Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Family Reunion

I'm a blog slacker!! Summer is so busy for us, I rarely have time to blog. Forgive me. The summer started out with a bang and hasn't stopped. We first had Kammi's birthday, then Jeff and I took a trip to Minnesota and then the very next weekend we went to a family reunion in Washington. We always look forward to these reunions, especially now that we get to see Sullivan's birth family.

First we had a hay ride. I sent Sullivan with just Kammi and London so I became "nervous" mom the whole time. Of course when they got back he was still on my very responsible 9 year olds lap. She'll make the best babysitter someday!!




At the reunion, Sullivan acted as if he'd never been outside a day in his life. He wouldn't stay in the lodge and when he did, he was so busy running from one place to another. It was stressful to me because I had a hard time keeping an eye on him and I admit I am a nervous Mom. The place was surrounded by a highway and lakes. Jeff pretty much did most of it, followed him everywhere. We were both exhausted!!

This was on one of our many walks we had to have. Jeff taught Sullivan how to skip rocks, it was a sweet moment that made my heart swell with love for my 2 guys!



This is Kam participating in the comedy show.

Siblings. Hal, Favell, My Mom, Penny and Sid were all at the reunion.

Marshmallow Wars...



Cousin Alyssa...such a big help with Sullivan.


My Uncle Bob made himself a "gold" marshmallow gun and even painted his marshmallow ammunition gold.




I think Sullivan enjoyed eating them more than shooting them.




Flowers for me...nope, they were for Grandma. I was informed by London who picks me flowers quite often that I just end up throwing them away...broke my heart. I explained myself, apologized and then she gave me 1 of the flowers, Grandma got the rest.

K went rock climbing. I missed it because of an auction my family was doing, but I heard she did awesome!!

The kids still went on this huge waterslide despite it being rainy and cold outside.




One (of several) fun Uncle!

First off, can you tell which one is Kylee...ha ha?? I love their matching hair color. She took Sullivan on a canoe ride.

Then we went.


The family chain with everyone's name on it literally hung across the whole lodge, it was a beautiful site. Sid's family had the most, but I was pretty impressed with our small family. With Monte and Danielle's help, our family is pretty decent sized now.;)

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Home improvements

We had HUGE plans to accomplish this summer. They included...

Rock around the house.

Shrubberies were bought and planted.

Our garden was planted really late due to the wacky weather, but seems to have caught up to where it should be at this time of year.

Gutters were installed.

Rocks finished around the house. Jeff planted 2 trees. We still hope to plant some more this summer.

And, the BIG finale...

We had a patio installed.
The kids loved watching!

It was a big project!




Future hot tub area.

Fire pit area.

They aren't completely done yet, but it is looking amazing. We've used the fire pit 3 nights in a row and I'm in LOVE with it. I'm sure we'll have many family nights around that thing.
We'd been hearing that the falls were beautiful this year because of all the water. We went and took a look ourselves. Then we had a picnic, played in a little creek and had a family baseball game.