More Summer Shinannigans

More summer pictures?  Yes please.

One Tech Free Tuesday, I taped a big roll of paper to the fence and let the kids draw a big mural.

It kept them busy for a long time.  Here is a portion of it.  

Meanwhile, Quinton colored himself with the markers. 

How did he even get that one back there?

He was very proud of his artistic skills.

Another Tech Free Tuesday activity: GAK!  Each kid made their own batch and chose the color.  This was another thing that kept them busy for hours - and days and days...they still love it!  The recipe for gak is in my family cookbook (the second one, I think). if you want it.

This is from a family get together at Katie's house.  We came to hear stories about Megan's trek experience.   

We were able to have play dates with Payton and McKenna a couple of times.  Here, they are playing with GAK!  They made their own batches too!  I think they liked it as much as my kids.

We also did water balloon pinatas with Pyaton and McKenna, but somehow they avoided the camera.  

And no summer would be complete without setting up the Zhu-Zhu Pet city at least once. You know, those things aren't nearly as annoying when your kids are old enough to put them together themselves!  Maybe I won't burn them in an attempt at exorcism after all.  Nicki's friend, Adelle and Alison are setting them up while Quinton supervises.    

Gee Family Reunion 2015

I love the Gee family reunion.  Each time we go, I leave feeling so blessed to be related to so many amazing people!  It is held every other year.  This time, Grandpa and Grandma Gee were in charge.  I think they did a great job.  Here are a few of the highlights:

Our family stayed with Kristi and Terry this year.  We wish we could have come up earlier because Nathan and Jodi were in town, and they did a lot of fun stuff earlier in the week.  But David couldn't get more time off, so we drove up late on Thursday night.  Kristi's house was perfect for us!  It's big and beautiful, but kid-friendly too.  It felt pretty close to being in our own home.  Between the toys, the cousins, and the trampoline, I think our kids would have been perfectly happy if we never left!   Kristi is so laid back and nice.  We had a ball!

On Friday morning, we met at the Sugar City church.  Then, we divided up between two different hikes.  We took the majority of our family on the easier one - Cress Creek.  Alison hitched a ride with her cousins and went on the tougher (but still easy) hike - R Mountain.

A whole bunch of cousins getting ready to go on our hike.  I'm not even going to attempt to name everyone.

Bronson and Joshua looking at the beautiful landscape.

After the hike, we went to Squealers.  It's a little amusement park.  We had a lot of fun playing and visiting with family.  Lunch that day was prepared entirely by Grandma Gee.  I was amazed (and a little ashamed for not helping) at how much work she put into it.

Quin is watching Bronson and Nicole on a crazy spinning teeter totter.

I put a couple of pictures on so you can get an idea of what it was like.

The goal was to ring that bell hanging from a string.

Bronson on a go cart.  I didn't even get any pictures of the rock climbing wall, mini golf, or bumper boats!  

Nicki went on this death trap TWICE!  Once with her dad...

(No thank you!!!)

and once with Alison.

Makes me sick just watching!

That afternoon, we met again at the Sugar City church.  For a while, we all colored little kits that would be put together and given to children in hospitals.  It was really nice to do service while chatting with our family.  It was kind of therapeutic!  Afterwards, we had a lovely fried chicken dinner, followed by a short program.

I can name the people on the orange table.  Clockwise from left:  Evan's arm, Eden, Sander, (other side now) Isabelle, Adelle, Gracie, Isaac behind Ainsley, and Maddie.

David and I got so focused, we had a hard time keeping track of the baby. 

Kid chaos is just normal with us...Josh is riding on the farther chair stand. David's looking on and talking to a cousin.

Emily, Kami, and Ellie were part of an amazing string ensemble.  We have some VERY talented family members!

I loved watching the brothers and sisters sing some of the songs they used to sing around the piano when they were growing up.  I knew most of the songs. L-R: Anne, Marlene, Bev, Jim, and Gerald.  Suzette is playing the piano.

Oh how I wish my camera could capture the beauty of this combine working in the dark with a full moon rising.  We saw it in the way home that evening  It was stunning!

We would normally have a breakfast and family meeting on Saturday morning, but we attended a funeral instead.  David's Aunt Marilyn passed away the Sunday before the reunion.  Marilyn had been suffering from MS and had been in a wheelchair for decades.  In many ways, her death was a well-deserved release.  Her funeral was beautiful - she was a truly amazing lady.  We were grateful to be able to attend.

This picture of several girl cousins was the only one that I took of the funeral and following luncheon.

Although the reunion was officially over, many people went to a friend's back yard pond.  Nicki went and she had a blast (unlike one of the little kiddos who lost her front teeth on a rope swing...).  The rest of us spent the afternoon visiting with our family at Grandma and Grandpa Gee's house.   In the evening, the girls and I went to a little surprise party for one of their second cousins.  The younger girls ate, did a makeover, and braided cool strings into their hair.  We moms had a great time chatting.  I talked too much - as usual.

On Sunday, we attended church with Kristi's family.  We only stayed for Sacrament meeting, though.  Heck, Quinton didn't even make it that far.  Then, we packed up the van and got ready to go home.  We didn't leave quite then.  We spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa Gee's house.  Everyone who was available came over, so it was just like the good ol' Sunday visits we miss so much.  We drove home in the evening, arriving in Layton in time for bed.

While the little boys took a nap, Dad took the older kiddos to the farm.

Nicki loves climbing in the haystacks.

