Cousins visiting

My brother and his wife were nice enough to let us steal their kids for a couple of weeks... we've had a blast playing and I know both Ada and Sammy will miss them!  Here are random pictures of activities that we did while they were here... I haven't had a chance to blog them... but here they are.  You honestly don't have to look at them, but I wanted to get a couple out to McKay... and Mom... you have more pictures at the the Welfare Ranch and I know some of them are a lot better than these... I ran out of space on my card!  Grrrr....

These two are of the Carousel at the Provo Beach Resort... Great-Grandma wanted to treat the kids to a ride.  Thanks Grandma!  It was fun!

Nells, Grandma and my mom loving on my baby.

Working together at the Children's Museum in SL.

Making 'dinner' at the museum.

Grocery shopping at the museum.

Checking out.

My daughter, the horse... she acts like one even in Primary and has asked to be one for Halloween... perfect outfit!

Grandpa teaching the kids how to fill up the car with air and gas at the museum.

Ada and Sammy had a blast driving, but notice... Aubrey brought her baby in the car with her!  Stroller and all!

Our builders Ada and Devin.

Lego building!  Doesn't every kid like blocks of some kind?  And in true boy fashion... when the tower got big enough to fall over the boys finished pushing it over and rolling around in them.  Nice.

This was Ada's favorite part... She thought it was so fun to color while the thing spun!

Daddy napping with baby.

Picnic at Grandma and Grandpas!  Don't you think that my baby looks like my sister?  I swear that she's a combination of me and Sharon... but I think that she looks more like Jer than the other two do as well....

Borrowing Great Grandma's umbrella during our freak rain/hail storm.

This is Aunt Margaret.  She had 12 kids and was a school teacher when they we all raised.  Amazing lady... and a good cuddler for babies!

Playing at the ranch that my Great Aunt and Uncle (Frank and Margaret) are running on their mission.  They raise cows and probably chickens too... for the Church Welfare program.  We got to see their chickens (Sammy's favorite!  I had to keep warning him not to scare them too much or they would peck him), cows (Aubrey said they were pigs, and Devin wanted to ride one), take a hay ride (Ada got to handle the reins at one point while Uncle Frank opened a gate), ride on Lady (one of their horses), watch while the other horse "got in time out" (throwing a fit because it didn't want Lady to leave), ride a four wheeler, swing on the rope swing in the barn, see baby owls, and hug our wonderful Aunt and Uncle.  (I can't say that I grew up with their kids, but Bam Bam (Ada's favorite boy at Bear Lake) is their grandson, and Julie... their youngest of 12 kids is my age and we used to play Uno together.  I remember a particular all nighter when they visited our home once. And I used to watch their very active boys try to run up the side of the A-Frame and see how far they could get.) 

Missouri River

So I didn't have my camera to take pictures of the flood, but here's one off Seth's camera phone...  You can kind of see it... the rows of flooded corn and the tree tops and a housetop in the water.

Seth's home!

I'm so excited!  Seth's back in UT!  I've missed you so much!  I didn't have a camera on me besides my phone... which is too bad cause we saw some really neat things on the way... but here's a short synopsis of our weekend.  Friday morning, my mom and Janelle took my kids and Jer took me to the airport to fly to Baltimore, MD.  The plane was delayed because the SINK, of all things, overflowed.  Sethie picked me up and we headed to Inner Harbor to see the Barnes and Noble (which is an incredible awesome building... especially the escalators) and to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  I had no idea that Fort McHenry was made of dirt either!  (You know... the fort from the National Anthem.)  There were ships and "dragons" (paddle boats) in the harbor... and it so happened to be the weekend for Comicon... so we saw hundreds of people dressed to the gills in the 103 degree weather... anything from Anime and video game costumes to Strawberry Shortcake and just plan fantastical... like dragons.  Then we visited with Seth's friends Carmen and Efrain.  (Love them!  I wish they were closer!) Slept... and Sat we packed and took off.

