Pittsburg & Raphael

Rachel is HOME! I was so lucky to get to go to Pittsburg for my spring break, see the fam, and see Rachel after her year-and-a-half-long mission in Tokyo, Japan. Rach is doing so good! She is the same old girl you knew before, but more... older I guess. Not that she wasn't mature before, but she seemed just more solid, more mature, a little bit returned-missionary-awkward, level-headed, and patient. Good ol' Rach. I love her so much! I didn't get very many pictures, but we had a fun week of adventures, even though my mom scheduled all of these doctor's appointments for her so she was out of the house a lot and I was babysitting ha. 

Got to take Emily to school once... While we were waiting for them to let the kids in she was like sticking her head out the window and rocking out to Imagine Dragons. Weirdo.

I had my family watch the documentary "Babies" with me. Emily obviously had a lot of questions... which is where we explained the concept of umbilical cords. The next day we found her like this. "Look at my rainbow umbrella cord!!"

Emily peed a couple times. Once on Nicole.

Lauren got her wisdom teeth out. Poor thing. She was actually fairly normal, except for crying a lot and talking about Jesus.

We went out to dinner for Nicole's birthday, and RACHEL ATE RAW FISH!! The girl who wouldn't TOUCH so much as imitation crab before her mission now loves this stuff. ICK.

Proof that my family really does never answer the phone.

Sweet girl. Find her asleep in the most random places.

Me & Emily had a drawing day where we basically just drew animals for each other. Here's a couple I drew for her.

And here are is her letter to Matthew, complete with Elephant drawing:

Transcribed: Dear Matt, I miss you :( Will you come to Pennsylvania??? :( How are you doing Matt? Are you sick Matt? I like you Matt? Are you doing good Matt? What are you doing Matt? Is it soccer Matt? Love, Emily

Emily: Do you know what the B stands for?
Elise: Does the B stand for Bear?
Emily: No it stands for broken.
Elise: ...Why does it stand for broken...?
Emily: Well one of its legs is smaller than the other one so I decided it was broken.

We went to a family fun center one night to play laser tag (Our family vs a bunch of 7 year olds... and we got totally whooped) and Emily wanted to play this one "spin the wheel" and you'll probably only get a couple tickets game. NOPE. She spun the wheel and got the 380 ticket bonus. Go figure. Lucky girl!! She was FREAKING OUT.

Like this.

 Emily walked in on me taking a shower to show me this... Marker hands. Mom was so proud. It also looks like she's kind of doing a "pee pee" dance in this one.

Our first picture all together, and I don't know why we went with this pose. 

And then we came back and it was Easter!! Matt got us these cute baskets, I got him a couple movies, he got me a few gardening things and it was such a good reunion! Man it is hard being away from your husband! Missed him a lot. We had an awesome conference weekend and then back to work was the worst...

Spring! Matthew! Easter! Matthew! General Conference! Matthew! All such good things! Next up is Emily's wedding in ONE WEEK!! 

PS- in case you are wondering about "Raphael..." When my dad and his older sister Marla were kids, they called each other by opposite gender names for fun I guess? Not really sure why. She called him Edna, he called her Merna. I don't know when this started, but me and Rach decided to do the same thing years ago. She calls me Eli and I call her Raphael. Bonding!