Smyth Reunion

After finishing the Kulbeth reunion in Sandy, UT, we headed up to the mountains in Heber for the Smyth Reunion. My Grandma Irene Smyth (pictured above) hasn't been together with all her descendants for years and years. It was wonderful! I can't believe how well the kids did with being busy, off schedule, and overstimulated for 2 weeks straight-that was truly a blessing. (Maybe that's why things have been so bad since we got back though...hmmm.) The little cousins had lots of fun running around, coloring, bug hunting, riding the Heber Creeper train and much more.

I think the adults most enjoyed playing games together every night when the kiddos went to bed-we did 'Minute to win It' races and a game with the 8 ball and cue ball called Spaz. I honestly could have stayed in Utah and been perfectly happy living out of a suitcase for 2 MORE weeks. Maybe someday the whole mid section of the United States will collapse and our 2 coasts will be close enough to see each other more often (no offense to anyone living there). My pictures grossly under-represent our time there since I am intending to compile everyone's pictures later.

Kulbeth Reunion

We had a wonderful time in Utah at the Kulbeth Family Reunion! Aaron's Dad has 9 brothers and sisters that live all over the country so the time is always fun and full when they get together. Grandma and Grandpa Kulbeth here are the kind, faithful, loving reason for these occasions. We are so thankful for the opportunity to get to know them and their amazing family through these reunions. One of my favorite things was seeing all the great grand kids lined up for a picture. We enjoyed visiting the Thanksgiving point Dinosaur museum, Temple square, boating, hiking, Kennecott Copper mines and a lot of good conversations. Thank you Kulbeth Family!!

Family Reunions Part I

This was the summer of reunions for our family! And to take advantage of our time the kids and I flew out early-they were surprisingly good until we arrived in Salt Lake at midnight (2am for their little bodies). Then all you know what broke loose and some kind lady bought them each a large orange soda that solved all our problems and at that point I didn't care that it was sugar overload. Thank you kind lady!

The kids had hours of fun dressing up and play doughing and water fighting and sand boxing and celebrating cousin Lincoln's birthday. And the big girls had fun getting glitter toes (we more appropriately renamed them 'twilight' toes). I felt like a teenager again!!

4th of July

I feel like we've tried a lot of different ways to celebrate the 4th of July here in VA. We've gone up to DC to watch the fireworks live over the water with patriotic music from a local radio station in the background. We've stayed home to watch the fancy music and fireworks celebrations on the big screen. And we've planted our camping chairs outside to watch other people's (leagal and illeagal) firework displays in our surrounding neighborhoods. But I think we've decided our favorite way to celebrate is getting together with family to eat and do our own fireworks in the back yard. The kids are at ages where it's not fun to pack up for long drives and crowds. They love doing sparklers and watching snakes and smoke bombs. So that's what we've done the last few years. After our BBQ and strawberry shortcakes we played ping pong and bean bag tosses and a new kind of tether game where you throw ropes with rubber balls on either end around a ladder. We were having such a great time and then it got dark and we pulled out the fireworks. Since the Daddys had been in charge of fireworks last year and had gone a little overboard, my sister in law and I decided to take charge this year, but we underestimated what we thought they overestimated last year. I thought there were a lot more leftovers than there really were, and combined with a box that Aaron and his brother had collected in their youth (that ended up being duds or too dangerous to set off)our fireworks show was somewhat disappointing. But the children seemed to be content with the one sparkler they each got and the 6 packs of snakes. There was one semi decent loud, snapping one we saved for a grand finale and Aaron and his brother made it extra special by running through the smoke at the end with their one sparkler whooping and hollering like circus performers. It was hilarious and I think we all agreed the boys should be in charge of the fireworks displays from now on:)

June

Well, we didn't document this month in photos very well-oops! But I can say with confidence that it was the start of our busiest summer yet. And I can only imagine that life gets even busier as children get older.

I think Porter was excited for summer but not happy that he would not be seeing Mrs. Evans (his fabulous 1st grade teacher) when school was out. The last day of school he snuck in the house when he got off the bus and ran upstairs. I went up to see how his last day was and I found him under the bed with big tears running down his face. Of course then I started crying!! Everything turned out fine, but I am just SO grateful that Porter has had teachers who truly care about him and who he obviously loves. It's so different being on the parent end of things and worrying what kind of people are teaching and influencing your children for more hours of the day than you get to.

And here is a little conversation I had with Jane in June. She was ready and I tried half heartedly for a few days, but I really wasn't ready and consequently she is still in diapers. Hopefully I haven't ruined all chances by making her wait.

May

May was a bit of a traveling month. I'm not usually one to venture off by myself, but my best friend from HS was too close not to visit. So the younger kiddos and I made a quick trip to New York and had a delightful time catching up with the girl who kept me company when I was on crutches and helped me talk to boys.

Later we were off to Virginia Beach. It ended up being a little cool but lot of fun. Daddy especially had a great time trying out a skim board. My favorite part was watching the boys bury Aaron in the sand. Unfortunately we only took video of that. Jane had a great time running up and down a huge pile of sand and we even met a little girl who lives in the Chick-fil-a play place (while her sister works-yikes!)