OK, it's time to try and update the blog. Again. These catch-up posts probably won't be as detailed as I would like, but at least there will be pictures of what we've been up to this past summer and fall.The last week of June and into the Fourth of July weekend, we took at trip to Arizona for a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. We left after Adam got home from work and drove through the night, hoping the kids would sleep most of the way there. Remind me to never to that again. The kids did OK, but it's hard on the parents, too. The reunion was at a small horse ranch just outside of Flagstaff. It was great to see my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other extended family.
Adam and I left the kids with grandma and grandpa one afternoon and headed up to the Grand Canyon. It was pretty amazing!
After the reunion, we drove down to Chandler to visit my dad's brother and family. I love visiting with family! Josh and Lucy had fun playing with cousins and electronics.
We stayed the night there, then headed home the next day, which happened to be the Fourth of July. We stopped in El Paso for the night, then drove the rest of the way home the next day. That stretch of I-10 between El Paso and San Antonio is a long, lonely stretch of road. Sometimes you just really have to go to the bathroom.
I'm so glad we were able to go on vacation and spend time with family!
I had wanted to do individual posts for each of the things I will mention in this post, but that's just not going to happen right now. We did lots of fun things in April and May. My mom cam to visit for a week during the first part of April. While she was here, we went to Pump It Up, a place where kids can bounce and climb around on huge inflatables.
Josh just LOVES climbing all over everything and going down the slide. It's a great way for him to use all of his abundant energy.
While my mom was here, we also went to Corpus Christi and spent some time at the beach.
Lucy didn't like the water very much.
Josh LOVED everything about being at the beach. He had a blast playing in the waves and digging in the sand.
Up next is Easter. We had an Easter Egg Hunt with our playgroup friends. Josh and Lucy really liked looking for eggs.
Oooo, there's candy in here! Bonus!
The day before Easter, Adam and Josh colored some eggs.
That week we also got to play with a present from Grandma Pratt.
Josh doesn't quite have the whole "sliding" part down yet, but he still has lots of fun playing in the water.
We took a family vacation to attend a family reunion in Utah for my dad's side of the family. We looked at many different options of how to get there and back, and with the generous help of my parents, decided to rent a car and drive. (Our car needs new brakes and tires before embarking on a trip like this. Thus, the rental car.) Our adventures started before the trip even began. We had made reservations at National for a rental car because my dad could get a discount through his work. Their website also said we would be able to use a debit card instead of the usual credit card for the whole transaction. When we got there Friday afternoon to pick up the car, we found out that, no, in fact they don't accept debit cards after all. We panicked for a second, wondering what to do. We did the only thing we could do and went to a different car rental place that DID accept debit cards. We ended up at Hertz (luckily we were near the airport and all the car rental places were within a couple blocks of each other) which turned out to be cheaper than we thought, and also we were able to get the car we wanted, a Mazda 5.
I don't think we would have been able to get a car we liked as much as the Mazda 5 back at National, so in the end, everything worked out perfectly! Yay!
We packed up the car Friday night and left early, early Saturday morning. Most of that day consisted of driving through the flat, flat expanses of Texas, on our way to Denver, CO.
There were also lots of wind farms.
Josh and Lucy did remarkably well in the car. I was anticipating Lucy getting very tired of being in her car seat, but she only cried when she was hungry and had to wait for me to climb in the back seat. Josh was good about getting toys out of his backpack to entertain himself with. We also had a laptop with Curious George and Blues Clues on it for Josh when he got particularly restless. After 15.5 hours of driving, we made it to Highlands Ranch, CO, just outside of Denver.
This was taken about 10 minutes before we got to our friends' house. We stayed with our friends, Christina and Ben, both Saturday and Sunday nights. They have two girls, Audra and Claire. Audra is a week younger than Josh, and Claire just turned 1 years old. Josh and Audra were a bit shy at first, but they soon warmed up to each other and were chasing each other around the house before we knew it. It was great to visit with them and catch up on life and old friends. Christina grew up in the same stake Adam and I grew up in, and Adam and she were good friends in high school. The weather on Sunday was a bit stormy (it hailed three different times!), so our Fourth of July picnic plans were nixed, but we still had a great time. Josh and Audra probably don't remember the first time they met, two years ago, when Christina was in Washington visiting family and trekked down to Spanaway for a visit. Josh was barely able to work up the courage to hold Audra's hand. Us parents knew long distance relationships rarely last, but I guess we forgot to tell Josh.
Just call him Rico Suave.
Monday morning we headed out for the 8+ hour drive to Park City, UT. The drive across Wyoming was very windy and very boring. At least the kids were having fun.
We got to Park City around 6:30pm or so, and thus started a fun week of hanging out with family. My dad is the oldest of 7 kids, and we all stayed in 3 condos that we rented. On Tuesday, Adam and I and the kids went down to Orem by way of Heber and through Provo Canyon (such a pretty drive!) to see one of our Imaginary Internet Friends, Susannah, and get my hair cut. When we got there, Susannah was just finishing up with another one of our Imaginary Internet Friends, Momma Snider. It was great to meet both of them, and after my hair cut, Adam and I played pool while Susannah played with Lucy. Josh helped us play pool by randomly rolling balls into pockets. On our way back to Park City, we stopped at 7-11 in Heber for Slurpees.
This was the first time Josh got his very own Slurpee. He did all right with it until we were almost home and dumped half of it on his lap. **face palm**
Most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived Tuesday afternoon. We had a fun week of visiting with family, riding the Alpine Slide, going to the park with Grandma and Grandpa, walking down Main Street, and playing games. Of course, everyone loved meeting Lucy and she just ate up all the attention.
On Friday we all headed down to the big Pratt Family Reunion, which started at a church in Highland, and then continued at Heber Vally Camp, a Girls Camp up in the hills of Heber Valley. This reunion was for my Grandpa Pratt and his nine sisters and all their kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc.
Waiting for lunch to start.
There were tons of people there, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. There are a few of my dad's cousins that I enjoy seeing, though, and it was fun to talk to them for a bit before we had to leave. The big reunion had reserved places for people to camp at the girls camp Friday night, but we went back to Park City for the night. We loaded up the car and left for the long trek back home on Saturday morning. We made it to Albuquerque, NM, that night, and then on Sunday we made it all the way back to San Antonio. It was a lot of driving, but we survived with audio books to listen to. The kids were pretty good in the car again, and we are all glad to be home.
Road trips are fun every once in a while, and driving that long with the kids wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. It's not something I want to do often, but now I know we can do it, and have fun, too! I'm so glad we were able to go to the reunion and see family we haven't seen in a while, especially my parents and brother and his family. We had tons of fun with aunts, uncles and cousins and I'm so glad we were able to make the trip.
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