Family Ties

We spent much of the summer around family, so I thought it would be a fun theme for one of our summer blog posts.  Any post about family this summer has to start with Grandma Sally, who spent nearly the entire summer with us, helping out with Henry while Katie recovered from two surgeries (very successfully, by the way!)

Grandma Sally has a new grandmother nickname, Yaya.  It's easier for Henry to learn to say, and we're hoping that means he'll be able to say it sooner.  "Yaya" is Greek.  Grandma Sally is not, but we all just liked the name!

Henry and Yaya always have fun together!  Yaya has been around a lot - when you add it all up, she's been staying with us for six of the last eight months or so, and Henry has really gotten used to having her around.

Yaya took Henry outside a lot this summer.  Plenty of time was spent chasing Henry around green fields, playgrounds, mulch landscaping, sandboxes, and everything in between.  I wonder what Henry sees off in the distance here?

Yaya also showed Henry around the State Fair.  Here they are admiring an enormous champion chicken in the Poultry House!

Yaya even went on the rides with Henry and the girls at the Mall of America.  Choo choo!

Between the innumerable diaper changes, getting Henry dressed for daycare, putting him down for nap or bed, feeding him, or just schlepping him around town so that Katie could relax, we couldn't have made it through this summer without Yaya!

Fran's mom Barbara also came to help out with surgery recovery after the first surgery in May.  Here's a nice photo of Katie and the moms.

Henry enjoyed hanging out with MomMom (we've been trying out "Baba" as a new nickname, it helps Henry distinguish her from "mama" a little better!)  

She's coming back in October for round two of helping out, this time helping us get settled in our new house (more on that in a later blog post). 

Ben, Steph and the girls also spent a lot of time with us this summer.  Henry loves spending time with cousins Eleanor and Ada.

There were trips to parks and playgrounds...

More visits to the rides at Mall of America...

Backyard birthday dinner celebrations....

And of course, we met up with them at the State Fair.  (It's just what Minnesotans do.)

(Note to Steph:  Sorry!  We need to remember to take more pictures of you - I know we saw you more than once this summer!)

We saw Great Aunt Judy (Sally's sister) a few times this summer, too!

We got another treat in August when Fran's sister Dana visited with Enzo.  Henry doesn't get to see his Auntie Dana too often, so it's always a fun visit when she comes to town.

It's so fun because Auntie is VERY silly...

Henry finds Auntie hysterical!

We also got to introduce Dana and Enzo to the State Fair.  I'm pretty sure Enzo would move here tomorrow if he could.

We're all looking forward to their next visit.

We spent time with lots of other family, too.  Just last weekend we went to the Belden Bash (which is someone else's big family party, but that's another story), and there we saw all sorts of family we haven't seen in a while.  We were too busy catching up to take pictures! 

Since being around more family was one of the main reasons we moved to Minnesota, we're pretty excited about how much time we got to spend with everyone this summer.

That's all for this post!  The next summer blog post will be appearing soon.