My sister came to visit over the weekend. We had such a fun time together and she was a huge help with the kids. Parker and Hannah love their Aunt Carol and were very sad to see her go.

We went to the beach the first day she was here. The kids loved playing with our raft especially when Carol would float them around the water.

Saturday the kids went to a birthday party in the morning. It was peter pan themed so they were able to dress up. Unfortunately, I misplaced Hannah's tinkerbell costume from Halloween so she ended up as an Indian princess. It turned out really cute and she was so proud of her feathers. Parker, of course, loved pretending to be a pirate. They had a great time at the party which gave Aunt Carol one on one time with Olivia without all the "look at me!" from Parker and Hannah.

That afternoon, Carol took Parker and Hannah to the movies (with popcorn and sodas) and then shopping. They loved going to the pet shop and looking at all the cute little animals and came home with a bag full of special treats for Lucy.

Before Carol left we made one more trip to the beach. We tried Kings Beach this time. The kids had fun building a sand castle and collecting rocks. Towards the end of the trip we watched a thunderstorm over the mountains. Carol tried to capture a picture with lightning but it was nearly impossible. The kids had a million questions about lightning and thunder. After a while the storm headed our way so we packed up and left right in time. The way home we were hit with pouring rain.

One of the funnier parts of the trip was snack time. Carol gave Hannah a cookie (chocolate oreo-like) and she decided she really only wanted the filling so she separated the cookie and peeled off the chocolate filling. Well it slipped and fell into the sand. She picked it up and analyzed it and thought it was still okay to eat. I saw this whole thing go down while Carol was giving snacks to Parker.

Right before Hannah put the sandy filling in her mouth I yelled out, "Hannah don't eat that!" Carol turned around, grabbed the filling and with a look of absolute disgust chucked it across the sand saying, "Oh I don't even know WHAT that was." Hannah started to cry. I told Carol what happen and she was a little relieved. All she felt was something mushy, brown and covered in sand headed towards Hannah's mouth. Needless to say, Hannah got another cookie.