Road Trip 2015

I feel like the month of July was spent on the road living out of suitcases.  Our ultimate destination was a family reunion in Vermont, but along the way there and coming back we stopped in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana.


First stop: Kirtland Ohio

We had been to Kirtland once before when Will was around Sarah's age, but Will didn't remember much and Kayla and Sarah had never been, so we spent a few hours exploring.  We also got to see the Kirtland temple, which is something we didn't do the last time we were there.

  According to the sister missionary giving us the tour, this was the river where many of the early Saints were baptized.  Kayla was really interested in this story and kept wanting to see the river.

The Newel K. Whitney store.  It was so fun being here with older kids because they could actually ask questions and it was cool to see them so interested in things.

I believe this was Joseph and Emma Smith's home.  Or maybe the Whitneys, I forget now.

The Kirtland temple.  It was interesting seeing the inside and realizing how different this temple is from the temples we have today.

Next stop: Palmyra New York

Bill really wanted to go to the Hill Cumorah pageant, and thankfully we got there right as it was starting.  We've now been to the Manti pageant, Nauvoo pageant and Hill Cumorah pageant.  The next day we went to the Palmyra temple and visitor's center then to the Sacred Grove
.

  Kids in front of Palmyra temple

Path leading to the Sacred Grove

It was neat to explain to the kids that this (or a similar area - it was a big place) was where Joseph Smith prayed and was visited by Heavenly Father and Jesus.  I don't know about the rest of the family, but I definitely felt the Spirit as as we were walking through.

Next stop: Sharon Vermont

Our last stop before getting to the reunion was Joseph Smith's birthplace.  We went to church that morning, which happened to be right next to the visitor's center and monument.

Finally we got to the family reunion at a beautiful house right across the street from Lake Champlain in northern Vermont.  What followed was a week full of fun, laughter, games, music, chatting, swimming, and LOTS of food.  There were day trips to the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory, a petting zoo, Montreal, and various shopping trips to the nearest big city.  There were wagon rides and games in the backyard, deep discussions on the back porch and lake deck, family pictures taken hurriedly before the rain came, and overall a fabulous time.  

The Lake: There were various boats, kayaks, and boards for us to use whenever we wanted, so we spent a lot of time on the lake.  Bill took each of the kids out numerous times for rides, and Will ended up being really good at whatever boat or board he decided to try.  Bill even convinced me to get into the canoe on one of our last days.

  

The yard: This house had a huge backyard, which all of us took advantage of at least a few times a day.  There was a cute little wagon that various small children gravitated towards on a regular basis, there was a little pond with frogs in it, places for people to eat meals if they wanted, and plenty of space to play various games.    

Petting farm and ice cream: About an hour away from where we were staying there was a cute little petting farm with a small store that some of us visited for a little while.  The kids - most of them anyway - (Sarah seems to have developed a small fear of animals, she preferred being on the playground) enjoyed feeding and petting the animals, then we all got to enjoy some maple-flavored ice cream cones before heading home.

The Talent Show: My sister-in-law decided that I should be in charge of the family talent show, and I tried to take the job seriously.  I emailed people ahead of time to let them know that they were welcome to plan a little something if they wanted to, but there was no pressure.  I was pleasantly surprised that there were a number of people willing to participate.  We had serious entries, such as a voice/ukelele duet, a dance number, and a couple of piano numbers.  We also had various not-so-serious entries, such as a children's book reading, a group song to the tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas", and "the annoying kids" which consisted of two of the oldest cousins putting on what can only be described as a variety show-type performance.  Let's just say it lived up to its name :)

   
Family pictures: We picked a day to take family pictures during the middle of the week.  We had been asked to try our best to color-coordinate (blue and green were the main colors with one or two other colors mixed in).  I received the email, then promptly forgot to remind my kids to pack accordingly.  Miraculously, Kayla and Sarah managed to put something in their suitcases that worked.  Will...not so much.  Thankfully he didn't stand out too badly.  We had the beautiful lake as our backdrop and I think they turned out pretty good.    

I really like this one of Bill, his siblings and his parents

 

Downtime and family bonding: Amid all the activities that we planned we managed to have some time to either just hang around the house or explore the various places around us at our leisure.  For example, a couple of families drove up to Canada for the day while the others stayed home and took a walk down to a local rock quarry; Bill and I got to go for a walk by ourselves and caught a beautiful sunset; Bill and Will went hiking with Uncle Michael and Chandler; the older kids spent some time laughing together while doing MadLibs; all the kids seemed to enjoy building Lego towers; Grandma Evans came up with an awesome Family Bingo game; kids enjoyed finding rocks at the lake or watching the frogs in the pond; the adults stayed up playing various board games after the kids went to bed; and the list goes on.  

 These three boys are the cutest.  Alex (in the red) was constantly on the move, entertaining everyone with his squeal and huge grin.

These two were dubbed the "cousin twins".  I loved all the little babies around the house all week.

At the end of the week it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but the fun wasn't over for our family.  Bill needed to get to a physics conference in Maryland a couple of days after the reunion ended, so we drove down to Pittsburgh, went to church, then Bill caught a flight while I drove the rest of the way home with the kids.  Thankfully my wonderful in-laws decided to come back with me.  So my mother-in-law drove with me and the kids while my father-in-law drove their car.  It was an amazingly uneventful and easy trip, minus the HUGE downpour we experienced in Indiana for at least 30-45 minutes.  But we got home safely and survived the 3-4 days Bill was gone.  The day he returned the kids and I got back into the car and drove 2 hours to Indianapolis to pick him up.  The reason was so that we could attend the Indianapolis Indiana Temple open house.  I hadn't been to an open house since I was in high school, and this was the first one for our kids so it was really special.  I'm very excited that this is going to be our temple so we'll get to see it a lot.  I'm also excited because we will get to see some good friends of ours that used to be in our ward here in Illinois.  We got to visit with Lisa and her cute kids after the open house, and I'm excited to renew those friendships during various temple trips in the future.

