we visited Gillette Castle.  I loved the grounds and the outside of the castle.  The inside was a little difficult to take in with a toddler running all over the place, but another favorite part were the bathrooms at the visitors center.  They were wild.  A bit eerie.  I guess the waste goes into some sort of composting something-or-other but you never hear flushing or anything.  Anyway, maybe this is a bit too much information.  My mission companion wasn't that intrigued.  I guess I'm easily impressed.

 of how we visited the PEZ factory.

 of how Lily cracks me up...and cracks Grace up.  This was after she sprayed herself and Grace with a spray bottle.  Grace just takes it like a champ.  One of Lily's laugh out loud stories is when we were outside and she was wearing a bike helmet and then was riding around in Grace's walker.  It looked so funny and a couple people walked by and I thought they probably think I'm a little overprotective making my child wear a helmet in the walker, he he he.

of how we're getting some summer fun in...this slip and slide being one.  Grace even joined the action.

 

 of how Lily has another flower named friend and of how adorable they looked in their swim diapers during a play date. 

 

of how Lily eats, drinks, and sleeps bubbles.

 of how Lily is into dressing up and knows how to wear heels better than her mother.

 of how Lily can be so sweet to her sister a lot of times and sweetly put her arm around Grace during a Costco trip.

 of how my sweet dad drove his truck out and brought my remaining boxes from Price and tools from home and helped Jason with a few projects around the house and played with our girls and made us his breakfast burritos and let me go out to a Shakespeare play since Jason has been working late and eased my homesickness until he had to leave and I began wondering again, what are we doing so far from home and why did it take buying a house to make me realize that we are so far from home...