Carly and Sadie

There aren't a lot of circumstances in which you plan a visit to Tucson in the middle of July. Maybe if someone offered you gobs of money or held a gun up to your head.

But my friend Carly had some frequent flyer miles to spend and a husband out of town (or so she thought- his trip was canceled last minute), so she hopped on a plane with her daughter and visited us for a few days.

I feel really lucky to have Carly as a friend. We were close in high school (even though she was popular and I wasn't), we were closer our freshman year at BYU when we both lived in David John and we were really close our junior year when we were roommates. We both met our future husbands that year and even though we didn't see much of each other, I loved living with you, Carly!

Having Carly and Sadie around for a few days was such a blast. I loved having an adult around to talk to during the day and Booker and Ike went crazy for Sadie. We need a baby girl in our house. Permanently. Immediatamente. Ojalá fuera un anuncio, pero no es.

It's hard entertaining someone from out of town when it's this hot outside so we mostly stuck to swimming in the pool and indoor activities. We spent an afternoon at the Children's Museum which despite being overpriced, is a lot of fun. Even Sadie was able to find fun new things to... chew on.

We also headed over to Trail Dust Town to see a stunt show, ride the train, pan for gold, etc. I was worried that Sadie would be bothered by the loud gun shots, explosions and what not, but she was totally unaffected. Ike was quite tense the whole time. He spent the entire drive home whispering, "Shoot. Boom. Fire. Shoot. Boom. Fire." It was a little disturbing.

I love a good monsoon-y sky.

Overall, it was such a great visit. I was reminded that I need to be better about maintaining those friendships that are important to me. Blogging and Facebook can be great ways to stay in touch, but they're no substitute for the real thing. And as much as I'd like it to be, texting is not the same as picking up the phone and actually talking to someone. It's hard traveling with kids but I'd like to take a cue from Carly and make an effort to actually visit those people I love but don't get to see very often. I'm thinking trips to Knoxville, Berkeley and Boston are in order!

More photos from our visit here.