In July, we went to visit my Grandma, Aunt Robyn, Uncle Mike and seven cousins who live in California. Yessssssssssssss!!!!!

Isn't my Aunt Robyn Gorgeous? And this is AFTER 10 days with the Peters...

Henry learned how to swim in my Aunt's pool. He was so proud of himself!

After all that hard work swimming, the children needed to rest and bathe in the sun.

I could live here.

William and his (second) cousin Michael were usually best friends. We won't mention the moments when they weren't.

Henry got to go for a ride on Tesa, Robyn's horse. (Ha! my friend Tesa will fiind this amusing..) I didn't have my camera on me when they all saddled up. Henry, Dabney, William and Michael were all sitting on Tesa's back. I think Tesa is glad we left too.

The night we got there, Thomas looked around and commented, "All these blonde kids makes me feel so ordinary."

It was hard to say goodbye, we had a great trip and miss them so much!!

A few days after we returned from California, Berdine (pronounced Berdina) arrived. She is the daughter of a brother of a girl who became like a sister when she was a graduate student and I was a kid. Got that? She's like family...

My kids still don't know how to treat guests. They just get so excited!!

Berdine is an excellent swimmer (I actually got to watch her take a swimming lesson when I was 18, she was just a kid and I was visiting Holland). Berdine helped Dabney get more comfortable in the water. My technique of throwing him kicking and screaming into the water is frowned upon.

While Berdine was here, we went all over the place having fun. We went to parks. We went to farms to pick blueberries. We went to the beach. We went to Boston and New York...

It was a sad day when we said goodbye to Berdina.