Mary and Addison in NC

We've been very blessed this past week to have visits from both the Bullocks and my mom and Hayley. We've had a crazy spring/summer with having Avery and moving twice that it was nice to get our family to come to North Carolina, even if the visits were both way too short!


Joel's mom and dad came in last weekend on Friday afternoon, the drive from Virginia is about 6 hours. Joel's dad is starting school soon so they figured they should come visit before it gets too busy. While they were her they spent lots of time doting on their grand-daughter who they hadn't seen in about a month and a half. Avery was glad to see them, although she had to warm up to Grand-dad again.

Joel and his dad made us some tasty kabobs on our new grill even though it was in the upper 90s during their whole trip. We also went to the outlets because Joel's mom is a super shopper, so that is definitely a trip we had to make. For our last night with them we went to Applebee's for dinner and played a fun game.

Luckily Joel's dad has a lot of vacation time and Joel's mom also gets a few Friday's off a month, so they will be able to visit again pretty soon. We really enjoyed our time with them and they also got to try out our guest bedroom.

New Yorkers try a different State

My mom and sister made the 12 hour trip down and arrived very early Tuesday morning. I couldn't believe they were really here when they called. We hadn't seen them since they visited us in Virgina for Avery's birth. So Avery had really grown since they'd seen her, and hopefully I had shrunk :)

We had a ton of fun. The first day they were here we decided to relax a little, so they could catch up on sleep and also visit without having to worry about more traveling. But we didn't wait too long to do what girls do best.

We went to the outlet mall to go to Build-A-Bear and also to check out a bunch of other stores there too. We ended up buying some clothes and Hayley added another "kid" to her bunch. Gabriella Michelle is a cute bunny that Hayley stuffed with love that we got her for her birthday.

That night we celebrated August birthdays since Joel, mom and Hayley all had a birthday. It was a little rainy so we decided not to grill out, instead Joel drove to get take-out and we played a fun couple of rounds of Apples-to-Apples. (Highly recommended for a good time.) That game always has us laughing so hard ending up with sore bellies and tears running down our faces.

On our last day together we decided to go to the mall that is close to our house. We ended up going to Build-A-Bear again and Hayley made a cute bear named Baby Olivia for Avery. She loves the bear and I know it will be one of her childhood favorites.

It was a great trip and they loved sleeping on the bed rather than our old futon. Not sure when the next visit from these beautiful ladies will be, but if not we'll see them at Christmas time when we travel to New York if weather permits.