4th of July

I know this post is a little late and for some of you this will be a recap if you have already looked at my sisters blogs, Trish and Lori. For the rest of you, you will be on the edge of your seats with anticipation of what Ben and I did over the fourth. I will also apologize because this post might be a bit wordy, but don’t give up there will be pictures mixed in ☺.

Ben and I just got back from a wonderful 4th of July weekend. My family has this tradition that every year we go up to Bear Lake for the 4th of July. This year everyone was able to come, which makes it even more fun! The condo is a little bit crowded as we try to fit everyone into a condo with 2 bedrooms, 2 hide-a-beds, and enough floor room to fit us all. All being 14 people, 10 adults and 4 kids. It makes the adventures even more eventful, because we are crammed into one condo. I wouldn’t change these outings for the world. I love spending time with my family. Some may call me strange, but I think it is fun!

I wanted to share some of my favorite memories about the 4th.

Drew likes to pretend that he is a baby animal of some sort as he is snuggling with his mom. Sometimes it is a cat, pig, snake, or even a mouse. When he pretends that he is one of these animals he makes the sounds. So when he is a cat he makes meowing sounds. When he is a pig he snorts. Lori really likes it when he is a snake or a mouse because he doesn’t make much noise. On Sunday, Greg was sitting next to Lori as Drew was being a kitty snuggling with his mom. Lori was trying to convince him to be another animal, when Greg scooped him up on his lap and told him that he was the Mother Kitty and that he needed the baby kitty to come and snuggle with him. It was so cute as Drew squealed and tried, unsuccessfully, to get back into his mom’s arms. Greg kept trying to convince Drew that he was the Mother Cat and needed the baby cat to come with him. Finally he let Drew go and Drew would go back into Lori’s arms. In a few minutes the process would repeat again and Greg would scoop Drew into his arms. It was so cute to see the interaction between Greg and Drew. Drew would laugh at Greg’s attempts to be the Mother cat. I really wish I had a picture of this because it was so cute! A while later Drew sat in Greg’s seat, so when Greg came back he pretended he was the baby cat and Drew was the mother cat. Greg tried to snuggle up to Drew like a baby cat would to the mother cat. All through this process Drew was laughing uncontrollably telling Greg that he wasn’t the mother cat, but Greg wouldn’t be deterred. This resulted in Drew gnawing on Greg, which didn’t bother Greg in the least. Man I wish I had pulled out my camera to get pictures of this. Greg is such a great uncle he plays with the kids and teaches them fun new games.

Bird watching with Halle. Halle is so funny whenever you are outside she is looking around soaking it all in. Several times when I was outside with Halle we decided to go bird watching. This means that we look in the sky and we try to find a bird. When we find a bird we point at it and let the other person know that we found a bird. Halle would often point up at the sky trying to search for birds when we would hear them chirping. We would stand next to large trees peering up in hopes to catch a glimpse of the bird that was making all that noise. Halle is such a cute girl she has so much energy and loves to run around.

Cute Halle

I loved watching Ben play with my nieces and nephews. There are a few moments that I want to relate. Ben loves to play with Halle and I think Halle likes to play with Ben. She will bring stuff to Ben or just smile at him as he makes funny faces at her. It was great to see the smile on Halle’s face as she played with Ben and alas I have no pictures to show of it. You will just have to take my word it was priceless. Ben hasn’t hung out with Brooke and Drew for a while. They don’t really know him as well as Zach and Halle know him. Zach and Halle live closer so we see them more often. Drew finally warmed up to Ben. He even acknowledged who he was that is definitely a major accomplishment. Drew is definitely a mama’s boy, but there were several times over the weekend that Drew would let Ben play with him. This was definitely and accomplishment. It was also super cute to see Ben playing baseball with Brooke and Zach.

