Family Reunion fun

And in no particular order:

Callie was fascinated by my cousin Catherine's 3 week old baby. All the little girls were.

Joshua read Calvin and Hobbes books on the drive and now thinks it is hysterically funny to make silly faces whenever he gets his picture taken. I think it is only a slight improvement over the horrible fake smile he use to do. At least this is what he really looks like!

Sometimes it is really cool to have oddballs in the family. My Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve play the Alphorn, and they brought their horns to the reunion. They sound so pretty. Even the kids couldn't make it sound bad! Joshua tried it out and thought it was great.

This was too cute. My cousin Stacy's youngest, Sara, and Delaney were poking their fingers in the hole there. They were so adorable together.

The Sunday afternoon activity involved water balloons and a big water fight. Marian was cross because someone got her wet. She was in the line of fire and got hit.

Garden of the Gods was a cool place with rock formations that were just amazing. Marian loved climbing up them. Here she is with my cousin Robert on one of the smaller ones.

Poor Callie did not feel well last Sunday. She tossed her cookies, took a long nap, and then was cuddly the rest of the day. Here she is snuggled with Uncle Adam. That's Uncle Dan and cousin Miri in this picture too.

Here are most of the kids at a rest stop on the way home. That's Katie and Aaron on the end. Being able to trade out kids in cars really made things go well on the drive. Marian LOVED Katie, and Callie and Aaron got on really well. Nathan (not here) tolerated Joshua, who worshiped him. So traveling with Andy's kids wasn't so bad, and was actually better than driving with just my own.

Family Rocks!

Heh heh heh... I just realized that I can use Miranda and Dan's pictures that are on their computer. So I am putting in some shots now.

This was the great park the kids had so much fun at. I loved that I could sit and visit with my family and keep an eye on them. Delaney had no fear. She climbed right up this slide and went down all by herself. It was a wee bit faster than she expected, but she did it over and over! Here Katie is making sure she makes it okay.

This is my family. Missing is my big brother Andy, his wife Kera, their brand new baby Emma, and their 2 year old, Matthew. Also not present is Jonathan's wife Kristy, and their 2 youngest- David, age 2 and Emily, about 3 weeks or so. And Deborah's husband Ian could not get time off work, so he's not there. I feel that the shirt chosen were a bit drab. We should have gone with the kelly green. It did have a picture of a family tree on the back and that was cool.

Here is my Grandmother with almost all her great-grandchildren. There are about 5 missing and another 2 on the way. We take the whole multiply and replenish the earth thing very seriously! I think we had around 48 adults and 38 children. Most of the kids were 10 or under, most were under 6. They had a very good time! As did I.

Oh, in this last picture, you can tell which kid goes with which family based on shirt color. There was white with the Swiss flag, red shirts, and royal blue. And then there was our boring sage green. This will have to tide you over till I get back to AR and download my pix. I know you can hardly wait!!

Traveling with Children

Well, I am almost home from the reunion! I'm not sure how I feel about spending more time in the car than at the reunion. I love my family and we had a fabulous time. It was nice to see Dan for even just a few days. If you ever need a large family gathering place with great kid stuff, El Colorado Lodge was great. And there was lots of cool stuff to do. Pictures will have to wait till I'm back in AR and can post them.

So, We drove to Tulsa, to Dan and Miranda's. Then it was another long day and one short day of driving to get to Colorado. Same thing on the way back, but right now we're at Dan and Miranda's. We'll stay a few days. Dan flew back to DC straight from CO, so its me, all 4 kids, my parents, and Andy's 3 oldest- Nathan, Katie and Aaron. Yep, 7 kids, 5 adults. Makes for fun travel. Yesterday and today's travels were further enhanced by Delaney's non-stop puking. Fortunately, one she was empty, I only gave her water, and this morning we tried some yogurt. When she vomited all that up, it didn't stink too badly and it didn't stain or make a big mess. And every time she drank anything, it came back up. She was so pathetic.

The other kids were very good. It was great to have 3 cars to choose from and we could seperate them into groups of who got along best with whom. I ended up driving a car full of girls today. They were great. I don't know how I will handle having to just drive my own 4 children, with all their quarrelling.

And with these rambling, incoherant thoughts, I will leave you. I'll see about pictures this weekend. Happy 4th of July!

Reunion time!!

Whoopee for me! We are leaving in the next hour for our family reunion. And I ant talking about no boring old fogie family reunion! I'm talking about 48 adults and 38 kids, mostly under the age of 6! I'm talking about fun! And I'm sweating like a hog from hauling stuff out to the van in the muggy icky heat. I'm waiting on mom right now.

We'll drive to Dan and Miranda's tonight and tomorrow we'll head for Colorado. Then we will have 3 fun filled days with my family, before driving back here. I probably will not have any pictures till next week, and I may not have computer access.

This morning, rather than packing like I ought to have been, I was off looking at houses. Dan and I (Mostly I!) are looking at little investment rentals and it is SO much fun! Do you consider the more expensive one that will rent for more and is worth more? Or do you go for the fixer-upper that will be worth more after a lot of sweat equity? Is a ready-to-rent worth paying more for in the long run? A nicer neighborhood will get better renters, but it also is a little more costly. So many choices, so much fun. And then the big question.... do we really have the money to do this?! Hee hee hee, maybe not, but its a good time!

And now I am outta here! I'll keep you posted..... I always do!

Marian's Turn

A funny thing happened today. As I was carting the girls through Walmart, Marian asked me "When I grow up, will I be a woman or a mom?" She does ask odd things, and we had a discussion of what it means to be a woman vs. what it means to be a mom. I thought it went well. Then she says "When I get old, I do not want to be ugly!"

Interesting. When did she fixate on looks? I mumbled something about growing up and looks not being important. She said, loudly, "When I'm old, I do not want to be ugly like her!" and she pointed to an older lady in the cereal aisle. I was quite embarassed and I didn't really know how to spin that to sound okay to someone who did not know this kid!

She does have her sweet moments though. I gave her a horse book today and she read it over and over. Its so cute when she "reads" aloud. She totally can't read, but she makes up the story and its too cute.

Here is my little reader. She loves the pictures.... and she really loves horses.

You talking to me?

Yeah, I'm cute... and bashful.