The Sandcastle: KAIJA!

My sister Kaija came out for an extended visit from mid May to mid June. She helped out so much, and I can’t begin to express my eternal gratitude. I was making up a bunch of lessons with my students, there were a ton of concerts and recitals I had to go to, Kirby was gone to Boston for a week, we’ve been trying to potty train Jeff, just lots of stuff going on. She pretty much potty trained Jeff since she was able to stay home with him and be really consistent, she said she would take care of both kids after she had been here for a couple weeks instead of Jeff going to day care, so we were able to take him out of daycare a couple weeks early, and they just stayed home while I went to work, and she was the only witness to his first poop on the potty! She was also just so helpful, all the things I usually do or ask to have done would just be done: I would open the door and the garbage had been taken out, the dishwasher had been unloaded, the diapers were taken out to the main garbage, etc. She just made life easier. She’s also creative and full of energy and Jefferson just LOVED having her around and loved playing with her. Cora loves her too and they did great. I enjoyed having her around to just talk and we got to celebrate her 26th birthday while she was here. My brother Jonathan got to come visit for a few days while she was here, and it was fun to have a few of us siblings together to hang out and talk. I will always treasure the time that Kaija was here, and I so appreciate that she came out to spend time with us when she could have been out having a big adventure to reward herself for finishing graduate school. Congrats to her for that accomplishment! The weather while she was here was total crap too. Not that it’s always perfectly summery in May and June, but this was about the worst I’ve seen in the 10 years Kirb and I have been out here. It was so frustrating! I was hoping to be able to do a lot more outdoor activities and maybe even go camping, but there was just no way with the weather. Oh well I guess. THANK YOU KAIJA! We all miss you a ton already!