Uncle Chris and Tia America

I am very far behind in my blog posting/ journaling. Its been a couple of fun and crazy weeks for us lately, but it's time to play catch up.

A couple of weeks ago, my brother Chris and his wife America came for a quick visit. They used a couple of buddy passes from Matt, and took a red-eye out of Utah on a Wednesday night. Because of load problems, they had to make a couple of stops. They were quite tired when they finally arrived on Thursday morning. Mattie was very excited to see them, even giving up her swimming lesson to tag along with Matt on the drive to the Orlando airport, to pick them up. We spent a little time with them before leaving them to go and do my nanny job. That evening I had a Girls' Camp meeting, and they headed over to visit America's sister Angela. Angela had just had a baby girl the week before, and she lives here in Palm Bay as well.

On Friday morning, we got up early to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom with Chris, America and my mom. I think that was Chris's first time there. It was hot, but we had a really good time. When we were there in February with Wayne and Becky's family, we had tried to get Mattie on the River Rapid ride. She was too short by like an inch and a half. Matt had even tried to stuff her shoes with napkins, but she still didn't make it. Well, she has had a little growth spurt since then, but still a little short for the ride. This time Matt packed along her platform flip flops. She barely cleared the height measurement, but they let her on. She loved the ride, (but not as much as her beloved Barnstormer)! We had a great time looking at the animals and spending the day with family.
Matt and I left the park a little sooner than the rest of my family, to head over to the Orlando Temple. We chaperoned the youth temple trip that night. We had a couple of new youth church members going to the temple for the first time that night. It was very fun to watch them experience doing temple ordinances for the first time. I love being a counselor in YW. I love being able to work with the youth of our ward. They are all amazing and such great examples to me. I know that Matthew always has a good time accompanying me to youth dances and other activities. It was a spiritual ending to a great day!

America or Tia, as Mattie refers to her, is a wonderful sister-in-law. I can't think of anyone better suited for my big brother. Mattie adores her. Matthew had Mattie start calling America, Tia, when her and Chris were engaged. Matt and America both speak Spanish, so they passed that little bit on to MoMo. We try to get Mattie to call Chris, Tio, but she won't do it. I guess Mattie knows Chris is a white boy through and through, where as America is half Mexicana and has some Latin blood in her! Anyway, America is an elementary school teacher, and she had Mattie practicing some facial emotions. It was quite funny, because it had never even occurred to me to see if Mattie knew how to express different emotions with her face!





Chris and America had to leave on Monday. They had a crazy time getting home to Utah. They traveled for about 24 hours, and experienced the downside to flying for cheap! It's nice to have benefits, but sometimes its a real downer to fly stand-by. We were glad they made it home safe and sound, but sad to see them leave.

We miss you guys and can't wait to see you again, when we come out to Utah for a visit in June!