Drew, Brooke, and Zach

Marshmallow Wars. For Trisha and Brandon’s activity, we had a Marshmallow war. It was absolutely hilarious. Trisha and Brandon made these marshmallow guns out of PVC pipes. We then split into two teams and played capture the flag. To say the least I was horrible. I cannot run after someone and blow through the gun to shoot the Marshmallow at the person. That is one of the many types of coordination that I do not have. I don’t think our team won, legitimately, once. Mom did manage to capture the flag, but she kept running even though she got hit with a marshmallow. She figured since she didn’t feel it , it didn’t count ☺. Silly Mom. It was tons of fun and we only had one casualty. Drew got caught amid the fire and was hit with a marshmallow in the head. He managed to recover pretty well but was definitely unhappy about being hit.

Dad trying to tag Brandon

The Group of us with our guns!Showing off their shooting techniques

Games. I love playing games with my family. It is what we do. I did miss out on several of the bigger games like Power Grid and Puerto Rico, but it was pretty funny to see Trisha get annoyed as all the boys were talking in their Puerto Rican accent while they played the game. Before they started playing Greg asked if anyone wanted to play Puerto Rico in a Puerto Rican accent. All of the sudden Drew says Greg listen to me and Drew proceeds to try to mimic Greg with his Puerto Rican accent. Drew said no real words but he was trying to see it pretty deep to sound like Greg. It was so cute! Soon all the kids were joining in wanting to show Greg their attempt at the Puerto Rican accent.

Drew and Brooke with Mom and Dad

Fireworks. On Sunday the kids were outside with Grandpa watching the stars and then they heard fireworks. They were so excited they watched through the trees to see glimpses of the fireworks. Lori, Kram, Brooke, Drew, Ben and I went out onto the Motel grass to get a better view of the fireworks. It was so much fun to sit out there with the kids and watch the fireworks go off. Brooke kept on commenting how she didn’t wiggle as much as Drew and how good she was being ☺. Drew was so funny. He was definitely excited and could hardly sit in one place. He would also sing songs about his family during the fireworks. Ben and I even got included in one of the songs!

Boating and the Beach. Saturday was very windy so we spent most of the time at the beach. By the middle of the day the beach was so crowded. I was glad Mom and Dad had gone down earlier that morning to get save us a spot. For the first half of the day not everyone came down. Some of the boys stayed up at the condo to listen for Halle, who was taking a nap, and to play games. The rest of us headed down to the beach. The kids had a blast! Kram helped them build a sand castle and play in the dirt. Brooke and Drew made gumbo (They love Princess and the Frog). Zach just had a blast digging in the dirt.

Lori and Greg's victory over Ben and Kram during Lasso Golf

Kram playing in the sand with Brooke and Drew

My parents had Lasso golf out so Drew and I would use the balls to decorate the posts. Drew would take the six balls and twirl them around the bars. After we were done decorating we would start all over again. Drew then decided that we should decorate for each others wedding. It was my wedding first. We decorated the bars with the balls and then once the decorating was complete I would dance. I’m sure the people didn’t understand what we were doing but it was sure fun. Then it would be Drew’s turn to be married. We would take down all the decorations and put them back up again and then Drew would dance. We repeated this process over and over again and Drew just loved it! It was also fun to sit and talk with my sisters as Kram played with the kids.

Me in the raft

Drew decorating the Lasso Golf stand

The girls (Lori, Me, Trisha, and Kim)

Monday before we left the lake looked relatively smooth so we decided to head out and ski/wakeboard. Saturday was sooo windy that we didn’t even take the boat out. Kim and I were the only ones who ended up wakeboarding. Greg had hurt his hand on the way to the park on Sunday and Ben had hurt his knee during the Marshmallow wars. Kim went first and she got up sooo fast. She had trouble steering but at least she got up. I tried after that and fell quite a few times. Greg kept giving me tips on what I was doing wrong. Finally I was able to get up. I fell soon after that because I couldn’t figure out how to steer and I always managed to be heading outside the wake, which was one place I didn’t want to go. I tried several times but I still couldn’t get the hang of steering the thing. The last time I was doing pretty good and then I saw myself heading over the wake so I let go ☺. Greg told me that I just should of tried to keep on going but I wimped out. I will have to try another time. I will have to go when Greg is up there because he gave fantastic tips. They might have been obvious but they sure helped.

Ben on the boat