we babysat.

and we babysat for 16 nights. 

the term 'babysat' is used loosely. the kids are 12(bella), 14(sully), and 17(chris) years old. it's more accurate to say that we were housesitting and hanging out with the kids. 

this is the house we stayed at. it was really nice, and a BIG change (get it?) from our usual set up. the room we stayed in was on the left with the big balcony. 

the first weekend we were there was conference weekend. 6 hours of church a day for two days is hard for me...it was especially hard for the kids. so after the morning session on sunday, we went 'geocaching'. it was fun, but we found better entertainment at the top of this mountain. we would throw a rock up in the air and then all throw consecutive rocks to try and hit the one that was falling. we never hit the falling rock....but we got really close a few times!

 this house almost got hit by a rock more than once...

it was a really beautiful day. i love that it's still so warm here.

the first week consisted of a lot of Office episodes. these kids love the office. jon had never. and i mean never! seen the office until about two months ago! how crazy is that? i watched the first few seasons and then stopped around the time jim and pam got married. (we all know it went downhill from there...) we started from season one and have been going strong! we are on season 8 and are almost office'd out. we are powering through because we want to watch this last season on the days that they are aired. 

on saturday bella had a gymnastics meet up in oceanside. she was pretty sad that her parents were missing it, so the whole family went. we have babysat them before for a few days, so we all know each other pretty good. jon told them he's going to make his children call him 'sir' and i told them my kids will call me 'mother', so that is what they called us for the duration of our stay. we made continuous jokes about being a family and having family time, so bella's meet was a family bonding day. it was so fun watching her! her team was all performing on sunday, and she told them she wouldn't do that, so she was the only one on her team to perform on saturday. i am so proud of my beehive (i'm her teacher at church:) )! she is the second from the left in the last picture with one of her two medals! she placed in a few other categories and received ribbons as well. 

we are proud of our oldest child who got a girlfriend while we were there, haha! she loves bears, so he bought her this bear from costco and used it to ask her to homecoming. he asked if she'd go steady with him that same day. so adorable. 

one night we needed to kill time before picking bella up for gymnastics, so we went to kohl's and picked out clearance ties for the boys. we looked at ties for at least 45 minutes and eventually bought 4 ties for $30. that is not bad! sully couldn't have been happier about getting his own ties. he's never had his own, only hand-me-downs.
(his face is from the office. it's when michael is telling the bartender he's writing a book on management called "somehow I manage" and it's "going to have a picture of me on the cover, shrugging, with my sleeves rolled up." here, sully is shrugging.)

the second week was mostly pingpong. they have a really nice pingpong table, and we took full advantage of it. at the beginning of our stay bella and i were the worst ones. at the end of the two weeks, we were all pretty good! we had tournaments until the wee hours of the night. it was so fun staying with them! we also went to a haunted trail, which wasn't nearly as scary as the haunted houses utah has to offer, but it was sufficiently scary. for some reason jon kept hanging back while we were walking through, so i took to burying my face in sully's back while chris and bella ran (ran!) ahead of us! there was a guy in front of us that was the biggest scaredy-cat. in one of the rooms, some scary person popped out and scared him and his body FLEW back against the wall. he got up and kept walking. another guy flew down from the ceiling and scared him so bad that he flew back against the wall again and his body slid down and slumped onto the ground. one of the girls working there broke character and seriously asked him "sir, are you okay?" way funny! we saw him at the end of the haunted trail laying on the grass just staring up at the sky.
we also watched a few scary movies, ate a LOT of steak, went to olive garden as a family, and quoted the office. they are the funniest kids ever and always remember the best lines! while we were at bella's meet, sully said "my nose is so big that it's always on the prowl." we lol'd for so long! he told chris "see, i can make original jokes, too" since he's always referencing the office. we were surprisingly sad to leave on sunday! we saw them at mutual last night and asked them how it was having their parents home. sully said, "it's.....worse." so hilarious! he was kidding of course, his parents are really nice.
all in all, it was a successful and very funny two weeks with them!