Cousin Courtney's visit!

(me and Court the day she left)

Chuck and I have loads of cute nieces (nine altogether) but most of them are little and darling - not quite old enough to steal for extended visits :). Two of them are, however, and we were so happy that the stars aligned for 12-year-old Courtney to come and stay with us for a couple of weeks in July! (We are crossing our fingers that the stars similarly align next summer so that Mallory can come - this summer she was busy being a forensics rockstar at a national tournament!!).

 We grabbed Courtney in Elko and brought her home and immediately started subjecting her to Izatt family traditions, starting with taking a ridiculous number of pictures of ourselves :).

 Here we are on our way to dinner with the Curtis fam:

One day we got ambitious and hosed down the van... and each other...

 Court got roped into playing legos with the boys one day; she created a pretty epic battle scene with a bunch of minifigures:

Of course swimming was on the agenda; we left Carma with Grandma Pam for an afternoon at Ivywild Pool with the big kids!

 

 More adventures: while Courtney was here, the youth in our ward went to the temple and our wonderful Bishop went out of his way and made phone calls so that Courtney could go too! (also, please enjoy that picture of Chuck's beard, a mere four days before he shaved...). Court and I had a girls' night at the mall, complete with Orange Julius...es.

 Painting our nails was a regular event; this time we opted to match. Courtney proved to be an amazing babysitter, one morning she watched Will and Jack while I took Clyde to a dr appt, and then that afternoon two cute girls (Kiki and Stormi) from the ward came over and the three of them stayed with all FOUR kids while I ran some errands by myself. Heavenly! And I love the last picture of Court and Carma - Courtney was so sweet with her baby cousin. She got her dressed and in and out of her carseat everywhere we went and helped SO so much.

Chuck's cousin and her family live pretty nearby and have a daughter just younger than Courtney, so we got the second cousins together a couple of times while Courtney was here:

Including a trip to the mall and a sleepover at our house. I feel like I've now met my mall visit quotient for like five years :). 

The girls were super sweet and helped me set up for our Relief Society clothing share and swap at the church, even after staying up late the night before. Lexi was such a doll; it was so fun to spend time with the girls together!!

Courtney got to come back to the share and swap the next day too - she was amazing; she made the sign and manned the cookie station and folded a million clothes and held Carma for hours on end. Love her.

And then, just like that it was time to say goodbye! That afternoon I packed her into a car with the ever-accommodating Curtis family (they feed us, they transport us, we love them):

It was such a fun two weeks! I loved getting to know Courtney even better and doing fun girl-y things and having such a great helper around the house and our late night, front yard porch swing talks :). 

Love you Court, come again!!