Ana Maria comes to visit

We were THRILLED to host Fr. Juan's sister Ana Maria for a day!

with James and his coin collection

 This was Ana Maria's first time to visit her brother in Oregon.  We've met his mom, other sister, and other relatives, but not Ana Maria, so we were super-excited to spend time with her.  Unfortunately Fr. Juan had to be gone on a trip during some of her 3? week visit, but that was GREAT for us as we were able to spend a full day with her.

After Christmas play practice on a Saturday we picked up Ana Maria from Roy and took her to our crazy house for pizza lunch.  I packed up the older kids and Celeste and we went back north to the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals.

We love the Rice Museum and especially love teasing the youngest siblings about "all the different types of rice we would be seeing…" 

Ana Maria thought her brother would like this flat, pinkish
one that looked like ham…  ;o)

fluorescent light room

in the gift shop--for kids, this is better than the
actual museum!!  ;o)

 We loved walking around the Rice Museum and enjoying all the beautiful specimens.  We are very very lucky to have such an amazing display in our backyard.  After the museum we made our way to Red Robin for dinner:

This was our worst service at Red Robin, ever.  :o(  The whole procedure was over 2.5 hours!  But at least that meant more time with Ana Maria, which we very much enjoyed.  And I enjoyed my quiet time with her on the drive back to Roy.  I hope we can travel to Mexico and visit her sometime in the next few years.