Visitors!

Today marked the end of a string of visitors. Aaron's parents were here 2 weekends ago, my beloved uncle Scott was here last weekend, and Nikki arrived on Wednesday and left early this morning. It's been so awesome to spend so much time with family over the past few weeks! We've loved every minute of it and Wes got more cuddle time than he could have ever hoped for.

I'd post pictures of Wes and Aaron's parents from their visit, but they may or may not have been accidentally deleted, along with all the pictures from Wes's blessing day on March 30th. I can't tell you who is at fault, but I can tell you it wasn't me. The culprit is currently desperately trying to restore the pictures in order to avoid sleeping on the couch for the rest of his life.

I'd post pictures from Scott's visit, but we didn't take any (I know, we suck). In our defense, it was a very short visit and we really only had him for Sunday dinner before he headed back to LA. He spent most of his visit enjoying the Phoenix Film Festival with my mom.

Fortunately, I do have some pictures from Nikki's visit. She arrived late Wednesday night and stayed with Aaron and I for the first 2 nights (since both my parents work during the week and it made no sense for her to hang out at their house alone) before moving to my parents' house for the weekend.

On Thursday we met my mom for lunch at YC's Mongolian Grill. I don't know why I don't go there for lunch every single day. I want to lick the ground it walks on. Then we took naps. Because that's how we roll since I became a stay at home mom.

On Friday we went to Park Day, where I obtained my first sunburn of the year. I'd take a picture, but it's behind my neck and I feel weird asking people to take pictures like that just for blogging purposes. It makes me feel kind of lame, ya know?

Friday afternoon I took her to see the Reflections of Christ Exhibit at the Mesa Temple Visitor's center (which I blogged about here). I'm happy to report that the exhibit has a new website and the flash intro includes many of the photographs. So for those who can't make it to Mesa to see the full exhibit, go here.

Early Friday evening we headed out to Queen Creek to watch my brother pole vault at a track invitational. Nikki hadn't gotten to see him vault before and I'd only seen him once, so we thought it would be fun for us to go and support him.

Which is the pole and which is Jared? I can't tell either.

Up....

and...

over!

This picture summarizes how Wes was for the 2+ hours we were there. Fun.

Nikki really was fun though! She definitely should move back here.

Then, on Saturday evening, we had Nikki put on her wedding dress and we dragged her through the desert for a faux bridal shoot. She has like two bridal shots from her wedding and we needed a bride so DM Photo could expand its wedding portfolio. It was a win/win situation. Except for we were wearing jeans and flip flops and she was wearing a dress and heels and couldn't lift her arms high enough to swat at the bugs.

She was a trooper though and gave us some great shots.



Hello, magazine ad.

Which is just as gorgeous in black and white.

She was wearing heels and we neglected to bring a sheet for her to sit on AND the ground was covered in these terrible poke-y seed pod things. But we asked her to sit and sit she did. Because she's a pro.

What did the fish say when it hit the wall? Dam!

(to see Aaron's edits larger in a slideshow, go here)

It was a lot of fun and as we were driving home it occurred to me that Nikki and Aaron are probably my two most favorite people in the world and even with those stupid poke-y things I had had an awesome afternoon. After we got home we had a barbeque with the rest of the family. And there may have been a little Live Free or Die Hard (being a serious Bruce Willis fan is kind of programmed into the Peterson DNA) before we said goodnight and goodbye for now. She flew home to Sam early this morning and we miss her already. Come back Nikki!