The Friday before Memorial Day, Aunt Brigitte called to see if we wanted visitors for the weekend...I was like, "What do you mean?" And she's all, "We would fly and come see you for the weekend, we found a really good deal on some airfare!" And then I was like jumping up and down with joy because we just love having visitors, but surprise/last minute visitors are even better! Also, since we only had to wait a day for them to come, I didn't tell the boys because I knew they would beyond excited if their Henrie cousins showed up unexpectedly.
On Saturday afternoon I told Thad that I needed to pick up a friend's family member from the airport as a favor and he totally fell for it! When we pulled up to the curb and he saw the Henries, he said, "Hey, what're they doing here?!" I told him it was all a trick and he was PUMPED about that trick!
I am so glad that even though we hadn't seen these faces for five months, we didn't even skip a beat! Our trips to Utah and the blessing of technology make it really easy to feel a part of each other's lives.
Caden and Leah saw the baby frogs first thing and were immediately obsessed!
I don't like to touch them, but I do think they are adorable.
We pulled out the sprinkler to enjoy the beautiful afternoon (and our thriving back yard)!
I have to admit, I was the most excited about seeing Baby J-
She has obviously been the one to change the most in the last five months, and it was so fun to see her, hold her and snuggle her perfectness!
We headed to the pool that evening to enjoy some more water time-
Eve was obviously killin' it in the swim attire!
I love this little girlfriend!
That night a crazy thunderstorm rolled in and while Thad and Leah didn't care much...
Wes and Caden noticed every flash and listened to all the rolling thunder! It made Caden a tad on the nervous side because Texas thunder is not like Utah thunder, but luckily the storm didn't get too crazy and all the kids were able to fall asleep and sleep through it when we put them to bed.
On Sunday we headed to church with all these adorable cousins in tow-
And then we just relaxed and spent the rest of the afternoon just lovin' being with each other!
And Eve couldn't get enough of Jayci, so she climbed right on up in the crib with her littlest cousin...
I have a feeling these two girlies are going to make lots of trouble in the future!
On Memorial Day we knew we wanted to do something adventurous and though it took us a little while to decide, we finally remembered the Inner Space Cavern near our home that we have been waiting to check out with visitors.
We thought when we got there that we might have to wait in long lines or something, but luckily we waited about ten minutes and headed into the caves!
Luckily we had an AWESOME tour guide that included ours and other's kids in the tour more than he did the adults. We crossed paths with some pretty dry guides while we were down there and we were so glad we the guy we did!
He was so kind to put up with Wes' constant questions and talking, but was genuinely sweet and wanted the kids to have a good time. Thad, Wes and Leah were the only ones small enough to go through the "tunnel" and they were pretty stoked about it!
Eve was such a good sport on dad's back...she had a little freak out when we initially put her in the pack, but she settled right down and enjoyed the awesomeness of the cavern.
We were all in awe of the cavern and so happy we got to spend the afternoon underneath the ground!
The flash was hard, mmk.
We didn't get the most stellar pictures inside, but we all had a fabulous time and it made us Monsens want to discover some of the other caverns that aren't too far from us. If you ever come to Texas, we will take you and have our own little adventure!
The babes were all tuckered out from our little adventure, but we had to eat so we headed to Torchy's for a fun, quick, DELICIOUS lunch.
We all squished into the van and the kids were not sad about it.
These tacos never disappoint and they filled our tummies up real good (well, the tacos plus Round Rock Donuts) until we went swimming again...
And this time Baby J got to tag along and she was definitely killin' it!
Man, that is a cute bunch of cousins right there!
Pools and kids equal lots of smiles!
These cute girls couldn't get enough of the water, so they hopped right in the tub when we got home. :)
After we laid the kids down for their last sleepover of the trip I put Brig to work-
We didn't get a good before picture, but I am SO happy with the after! My hair is so thick and heavy and HOT down here in Texas and I needed a change. It's been a couple weeks since I got it done and I still LOVE it!
On their last day we got up, vegged out and packed them up before heading to Austin to do a mini campus tour and lunch with Brian.
Leah was such a big helper with Eve and I know these girls can't wait to see each other in Utah!
UT has a beautiful campus and though we didn't see much of it we had a really fun time looking around and then checking out Brian's office.
Texas looks good on you, Henries!
I had never seen Brian's office before and he had never talked about it being large by any means, but it was smaller than the closet I had been envisioning...
We had a good little chuckle, took a ride on the escalator in the business building and then headed to Potbelly's for lunch.
And before we knew it, it was time to say hasta la vista to the Henries.
This departure would have been much more difficult if we didn't know we would see each other in less than four weeks. Luckily summer is upon us and that means oodles of cousin time come the end of June!
How happy we are that these beautiful people came and visited us Texans! It was the best Memorial Day weekend we could have hoped for and I'm so glad I didn't plan anything else because I don't think anything could have topped it. Sisters and cousins and babies are just the perfect combination.
Thank you Henries, don't ever hesitate to surprise the Monsens!
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