Howell Family Hotel

We didn't have any major 4th of July plans until the evening of July 2nd (Tuesday). Steve got a call from his friend Forrest wondering if we wouldn't mind some visitors for the Fourth. 

Steve and Forrest's friendship goes clear back to high school. Forrest moved after graduation and they haven't seen each other for years. We tried to meet up in DC over Memorial Day, but it didn't work out. 

Anyway, we told them we would love visitors! So Forrest, Amy, and their five year old daughter Olivia drove up on Wednesday from Virginia (where Forrest has been training in the military) and spent a few days with us!

On the Fourth we headed out to Bethany Beach for the parade and a couple hours of beach time. For dinner Forrest was wanting something unique, so we took them to our favorite Mediterranean restaurant to try alligator. Then in the evening we went to a small town carnival where Steve's boss was playing in a band for the evening. There were supposed to be fireworks, but those got cancelled. The kids still had tons of fun on the rides, though. 

Olivia and Jaden

Jaden and his friend Ruby...ahh young love ;)

We love Mike and he sure knows how to rock out :)

I wasn't sure how Jaden would do on the ferris wheel, but he loved it! I think I was more nervous than him. At some points we both yelled "Whoa!" at the same time and I just had that happy little feeling inside that I love being his mom. Jaden, I promise we'll do lots of cool things together as long as you like doing them with me :)

The next day, Friday the 5th, Steve had to work so the rest of us went out to Lewes Beach. Oh my gosh. I now know why locals have told us to never go out to the beach on the weekends, let alone on the busiest weekend of the year. It was so crowded and traffic was crazy, but we still had some fun beach time. We were going to try to hit Ocean City that day, too, but the people on the radio said to not even try to make it into the city. So we called it a day and headed back for pizza and games at home. 

Jaden loved following Olivia around everywhere. I think she stole all of our hearts. When we were walking back to our cars after the carnival, she held Steve's hand. Steve told me later that she made him feel like he belonged to some cool exclusive Olivia club or something and it really made him want a little girl. Aww... 

Olivia and her cute bear named Starbucks

We had so much fun getting to know/catching up with Forrest, Amy and Olivia and we felt really bad that we had to send them out the door on Saturday morning. The reason their trip couldn't have been longer was that we were already expecting our friends Russell and Michaela on Saturday afternoon!

Russ is another of Steve's childhood friends. They met in fifth grade and were friends all through high school. They roomed together at BYU and the guys in their apartment were friends with all the girls in Michaela's apartment. I met all of them when Russ and Michaela were dating. Steve and I got married about five months after them. 

Russ and Michaela had been vacationing in North Carolina with Michaela's family the week before. They worked out their flights so they could leave out of Baltimore and drive up and see us for a couple of days! How nice is that?! Seriously we were so surprised and grateful that they would want to come out of their way to see us. We had been planning a couple of fun things to do on Saturday when they got here, but their traffic was so bad (hello East Coast beaches on the Fourth of July weekend) that they didn't get in until later and were exhausted from the trip. So we just hung out at home and caught up for a bit. 

On Sunday they came to church with us. Let me just say that I feel bad for anyone visiting us who has to come to church with us. Not that our ward is bad--it's actually awesome--but just that Steve and I can only give them about 0% attention while we're there. And we have to leave early and usually stay late. Michaela and Russ had to leave Sunday evening to get to Baltimore for their early flight the next day, so we really only had time to make dinner and chat for a bit. I felt bad that we didn't really do much while they were here, but they said they had just finished a big week and were fine to relax and just see our home and us.

Oh my gosh, we LOVE friends! It was such a great week. THANK YOU for coming to see us! 

PS--We think we're getting this Howell Family Hotel down, so if anyone else wants to come party with us, we'd love to have you! You always have a free place to stay!