A Short Visit

We recently took a trip to Michigan to spend a few days with the in-laws. Our first stop was to my father-in-law for a day. As soon as I got out of work on Monday, I picked up the kids and off we went. I thank my lucky stars every time we take a trip because the kids are such good travelers. But how backwards is this first pic? I was sure Noah would fall asleep right away but instead, he stayed up most of the trip and Alena and Christian got a 2 hour nap!

 The following day, after breakfast and cleaning up, my FIL treated us to some fun at a mini golf/arcade joint. To the shock of us all, we each got a hole in one! After finishing up with mini golf, we headed inside to use up the 100 tokens my FIL had gotten for us to play games.

Watching grandpa shave.

We could not get him off this thing.

That evening, we said goodbye to my FIL and headed to my MIL's house. She was already in bed when we arrived so we got on our pj's and hopped into bed.

The next several days were spent enjoying our visit. The kids spent much of the time outside with my MIL's chickens and jumping on the trampoline.

Grandma teaching the girls to bake bread.

Boarding with his uncle.

 Being that Alena is always around boys (with 2 brothers and my sister's 3 boys), she was in heaven hanging out with my SIL's kids (they have 4 girls!). I got these cute pics of Alena and her cousin close in age doing a puzzle book together and sharing secrets. :)

All in all, a good visit. The kids are excited about the fact that we can now see everyone more than once a year. That means more cousin time!

11 Kids, 1 Picture, Not Having it

So in my Michigan vacation post, I had showed you our best photo we had of the 11 grandkids. Even then, it was quite a mess. We had ages 11 down to 2 1/2 months. We tried to get them all to sit in chronological order but with three of them being 14mo and 22mo twins, getting them to sit together was just not happening. Stick them with older siblings and it's a little better but with a lot of tears. Ah well, it made for a great memory!

Here are some of the outtakes...

Noah isn't sure what to make of his crying cousin.

If you ever attempt to do a similar photo, just accept that it will not go as planned, be perfect, and you will not catch everyone looking at the camera and smiling all at once. It just won't happen.

Vacation - Michigan (picture heavy)

I've been putting off my vacation updates and after being home 7+ weeks already, I suppose it's time. 7 weeks, sad, I know. So anywho... After vacationing at the Cottage, we headed further east to see the rest of Gabe's family.

We were there over the 4th of July so we got to view the fireworks from the Cascade Falls. We were directly below the fireworks so we had a great view! Noah did great and watched them too! I was afraid it would scare him but they didn't.

We had been on vacation for only a week so far but we were EXHAUSTED. The long drives and late nights were killing us so we slept in a little the next morning. We lounged around that day waiting for Gabe's siblings to come over for dinner. I love big family gatherings and this was no exception. Even though we were missing his youngest brother, we had his oldest brother and his friend, second oldest brother and his wife and five kids, older sister and her husband and three girls, Gabe and I with our three kids, and his mother!

Gabe and his second oldest brother may be 5 years apart but they could definitely pass for twins! So much so that even Noah was confused when one was holding him and the other was standing there talking to him. He just stared at them both not sure what to do!

And since we had all 11 grand kids under one roof, of course we had to take pictures. It was not easy and out of probably twenty photos between my phone and camera, this was the best one. Getting that many kids to sit still was such a pain! I may post the outtakes in another post. We tried putting them in order of age and it worked except for the youngest ones. The boy and girl in the top row are twins.

Gabe with his three older siblings in order of birth.

Secrets secrets...

The night before we left Arizona, Gabe made a water rocket from PVC pipe. This was his second creation (his first was successful) and he wanted to make it so the person launching it wouldn't get wet. Of course him and his brothers had to try it out! They launched it like normal and then tried to make it more aerodynamic. That wasn't successful but still fun to watch!

Vacation - The Cottage

Every July we travel home to visit family and friends in Michigan and Ohio for a couple of weeks. The entire vacation was nothing but go go go and we were on our death bed EXHAUSTED by the end. We love the visits and dream of moving back some day. Until then, our short trips home each summer will have to do.

Normally we travel by plane from Arizona. Not this year. This year we went the crazy route. We chose to take our chances on driving. Yes, we drove from Arizona to Michigan in just TWO, I repeat, TWO days with THREE kids in the car (post on that coming soon).

Our first stop on this trip was to the Walters' family cottage. We've stayed there the past three years so the kids remember it and were excited about being able to swim in the lake again. But to our surprise the weather was just downright chilly. But we made the best of it and the kids still had fun jumping on the trampoline, finding snails at the beach, and learning to ride their bikes without training wheels.

Note: Alena was NOT a fan of having her training wheels off and any wiggle of the bike caused her to dive off. Therefore, I was not able to get a picture of her.

Aren't these pictures great?! I took them with the new Galaxy S4. LOVE it! As a matter of fact, the top two of Christian on his bike are from my Sony hand-held camera which I love but I think my phone may have taken clearer shots.

So back to vacation... Doesn't Noah just look sooo thrilled to be sitting on the beach taking "selfies" with me? I can't believe I just used the term selfies. I will never do that again.

Seriously mom?

And then we have the game that never ends... Parcheesi. Ugh, that darn game went on for-ev-errrrr.

The weather wasn't ideal for staying in a VERY old and hardly insulated cottage for these warm weather only Arizonans but we made do and survived. The kids are already looking forward to going back next summer.