To polish off our summer, I took the kids up to Canada to visit my family. Since Jaron can only take time off during his elective block (and his elective block in July was spent in Boise getting certified in colonoscopies), I ended up having to take them myself. Thankfully, the kids were great little travellers.
A couple of days before we got there, Genny's neighbor gave them six bunnies that they had found under their shed. Genny and McKay were camping when we got to their house so we got to take care of them for a few days. The kids LOVED it. I did not. Those rascals are hard to feed and they kept getting out at night!
Don't we make good lookin' girls?!
We did our traditional trip to Calaway Park. My kids talk about it all year long! This year we met up with Judy (my mom's cousin) and three of her kids and their kids. So many people made for a little bit of a crazy group but we survived the day!
James and Randel (Jason's boys) came along to a lot of our activities, including Calaway park. It was so great to be able to connect with them. They drove home from Calaway with me. I feel like I got to know them so much better. We talked about school and dances and having friends who make bad choices and other stuff. I loved it.
One of my favorite parts of the Calaway Park day was stealing away for awhile with just these two littles and baby Adelyn. We rode the train together because both of them had been too scared to go on any rides. Once we did the train, both of them became a little adventurous and went on a few. This little Brinlee girl. She's a handful for her parents but she is so, so, so, so adorable!! Love her I do!
These two were pretty cute together. Reed slept in Whitney's crib while the rest of us slept in the basement. Every morning he would wake the house by yelling in his growly little angry voice, "MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!" until I came and got him. :D
Hitting up the Helen Schuler Coulee Center.
All of my parents' grandkids. This was taken at a picnic with my mom and I really, really wish we had put her in the picture with the kids!
I couldn't get over blonde Genny while we were there. My mom is so into giving the kids special experiences when we come. On a different day my mom came over and played games with us and then we took all the kids to a candy store, where Grandma treated them to whatever they wanted.
We went out and saw Dad and Irina too but I never seem to get pictures of them. :( They always load us up with goodies and garage sale stuff for the kids. They seem to have great luck garage sale-ing! We give them a wish list and somehow they always seem to fill it!
Love my family, I do!
I love that my kids have cousins their age.
Three of the cutest babies I've ever seen!!
A picture of the sisters!
As you can imagine, dinner time with 9 kids age 9 and under is a bit of a madhouse. But always enjoyable. When we visit it seems like we're always in the kitchen. By the time we get one meal cleaned up, it seems to be time to prepare for the next one! :)
Before we got out of the car, I took a picture of the odometer. We drove 1874.4 miles this trip. When we pulled into Twin Falls, the steering wheel started shaking. It kept getting worse until we pulled into the driveway.
This was what was causing the shaking:
I can't believe how blessed we are!! I don't even want to imagine what could have happened! Our family considers this a miracle! In fact, when Alden gave a talk in primary today about the miracles of Jesus Christ, he wanted to talk about the tire. Love that boy!
Our neighbor manages the Les Schwab here in town. Since we had helped them keep their son out of the ER (and probably because we're awesome neighbors ;) ), they sent a guy out to fix it for us for free and gave us a discount rate on the tire! When the tire guy pulled up, the first thing he said was, "Wow! It's sure a good thing this didn't happen at highway speeds!" I asked him if he believed in God and then told him we'd just driven almost 2000 highway miles. He couldn't believe it. I still can't either. So blessed!!
I love that my kids have cousins their age.
Our neighbor manages the Les Schwab here in town. Since we had helped them keep their son out of the ER (and probably because we're awesome neighbors ;) ), they sent a guy out to fix it for us for free and gave us a discount rate on the tire! When the tire guy pulled up, the first thing he said was, "Wow! It's sure a good thing this didn't happen at highway speeds!" I asked him if he believed in God and then told him we'd just driven almost 2000 highway miles. He couldn't believe it. I still can't either. So blessed!!
