Still trying to get caught up

I think we were gone more of July than we were actually home. It was a very fun and crazy month and we are stilling trying to get all caught up.

First we went to WA to visit Kurt's cousins - see last post.

We got home from WA on a Tuesday evening and that Thursday-Saturday the kids attended Cousins Camp at Auntie Margo's. While the kids were away, Kurt and I decided to play. So we went to San Fran for Friday night. It was nice for just the two of us to get away!

But that only left us Monday and Tuesday to do all the laundry and get caught up from our last journey and to prepare for our next one. Oh, ya and get all caught up and organize the business for us to be gone again. Crazy days! But totally worth it!

On Wednesday we started our next journey - this time back east to Virginia - thanks to miles we have earned on a business credit card over the last 5 years ALL 5 tickets were FREE! SWEET! Wednesday went like this;

2 hours waiting in the Sac airport

2 hour flight to Seattle WA

5 hour lay over

5 hour flight to DC

2 hour drive to Richmond, VA area

Ya, that's a 16 hour day of traveling. We were TIRED! But the kids did GREAT! Oh, and what do you do with 3 kids for 5 hours in an airport? Well, this is what we did:

We rode the tram round and round and round again!

Then we found this great play area:

A lot of the time we spent in the main eating area where they have this HUGE wall of glass that looks out on the runways and you can watch planes take off and land. I have to say, the Seattle Airport was a lot of fun! 5 hours actually passed rather pleasantly.

We arrived at Jared's house at 1:30 in the morning and let's just say that we slept in a bit the next day! Plus we were still on CA time so our time was all messed up.

Thursday we had a very relaxing day and went swimming. That afternoon Jenny arrived with her kids. With all of us in the house, the count was: 5 adults, 14 kids! Yep, 19 people living in 1 house. It was a lot of fun!

Meal time was a bit crazy but all went really good. The kids all lined up on the wall and went through the line to get their food. Like this:

And it was no fun being at the end of the line!

Here is the view from above of dessert one night:

Friday we relaxed, swam and let the kids run, play and enjoy their cousins.

Saturday we had a kick ball tournament - girls against boys. Ya, the boys walloped the girls but all had fun. Oh, and just for the record, Kurt kicked a fly ball and I caught it, getting him out! (Kurt beats me at anything athletic so it was nice to get him just once!)

Then we went to Belle Isle to enjoy the river. The water was so warm! I loved it!

This was the walking bridge that you have to cross to get to the island. It was really cool!

Here is a picture of all 14 kids and 3 adults. The most of us in any one picture.

Here is Kurt and Jared testing out the new couch for it's napping qualities. It passed!

How they could nap in a house with 14 kids running around was beyond me.

I guess it's because they are men and men can sleep through anything! Here's the proof:

Girls being girls and doing hair:

Evan holding his newest cousin, Braden:

Sunday we went to Church and made cookies - mmmmmm!

Monday we went to Maymont Zoo and Gardens.

First we went to the zoo part.

Walking with a group this big . . .

you are constantly counting kids.

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13

Oh, we are missing one

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15

Oh, we have an extra

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14

Perfect!

Katie and Megan sitting in a big nest. Pretty cool!

The Girls

The boys

Then we went into the Gardens. Oh, they were so pretty! I loved it! My favorite by far!

Kayla and the waterfall

Stepping pads

With 14 kids, we thought someone was bound to end up "falling in" but all made it with no problem!

The bridge

Buddies:

Oh, so romantic. A long time ago, some guy proposed to some girl here. There is a plaque but I can't remember the names or the dates but so romantic!

13 out of 14, not bad

Only missing Braden who was with Aunt Jenny

Since our flight out Wednesday morning was at 8 am and we had to be there 2 hours before the flight which meant we would have to leave Jared's house at 4 am, we decided to spend Tuesday night in D.C. near the airport. So Tuesday we went to D.C.with Jared and his family. Jenny had to start her 5 hour drive south back to North Carolina.

Jefferson monument

Washington Monument

American History Museum:

Buying produce from the grocery man

Evan and a train

The boy LOVES his trains!

Riding the pretend train:

Natural History Museum

The Capital

Air and Space Museum

All of us in front of the Native American building.

Kurt really like the water feature that went the whole length of the building.

Me and my girls.

Megan and the girls.

This is the monument they put up for the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

And here we are back at the Seattle airport. We only had a 3 hour layover on the way home. Here is us in front of that wall of glass looking out over the runways.

The kids were amazing travelers! We were so proud of them!

We had a great time with our East Coast families and wish there wasn't so much country between us!

Thanks for a great trip!

We love all of you!

Our Trip to Washington

Our much-anticipated trip to WA did not disappoint. We had a FANTASTIC time! We loved meeting all of our extended families. Everyone was so nice and made us feel very comfortable and welcome.

