Burgess Family: Time with Cousin Olivia <3

This time I honestly mean it that I am SO SO SO behind on blogging. Between cleaning, laundry, keeping the kids busy with summer activities, Birthday Planning, Birthday Parties, Company, Our Family Getaway, and all the other everyday stuff I just cannot find the time to blog these days and the pictures and memories to document just keep piling up. So in a major attempt to catch up this poor neglected blog of mine, I am going to try and sneak in 3-4 very large blogs into 4 days. Impossible? Maybe, but I’m gonna give it a shot, so here we gooooo……

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The first two weeks in July (goodness, that seems so long ago) Brandon’s Aunt Teri & Cousin Olivia (age 13) came for a 12 day visit from their home in South Carolina. We miss the Fink Family SO much as we all used to live in Albuquerque at the same time when Brandon & I were dating, engaged (Brandon actually proposed to me in their Dining Room), and newly married. We spent about 3 days a week together back then so all the time we get together is super special these days. Unfortunately Uncle Brian couldn’t come due to work, Cousin Ellie (age 20) couldn’t come because of Summer Mission work up in Maine, and Cousin Casey (age 17) couldn’t come due to Basketball Summer Camps…needless to say we missed those three very much. On the plus side, we did get to enjoy some fun time with the two that were able to come :) We were SO lucky and were able to have 2 full days and 1 night all to ourselves with Cousin Olivia. This was really special for us to have her for the night since we used to do special sleepovers with her older Bro & Sis when they were around her same age. So many wonderful memories flooded back and even better we got to make new ones with Livie! The Kids absolutely LOVED having Olivia around and we made sure to keep super busy doing fun stuff while we had her. Here are some pictures of our time with Miss Olivia…

We started our first day with a lunch date to Pei Wei before an afternoon Dollar Movie to see the Croods.

After Lunch, The Movie and a very abbreviated nap for miss Autumn we headed to the Buck Center (we met Mimi there too) for an evening swim.

And after some fun fun swimming we had a Picnic Style Pizza Dinner while watching the 1st Despicable Me.

The Next Day…

We played with Rockets,

We played Frisbee,

The kids took Liv on a ride,

Olivia (an amazing competitive dancer) taught the kids some ballet moves. Gave Mani/Pedi’s.

They played Grocery store,

We Rode a Train,

Went to a petting farm,

Played a bit at the park,

And cooled off a bit in the creek.

It was a FANTASTIC fun filled day :)

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Then a week later, my Sis-In-Law had a BBQ as a Bday celebration for my Brother-In-Law Dan (Her Hubby)/a farewell BBQ for Aunt Teri & Cousin Olivia. It was a great time with lots of laughs and some seriously good BBQ Ribs & BBQ Chicken.