Family Reunions=Vacation Time

My family has been spread out pretty good for the last few years. And before that we had never been home all at the same time. So when my sister moved home from Germany we decided it would be a good time to have everyone home at Grandma's. My kids have never really experienced a family reunion, so I was excited for what was in store for them.
Grandma's house +cousins=a great time! I took so many pictures, but I picked just a few. We even had family pictures done, I will post those when we get our copy of the disk. It was a long trek to get there and we were very blessed getting there and coming home. The Lord is ever mindful of us and our prayers. We wouldn't have made it without His help.


The cousins enjoying a treat after an intense treasure hunt. It is an odd angle, I was trying to get everyone in on the shot.

Natalie got to experience cousins for the first time. Madyson is only 2 months younger than Natalie (they are the closest cousins in age). They had a blast together. They played so well together and were always together. I loved it!

Even Evan, who hates kisses, had a great time being with family. My sister loves to give him a hard time about kisses and he eats it up. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of something that he created while we were there. Evan loves dirt and there is a lot of it at my parents house. Right underneath a raingutter he started a "Grand Canyon" (that's what he called it) and he made it about 8 feet long. Then he would put the hose at the end and stomp in the mud. He loved it. What a kid! He is growing up so fast. I can't believe he is going to be 8 next month!

One of my kids favorite thing to do is play with Grandpa's sling shots. I can't tell you how many water balloons we filled, but it was a lot. Zach was really good at it. He could shoot it the farthest. He was very proud of himself.

After the reunion we headed down to Utah and spent half a day at Temple Square. We love to visit this place and the kids had not been in quite a while. Gabe and I envisioned this visit to be like most- see this and that, spend about an hour and be on our way. But the kids were so involved in everything and then some sisters took us on a family tour. That was the best part of the day! Gabe and I both were so impressed, we highly recommend it if you haven't done it. It was very well done. I still remember how I felt during the presentation.

We were able to see some good friends while we were there. Lots of fun catching up and just relaxing together. We did take the kids to a splash park, where Natalie experienced getting soaked with your clothes on. (We left her swim suit at Grandma's) At first she didn't want to, but the water was just too tempting.

After making it back home and into the intense heat we wanted to do something as a family. And I discovered one of the wonderful things about living in Texas- there is never a shortage of water parks and there is a price for almost anyone's budget. We really wanted to go to Hurricane Harbor or Hawaiian Falls, but once you pay for 5 people you might as well go to a beach.

Luckily we found a nice little one that fit the wants of our little family and the price was great!! And because we didn't fork out a ton we didn't feel like we had to stay forever to get our money's worth. The kids had a great time, the lines were not long for the slides, there were area's to just relax in the water. It was all around a great day! So if you visit us in the summer we might just take you here.

Now the summer is almost over and I am very sad. I love having my kids home. But I am not good at keep a structure of school work over the summer. They need structure. School starts in about 2 weeks. I have such mixed emotions. I really want to home school so they can have a more hands on learning experience and be able to be outdoors more. I registered them for school last week and found out that their recess has changed from 20 min to 15 min. They get one recess right after lunch and it is 15 min. That just makes me so sad that they only get 15 min to be have fun. Preschool starts a week after school does and that will keep me busy. But that is good, I need structure as well. Anyway, hope the rest of your summer is filled with laughter and smiles.