We drove through Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky (LOVED Kentucky with it's big black barns with red roof tops and secret meadows... even the cicadias singing in the middle of the afternoon!), Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and due to the flooding at the Missouri River we ended up going north and through Iowa (which was also a very pretty detour.... the sun was setting over the prettiest little town, all the windmills, and the flooding itself... all the farms and silo roofs that you could just see over the water.), and finally through Nebraska, Wyoming and into Utah.  It was a blast!  We listened to music... (Seth has thousands of songs and knows all about the bands and their histories), read a book called Soulless (way funny), started to make up a new language... (if you've ever done it before... it's the best when you do it with a linguist!), and read/critiqued one of Seth's stories called 'Dawn of Dust'.  WAY GOOD!  I'd like to see it published.  We drove through a rain storm in WV and one in WY... and everything else in the middle was in the middle of a drought... except the flooding on the river of course.  We got back Monday night.

While we were gone, Mom, Janelle, Jer, Dad, Sharon, and the 5 kids look like they had a blast... Well, except Sharon who caught the cold that we caught a week ago and shared around.  You could tell they'd been well cared for because they didn't even care that I was gone.  (Except Jer at church by himself with the three babies... that's a story you should ask him about.)  When I saw them, Sammy said, "Hi mommy!  Ice Cream..." And went off to eat ice cream.  Ada said, "Hi mommy, I missed you."  Then spent the rest of the night crying over everything because she was so tired and asking for daddy to hold her... (I offered... but when she did sit on my lap she just cried for dad the whole time.) Evelyn gave me a big ole grin and cuddled with me though.  Here are some pictures.... Thanks to everyone that took pictures while I was gone!

This was left from before... aren't they cute with Grandma?

In true Robertson fashion... they made a dam

Ellis Family Reunion

Now... July is always family reunion month for us... in the space of four weeks we have between 4-5 reunions every year.  I've blogged the Robertson and Harding reunions... this one's the Ellis one... my direct cousins on my moms side.  These are the cousins that I was closest to all growing up.  Whether or not the cousins were my age we were buds anyways... and this reunion had a great turn out.  All of Mark and Carols 6 kids made it, even Joe whose wife gave birth to their second baby girl (Abigal) the morning after... and Sarah who married a Filipino and is living in the Philippines came with her cute little 8 month old!  All of Diane and Marty's kids!  LOVE being with you guys!  And my wonderful parents brought Reid's youngest, Riley, and Lee's youngest, Braxton...  my cute sisters are supposed to be up there today along with my twin niece and nephew... and Beth has bronchitis and pink eye, but her hubby, Son is going up today with Elisha and a second cousin that's been living with them from Texas, Daniel (not to be mixed up with their son Daniel!).  And if they weren't so close to giving birth we probably would have have Tiff and Tim, and Nate and Meri.

I loved the beautiful weather, the calm lake, the wonderful stars and sunsets, the familiar sounds of Bear Lake camping, listening to the kids run around and giggle with their second cousins and cousins, having my baby doted on by the older girls (especially sweet Shelby), listening to Renee conduct a sidewalk chalk race, watching Ada with her "boys" (why is it always boys?)... she especially got along well with Chomper (Will), Jake's second boy.  He called her "My Girl"... and Ada, the one with hair like Rapunzel... and they were always together or he was asking me where his girl was.  Ada going on Rach's wave runners and saying, "I wasn't scared at all!" Sammy coming to me all cover in dirt and mewing like a cat so that I'd pick him up... when I did touch him, his scalp was coated in sand!  The kids loving to see the potguts and birds. Watching Daddy take the kids out in the little yellow raft and drift around... at one point they pretended they were pirates and hijaked the people on the cabin's carpeted raft.  Sammy and Daddy having a power struggle over the oars... Daddy did win, but Sammy was mad that Daddy was playing with his "toy"...  Don't worry, Sam did get a turn on the oars too!  Way fun.