 

     

It was an awesome trip with wonderful memories, but like Dorothy says in the Wizard of Oz: "There's no place like home".  We're glad to be back and are anxiously looking forward to the start of school in a couple of weeks. 

Videos

Here are a couple of recent videos.  The first is Sarah dancing to "Let It Go", which seems to be her favorite song right now.  The second is Will's most recent piano recital.  He played "The Circus" and "Hedwig's Theme" from the movie Harry Potter (the nerd in me was so excited when I found out he was doing that one).  Sorry the lighting quality in the first movie isn't the greatest. 

Recent Musings

I feel bad that I don't put much day-to-day stuff about what our family does, so here are a few cute little things that Sarah has been saying lately. 

She seems to enjoy singing, especially Primary songs.  But she puts her own little twist on them.  For example, when singing "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man" she says "The rain came down and the flowers came up" (original line: "the rain came down and the floods came up").  Or when she sings "Popcorn Popping" she says "The apron in the cot tree" (original line: "popcorn popping in the apricot tree").

She is very quick to correct people.  When I tell her "You're silly" or "You're cute" she says "No I'm not, I'm Sarah!".  She also is very good at putting people in their place.  For example, the other day Will and Kayla were having a typical sibling argument and one of them called the other a name.  Sarah piped up immediately and said "we don't call people (whatever the name was, I forget)!"


  

Happy Birthday Kayla

Today is Kayla's 6th birthday.  She really wanted to have a fairy party, so I took a few classic party games and put a little twist on them.

Each girl got to pick out her own wand and crown to use during the party and then take home

Fairy freeze dance to Disney songs

For this game the girls had to keep the balloons in the air while music was playing.  When the music stopped they popped their balloons which had a slip of paper with something silly they had to do. 

 Pin the star on the wand

Fairy, fairy, pixie (duck, duck, goose)

Sleeping fairies.  You start with one girl who taps someone to wake them up, then each girl wakes up someone until everyone is awake.

I have to give credit to Bill for how this cake turned out.  Kayla had found a design online a while ago that she wanted, but apparently it was beyond my capabilities so I kept messing it up.  Thankfully Bill is a genius who made it look awesome. 

Happy Birthday Kayla!  We love you!

Our basketball star

Will has started his basketball season again.  This year his team is the Mustangs and their uniforms are silver and green.  He has definitely improved since last year, and is having a blast so far.  These pictures are from their first game this last weekend. 

Watching with his team as the ball goes into the basket.  He made at least half the baskets during the game.

I am very impressed with his form in these pictures.  Like I said, it's a major improvement from last year.

I'm so glad we found this program and that Will continues to enjoy it.  Hopefully we'll get to do it at least a couple more times before our time in Illinois is done.

Birthday Boy

Today is Will's 9th birthday.  It blows my mind that we have a child that old.  One more year and we'll be in the double digits!  Will's birthday party this year was a Pokemon theme, because apparently being obsessed with Pokemon is a very popular thing at his school right now.  Thanks to another mom's blog, Bill and I were able to pull off a fairly successful party with our limited Pokemon knowledge. 

 First the kids made their own Pokemon to use for a later game

Playing "Gotta Catch Em All".  Basically you try and throw something on top of at least one Pokemon before the player pulls it away.  It was so popular we played at least 3 rounds.

Pokemon training relay race.  Each child pretended to be Ash, one of the Pokemon trainers.

"Catch the Pokemon".  I think Will described it as similar to dodgeball.  Or maybe freeze tag.  It's hard to remember exactly.

The Pokeball cake.  Easiest one I think I've ever made.

I was asked recently to describe Will's personality.  One word that comes to mind is serious.  We can often find him writing stories or concentrating on a task for long periods of time.  At the same time he loves to be goofy and silly and make everyone around him laugh.  He's very smart and likes to read and do math.  I think out of all our kids he's the most well-rounded.  He plays the piano, enjoys playing sports, and does well in school.  We love him and are grateful to have him in our family.     

Silly Sarah

As with any family, each member has their own personality.  This is very true of our family, especially the kids.  Will has given Sarah the nickname of "Silly Sarah", and I think these pictures demonstrate why that name fits so well.

  The face she gave me when I told her to smile

These pictures were just too cute for me not to post.  I think her other nickname should be "Sweet Sarah"

 Helping her big brother practice

Those eyes kill me

She speaks

Certain people, who shall remain nameless, have been begging me for a long time to take more pictures and videos of my children.  After numerous attempts, I was finally able to get a fairly decent video of Sarah saying a few of her favorite words.  I apologize for all the background noise that might make it hard to hear.  Enjoy!

New Beginnings

It's August, which means that school is starting again.  It was a really fun summer for all of us, but there's something exciting and satisfying about a new school year.  And this year is extra special because Kayla is starting kindergarten.  She has the same teacher that Will had, and so far seems to enjoy it.  Will is starting 3rd grade, which means he's already halfway through elementary school.  It's a little surreal that I have two kids in elementary school.  Sarah and I are enjoying the one-on-one time together, and I'm sure there will be future pictures and videos to come of all our fun adventures.  For now here are their first-day-of-school pictures.