Family Reunion - Yost Edition, Day 1 & 2

Todd's parent returned from their mission in April and it was time to get the Yost Clan back together again.  We had rented a large cabin up in Heber that would fit our group and we were looking forward to getting reacquainted with extended family again.

DAY 1

Our kids love flying and were very excited to be flying to Utah instead of driving.  I have to admit, it is much nicer than driving 24 hours to get there.  After landing and enjoying the mountain air, we had several hours before we could check into our hotel she we headed downtown to get something to eat.  Todd suggested eating at the mall's food court.  My thoughts were,  ehh but we did it anyway and boy was I surprised!  We ended up at the new City Center in downtown SLC.  Holy smokes is this ever a nice place to shop!  And I got to get my food from Red Iguana while everyone else chose McDonalds- bleh.

The kids got a lot of energy out in the play area 

 After shopping and some swimming, the kids were pretty tired!

DAY 2


Meet up with Todd's parents at IHOP - we hadn't seen them in 2 years and the kids acted like punks.  Hardly talked to their grandparents.  We had to start the day off with a little talking too about behavior.

We then took a drive down to Provo to meet up with the Hema's - well at least part of them anyway.  It was so good to let the kids splash around in one of BYU's new waterfall areas and visit with Gina.  I miss that family!

Our journey then continued with a stop over to my Aunt's house - LOVE that woman!  And visited with her for awhile.   I could have stayed longer and now mad at myself for not taking any pictures with her!  She is one spitfire of a lady.  She took good care of me while I was at the Y and have great memories of her and Gary.

Then it was off to Heber, the drive made Olivia have jello neck.  We were then at our new home for the next week.  The first night was fun seeing everyone once again and meeting some new cousins who had been born since the last time we got together.

I think Alec was a little overwhelmed by all the people and stayed pretty close to mom and dad.  His favorite activity was pulling out all the diapers from the diaper bag and leaving them scattered around the house.

*This little game that Olivia found never left her sight the whole week.  It was some broken toy from the cabin but she carried it around like it was her computer.  She even slept with it, silly girl.

Abby's 8th Birthday

When did I get old enough to have an 8 year old?!  Sweet Abby was going to have her birthday while we were away at a Family Reunion so she had several different celebrations over the month.  Lucky girl.

Gma and Gpa taking Abby out for a bday breakfast. 

Abby was so cute about how she was going to look that day, she wanted her hair wavy and had me braid it the night before and she picked out the perfect outfit.

The night before we left for vacation we let Abby open up our presents to her. I thought it would be too cruel to make her wait until we came home.

 After our family reunion we had a friend party.  The kids get friend parties every other year and Abby planned her party months in advance.  She wanted a swimming party, with a Hawaiian theme, a cookie cake (store bought makes it simple for me), she wrote out what games we were going to play (swimming bumper cars with tubes, tube races, monkey in the middle), and then we had a late-over movie night. 

While getting ready for the party Kaitlyn was very concerned that she didn't buy Abby anything, so she went through her treasures and wrapped up a yo-yo just for Abby.  She was so excited to be apart of the group and was even more excited to watch Abby open her gift, it was too cute.

 The party was loud, wild, and a lot of fun.  It was so nice to have all her fun friends come celebrate Abby with us!

July 4th

I have fond memories of how we spent the 4th of July when I was a kid - Bear Lake, fireworks in the driveway, and fireworks over the Missouri river.  We try to do things that will make good memories for our kids but it's seems that the past couple years, since the city moved the display away from the high school, our firework viewing has been harder to get to.  We used to just watch them in the backyard of a friend's house that backed into the HS.  It was awesome. I already have a plan for next year's viewing.

The 4th was great.  We woke up to messages written to everyone by Uncle Sam.  Apparently Abby secretly made messages for everyone in her room and snuck down around 5 in the morning to hang them up to be a surprise.  It was a surprise!

We enjoyed a breakfast at the church and then headed to the neighboring town's 4th of July parade.  All the floats throw candy to the crowd and our girls got more than they get at Halloween.  There was so much sugar! At the end I was interviewed by the Dallas Morning News on patriotism.  I felt on the spot and thought that my answers were dumb.  I'll never know because I never got the paper on the next day.   Who knows if they even put my interview in.

The evening was complete with an improntu BBQ together with the Martins.  Todd took Alec home right after so he wouldn't cry through all the booming of the fireworks.  The girls had a great time hanging out with the Martin girls and we did see some fireworks, the trees were just a bit of an obstacle.

  

Water in the Street

One morning Olivia wanted to go outside, as we looked out in the street we saw a lot of water flowing. It was tons of water so I was thinking someone's sprinkler head might be broken and going off.  I told the girls lets go play in the water for a little while because I didn't think it would last long.  The girls quickly threw on their rain boots (don't really know why since they came off within minutes) and headed outside.  We ran up and down the street and played in the water - it was something unusual so really exciting for the kids.  After quite some time we headed in, changed out of our wet clothes and went back to chores.  An hour later the water was still flowing down the street and the girls wanted to play some more so out we went again.  This time we investigated where it was all coming from, the city was releasing water from several fire hydrants.  I guess this is some maintenance thing the city does every so often, I looked like a lot of wasted water.  However, we did enjoy the distraction.

June 22

It was a big day in our house on this day.  Alec had woken early - 6:00 ish so he and I were playing out in the living room quietly when he decided he was going to walk.  He just stood up at one end of the couch and walked across the room.  Life just changed right then because he is now into EVERYTHING!  We do love chasing him around the house and he squeals with delight.

Later in the evening, the girls were upstairs cleaning the game room when we heard some screaming going on.  We couldn't quite understand what was happening until Kaitlyn came down the stairs with a tooth in her hand.  She finally lost her first tooth.  She had been asking me for over a year when she was going to loose a tooth and was thrilled that it finally happened.

Deep Thoughts By Kaitlyn

While eating graham crackers with Kaitlyn at the table:

Kaitlyn:  Where are these crackers from?  Are they made in China?  Everything is made in China!

Family Reunion - Porter Edition

My brother, Matt, and his family drove down to Texas from Ohio in early June.  We hadn't seen them in about 3 years.  It was so good for the kids to get reacquainted and just to hang out with Matt.  We just wish their stay was a little longer.  Matt's boys just really wanted to swim so we did lots of swimming, played some Just Dance (Grandma got in on the action too), and spent a day at 6 Flags (A pretty empty day too, we rode rides over and over again).  Laurie even flew out a joined us with her youngest.  It was almost a complete Porter reunion, we were missing Laurie's husband and older boys.  Maybe next year.

It's Dy-no-mite!

 Tan girl

The last ride we rode with the kids was a new one for us, I can't remember what it was called but it spins you while you go on the coaster.  Matt and I were riding with Kaitlyn and she started freaking out as soon as we started picking up speed.   I was laughing too hard at her reaction and the ride I showed her no sympathy.

Matt sat across from us on a boat ride so we were facing him.  He was trying to get a picture of the group.  Another family sat in front of us and was directly now in front of Matt.  Matt pretended his record for holding in the throw up on  a ride was 15 seconds.  The kids in front were getting a little worried.  Matt acted out that he was getting sick and made us all laugh.  Next time he'll have to play it up a little more.

At the end Matt really wanted to ride the Superman ride so I joined him.  It was fun listening to Matt scream a little bit.  Good times.

 Laurie's youngest was born a week after Alec.  They happen to have matching Pjs!