Unexpected Pleasantries

So Thursday evening I get a message on my phone from my sister Gwen.  She and her husband and her girls had spent the week in southern California, doing the Disneyland/Sea World/Zoo thing, and were changing up their travel plans home a little bit due to weather up north, so she thought maybe they could stop by and see us along the way.

They got here Saturday afternoon.  Keilana was so excited to see Maysa.  For whatever reason, even though they haven't spent much time together, of all her cousins on both sides, Maysa seems to be the favorite.  They had a lot of fun playing together.

I initially thought that they were just going to make a brief stop and then keep driving for a few more hours, but we spent so much time talking to them (and giving them the requisite McDermont tour, of course), that they decided to stay.  The girls had so much fun over at McDermont.  While Doug gave Todd and Gwen the big tour, I took the four little ones over to the bounce houses (Keilana's favorite thing about the place).  Its all decorated for Halloween right now, and every once in a while Maysa and Keilana would take a break from jumping to walk around and look at decorations, holding hands and pretending to be scared.  They have a witch broom that is on top of a little Roomba-type thing, so it looks like it just floats around on the floor, enchanted.  They'd run up to it, then watch for a minute before screaming and running back to the bounce houses giggling.  

Dylan remembered and was glad to see Paisley, of course.  They had a lot of fun together when we spent the week at their house back in June.  At one point they were standing on the stairs being monsters, just growling back and forth at each other very loudly.  And laughing just as loud.  It was nice to see Dylan playing with someone who could match him--Paisley's almost the exact same weight and height as him (she's actually a little taller) and has Keilana cheeks to boot!  She is so adorable!  While we were over at McDermont, I can't count how many times I heard people say, "She's so cute!"  And she has that same wonderfully mischievous grin that Dylan has--that one that says, "How could you possibly punish anyone this cute?" that gets me into so much trouble with him.

It was so great to see family at my house!  Since we moved to California 4 1/2 years ago, Mom's been down twice and Mom, Dad and Gwen all drove down together once, but that's it.   (I'm not complaining, that's just one of the prices to be paid for choosing to live far away from one's family).  But we got to see Gwen and Todd and the girls, and this weekend we get to see Yaya and Christa.  It almost seems too good to be true!!