I’m catching up this week by blogging about some of my very favorite visitors yet. Joe and I had some serious quality family time when my sister brought her family out to visit last month. We were busy while they were here, so I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

For the full album of our adventures, click here.

Upon their arrival, we celebrated my birthday with dinner at Olive Garden (where I had lettuce in my hair) and a homemade skillet cookie cake that Lily helped me make. Baking with her is all the thumbs up.

It turned out perfectly—chewy on the outside, and warm and gooey on the inside.

Lily and Linc helped me with gifts.

And “Mikey Joe” helped with homework before they called it a night. Quite a long day for them!

The next day was our Explore Salt Lake City day! First up: the aquarium.

This is where Linc’s infatuation with his Mikey Joe burst onto the scene. Lily’s always loved him and I was loving him even more watching him with these precious babes.

Booh surprised us all with tickets to the Penguin Encounter! We were pretty excited.

We got to put on heavy coats, crocs and gloves so we wouldn’t spend the rest of our day smelling of fish.

Lots of penguin pictures in the online album. Most were molting, so they weren’t very hungry, but they sure were cute.

They really gravitated to Tim.

Molting does not look like fun.

But being around those penguins was the most fun.

Other aquarium highlights included the shark tunnel…

…and watching the otters swim and play.

My highlight was when Linc wanted to hold my hand from the stroller. There was a lot of heart melting going on during this trip.

That night we stayed in Salt Lake City for the Young House Love—my favorite former bloggers—Book Signing.

Booh had the great idea to do our family’s “intentionally-closed-eye pic” and it snagged us a spot on their site and Facebook page. We’re basically famous.

The only thing that could make the day better was snuggling with Bella when we got home. Mission accomplished.

Parts 2 and 3 coming right up!