Reasons we left early from this highly anticipated week long camping trip... 4 of the 5 of us went up with colds... 3 of us got worse... and all 5 of us ended up with allergies from the cottonwood trees... to the point that I literally couldn't breath without help from medication... and even then I was miserable.  I felt bad for little Evelyn whose eyes were red and puffy and couldn't breath at night but she never complained... and Sammy who wanted to be held more, and who had dark circles under his eyes so that he looked like a ghost... my hemorrhoids started bleeding because of so much coughing, and I didn't want to live like that for another 3 days.  We got home, showered, slept, and I feel much better!  Sammy's dark circles are gone... still has a yucky nose, but he's not coughing as much... Evelyns eyes are back to normal and she's not sneezing anymore... still a little stuffy, but it's easier to stick her in an shower and clear her out at home... and I don't have to take any medicine to breath!  My throat is still super scratchy from being irritated the last 4 days... but my guess is that by the time Monday rolls around we'll be ready to play with our Nella and the twins! (Janelle brought the twins up from Texas for a 10 day visit on her way home from finishing her Masters degree in Social Work.  Yay Nells! We're way proud of you! And we're excited to play to our hearts content for as long as we can get away with it!  We've missed you!) 

And I feel really repetitive, but I am so thankful for both a husband that's willing to take up the slack when I feel lousy and for parents that both love me and my kids and are willing to watch them while they are vacation too!  I love you three so much!

My parents were willing to keep Ada up there for the rest of the time, but as we were leaving Ada came over and gave me a big hug.  She said, "Mommy, are you sick?"  I told her I was... she said, "I'm sorry.  When you get better will you come back?"  What a cute little girl!  I wish I could go back without getting gross again!  I'll just miss her until she comes home and hope that she has a blast in the mean time!

Sammy, in the seashells at the neighbors' cabin...

Complete with the fabled "Bear Lake Monster"

Beach baby!

Ada and her "boys" (Gabe, Hyrum, Chomper, and James) being guided by cousin Aubrey

Ada and Sammy content to dig...

They were so funny... they were making a birthday cake and singing "Happy Birthday to Grandma!"

Gentlemen!  Raise your noodles! (Tommy and Sam would raise them and drop them in unison... it was pretty funny.  They did it for quite a while actually!)

This is the first time that we've been that Sammy hasn't demanded to be held by someone while in the water... he walked around and gathered floating reeds.. "One, two, three sticks!"

Cutie with her poor swollen eyes and if you really look you can see them watering and red in this picture too...

I just loved how much her ears stick out in this picture!  She has Jeremy/Sharon ears for sure!  LOVE them!

My boys!

Talking to mom.

Ada, Braiden and Maggie all had these tubes around their waist and running around in circles... they'd try to run into each other, and try to fall on the ground in a heap... this one is Ada being smashed by Braiden and just giggling!

Grandma loving her Sammy... Sam wouldn't keep his shoes on... probably because he started to get sores from the sandals and the sand rubbing on them... so he wanted to be carried all over. 

My sweet Sam!  Sorry I look like crud... My eyes were all itchy, my nose rubbed raw from blowing it, and my lymph glands swollen because of allergies... not my best day for pictures.

Taking a mid afternoon nap.  I love you guys!

Random pictures again

I like random pictures... they're my favorite because they're real.  They're silly. And they're mostly of my family.  Here are a couple.

Shameless Advertising

So I'm going to advertise really quick here to all my 10 readers... I'm going to be teaching a mini-fencers class starting in August at the Sport Fencing place on State Street.  It's for ages 4-7 and I'm way excited about it.  I used to teach the beginners class about 10 years ago and I'm glad for an excuse to get back into it!  They're have fun running around and hitting each other with foam swords for a while before they get into actually needing real fencing gear. 

I went to the Jr Olympics for Foil about 10 years ago.  I came in 3rd at the trials for the Utah/Idaho/Colorado area and 50th for the US at the actual competition (honestly... I sucked at the competition, but it was fun)... I sure loved it and I want my kids to have a chance to love it too if they want to. 

Come join us!  We'll have a blast!  Classes will be Weds at 4:30.