Doing something I wouldn't have let them do and playing closer to the water than I like - but hey!  Dad took them - not me.

Farm kids.

Enjoying left-over reunion fare.

Playing the "cups" game.

In some ways, this reunion was really hard on me.  It made me ACHE to move back home.  I love the land, the weather, the people, everything.  Being there was so wonderful, it hurt.  Does that make sense?  Kristi and Terry showed us a piece of land right up the road from them that was for sale.  Sixteen acres of the most beautiful wheat field you've ever seen!  Nestled up against a little plateau with a valley coming out onto the property.  Ohhhhgggghh!  I wanted it so BAD!  I dreamed about where to build the house, where to plant the orchard, where to put the barn, coop, hives, etc.  I called the number on the "for sale by owner" sign, but only got an answering machine.

A couple of pictures of the beautiful land for sale.

After spending the whole weekend dreaming (out loud mostly, to all of David's family) I had a rude awakening on the drive home.  David, who has been pretty quiet about my whole move-to-Idaho campaign, finally told me how he felt about it.  Bottom line is, he doesn't feel like its time to move back.  So we're not going anywhere - time for me to buck up and make Layton feel like home.  Interestingly, about a month after coming to the conclusion that we're staying here, I got a new calling as first councilor in the Young Women organization in our church.  I feel pretty invested in these cute 14 and 15 year old girls and want to stick around for them.  A few days after the new calling, we learned that Joshua has been accepted to the Spanish Immersion program in Davis County.  His acceptance guarantees that both his younger brothers will be given the opportunity as well.  So suddenly, we have roots digging deeper and deeper here.  Maybe we're supposed to stay here after all.

Quick Catch Up on July

I can't remember what we did in July!  That was too long ago.  Luckily, I found some pictures that helped jog my memory on a few things:

On Pioneer Day, we went for a morning walk with Grandma and Grandpa Smith.  It was very pleasant - not at all like the real pioneers.

Well, there were buffalo.  That's kind of pioneer-y right?

Our family.

L-R: Alison, Grandpa Smith, Bronson pushing Quinton in the stroller, Nicole, Grand,ma Smith.

In the afternoon, Nicole and I met Grandma and Grandpa at the Taste Of The Town.  This was the first time my dad was able to attend as a participant - not running the entire thing.  I think it was way more enjoyable for him this year.  We ate a lot of delicious food and had fun.

I'm guessing Nicole got a hold of my camera while I was busy stuffing my face.

Cute people!

On July 25th our ward held its annual fun run.

This year, Josh, Quin and I participated.  I walked with a few friends in a stroller brigade.  We came in dead last (which was also third place in the women's division).  Josh ran the whole thing!  I'm very proud of him.  

David was in charge of cooking breakfast for the whole ward.  I'm proud of him too!

Speaking of David, we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary on the 27th.

We went to a restaurant in Ogden called Warren's Craft Burger.  Yum.

I had a Reuben with home made potato chips.  David had a huge burger with home made fries.  We shared a basket of fried mushrooms.  

Love that man!

Gee Family Tech-Free-Tuesday Day Camp

After vacation, I felt like I needed to work on our tech free Tuesdays.  We didn't have one while we were vacationing, and the Tuesday before that, I was sick in bed so the kids watched a TON of TV.  We were all kind of unexcited about starting up again.  Even for me, the temptation to say, "forget it!" was pretty strong.  But instead of giving up, I put together a really fun day.  I don't do theme days every week, but I needed to get us all excited again.  So I put on a little "camp" for the kids.

We built a "campfire" where we sang camp songs and read a few books about camping.

We made S'mores in the microwave.  They weren't very smokey, but they were still just as messy as the real deal.

I bought some containers, stickers, rope, and LED candles at the dollar store.  Each kid made their own lantern.  They still use them at night sometimes.

We set up our tent in the back yard (big shout out to David for putting it up all these years - it's HARD!) and the kids played out there off-and-on all day long.

Quin liked it.  

So did Joshua.

One of the best things we did was make "mud" and play with it.  It's actually just a salt dough recipe with cocoa powder in it.  It's easy, not messy at all, and smells just like brownies.

We used little dino, bug, and snake toys to make fossils and tracks in the mud.  

All four kids played for a long time without getting bored.

Half hour later, and we're still going...

For a snack, the kids went "fishing."  I tied a string to a pretzel rod for the pole, and a gummy worm for the bait.  Then, I gave each kid a baggie with Goldfish Crackers and Swedish Fish.

They ate their snack out in the tent.

For dinner, we made tinfoil dinners.  We cooked them in the oven instead of a fire, of course, but they were still amazing!

Yum!  I'm going to make those again soon!  Even if we're not "camping."

It was a really fun day.  I'm glad I made the effort to put together something special.  On a side note - I'm writing this entry on a Tuesday, and it's not going to be tech-free.   Bronson has been throwing up since last night, so we're going to be watching a lot of movies while resting on the couch today.

For my own future reference, here's the recipe for chocolate play dough:

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. salt
• 1/2 c. cocoa powder
• 2 Tbs. vegetable oil
• 2 Tbs. Cream of Tartar
• 2 c. boiling water
• 4 drops glycerine (optional - for increased shine and stretch) I didn't use any

METHOD:

• Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl
• Stir in the vegetable oil.  Mix together.
• Stir in the boiling water and mix until combined (adult only).
• When it has cooled a little, knead it on a clean surface until it loses all stickiness and becomes smooth and stretchy.  If needed, add water if dry or flour if wet, one Tbs. at a time.