These relatives are all from Kurt's dad's side of the family. Everyone mentioned is Kurt's cousin unless otherwise specified. He hadn't seen them for about 13 years and I had never met them so we were very excited to go see everyone.

Our plan was to leave Wednesday morning at 4 am but Kurt got the "lets leave early bug" (as usual) and so we left Tuesday afternoon. We drove for 4 hours and stayed up in Yreka. We still had about 8 hours to go the next day. On our way through Portland we stopped at the temple. It was a beautiful day and the sky was such a pretty blue.

We arrived at Uncle George and Aunt Judie's house at about 4:30 which was a good time. It gave the kids time to run and play before settling down for the night.

On Thursday we traveled up to Seattle to go to Pike's Place Market. Cori and her kids went with us which was really good because getting through Seattle was crazy but she knew her way and got us through with no problems. We met Karen there and got some yummy donuts and explored the market.

Hailey found some cupcakes she really wanted:

Then we stopped at the cheese factory and watched them mix the cheese. You looked through the windows and then had huge tubs/baths of cheese. It was a crazy amount of cheese!

All of us in front of "the sign" to get your picture taken with.

Then we walked down the street and ate at Steamers. The kids found this cool water feature along the way and wanted their pictures taken.

Kurt loves to take jumping pictures.

Oops, a little out of order but oh-well.

On Friday we went to Roger's house. Roger and Veronique had a daughter, Monique, pass away at the beginning of the year and we went to the cemetery to visit her gravesite.

Then we went to a big grassy area where the kids could all run crazy and play but all they wanted to do was climb on this thing and scare all the moms to death by jumping off of it.

On Saturday we had a big family BBQ to celebrate 4th of July. They had all sorts of fun games for the kids to play. They did the limbo (which I don't have any pictures of!),

a donut eating contest:

Hey, who's kid is that using his hands?

Relay races:

Obstacle course:

Water balloon throwing contest:

And of course we had fireworks for the 4th:

(Oh, by the way, this is at like 9 pm and it was still so light!)

Gotta have sparklers:

On Monday we all drove to Mount Rainier. We drove up to Sunrise Point (I think??). It was a lovely 41 degrees outside! Chilly!

Mt. Rainier played peak-a-boo with us but we managed to get some good shots of it.

Siri and her family:

Us:

Cori and her kids

Emily and her family:

Somehow we didn't get a picture of Uncle George, Aunt Judie and Damon. I guess we will have to come back to get one!!

Then we drove to a lower elevation for a picnic and hike.

Just down from where we were going to eat was a little trail that lead to these bridges.

It was a bit scary watching the kids cross but we all made it safe and sound.

A group shot:

Out of Uncle George and Aunt Judie's 10 kids we had 6 here:

David, Damon, Cori, Siri, Emily and Karen.

Missing were Honor, Roger, Amber and Ryan.

Our little hiker boy:

Surprise!

No, we didn't magically have a 4th baby.

Kurt borrowed Siri's baby Will for the hike.

This would be our happy hiker:

This would be our not-so-happy hiker:

Kayla did absolutely amazing on this trip. With all the new things, places and people we thought she would have had a hard time but she did so good! Until this point when she shut down and didn't want to hike anymore. She got up and was a trooper but she definitely drug her heels and lagged behind.

We took off after the hike to begin our journey home.

On the south side of Mt. Rainier, there is a town called Packwood where Rick (Kurt's brother-in-law) and April (Kurt's sister) own cabins (they are vacation rentals so if anyone is interested, let us know and we will get you hooked up with Rick). We stopped there for gas and were amazed at these animals just sitting on the side of the road.

There were 3 just hanging out. The gas station lady said they come down all the time and there can be so many that they fill up this field plus another. Amazing!

Oh, and just for a good laugh - us city folk thought they were moose. Apparently they are Elk. We had no idea - we were completely clueless.

By the last 11.5 hours of our trip home on Tuesday our kids were beat. There were 9 kids staying at Uncle George and Aunt Judie's house (Cori and Siri were visiting from UT) so there were always kids to play with. From the time they got up in the morning, til the time they dropped into bed at night, they were running - all day long. They were exhausted.

Well, exhausted kids and traveling in a car for 12 hours don't really mix all that great. Kayla managed to take a nap at about 11 am and was fine the rest of the day but Hailey and Evan just would not fall asleep and boy were they grouchy; which made for a grouchy momma.

Finally, FINALLY this happened:

Oh man - the peace that we had was complete bliss!

We had an amazing trip and wish we could have stayed longer. Thank you so much to all our WA families that welcomed us and entertained us. We had a great time and it was so GREAT to meet all of you!

And remember, anytime you want to come to Cali, you always have a place to stay! We would love to have you!