Pittsburgh Chapmans

David's brother, Brian and his wife Wendy and their family came to our house for the first time this week. They finally got a chance to meet Harriet and we got a chance to get to know them again. We were great friends when we all lived in Salt Lake, but since both of our families have moved, we haven't done such a good job in keeping up with their lives.

We were most surprised by how much Alec has grown up since we last saw him (2 years ago at their house at a family reunion.) He went from little boy to teen-ager quite quickly. He is probably embarrassed that we use to think of him as a little boy. I use to tend him along with his little sister Clare when they were tiny. We've never lived near Jeremiah, so this was also our first opportunity to get to know him really well.

All said and done, they were great house guests! The kids were awesome and their new puppy, Argos, was very entertaining and cute. We thoroughly enjoyed having them here and hope that we can see them more often now that we are re-acquainted. Since they are the only relatives within "driving" distance, we have little excuse. (however, I use "driving distance" lightly as it took them about 14 hours to drive to our house - not an afternoon ride in the car...) We still can't believe that Jane and family drove as far as they did to get here either. Ok, I guess I should say that the MITCHELL definition of driving distance is 8 hours or less. The CHAPMAN definition tends to stretch a little further!

Although they were only here a couple of days, we packed quite a bit in and they did some family outings as well. My favorite was probably candle-pin bowling with them along with a little walk to Erikson's Dairy for lunch.

I think Grace is hungry for family. She has been thrilled with her cousin time this summer. She's been able to spend lots of quality time with many of them and was SO SAD to see them go. So, this is my "call" out to the family to help us do a better job of knowing what is going on in your lives in our long-distance relationships.

Thank you, though, to everyone who made such big efforts to come and see us this summer. We have very much enjoyed the revolving door of company that we have had for the past 8 weeks (well really, for the past several months) and we're sad that we have the house to ourselves now for a long while.