June Catch-Up (Warning: ridiculous amount of pictures ahead)

These belonged in April or May...Ty took Kelly and Ev on dates.

Kelly chose swimming and basketball at the YMCA and then frozen yogurt at BluBerry.

Ty and Ev...don't remember...but they went to Waterfront Park for part of it (that's where the pics are)

Tuck wore cute outfits that made my heart happy.  This little man is CUTE with a capital C.

 Kelly and I went to a little birthday party for her friend, Kynnedy.  It was so fun!

I took my Kelly girl on a date for filling up her No Cry chart...sister was crying EVERY time she had to be apart from us and felt like she had no control over not crying, so we established a chart with a reward at the end to let her know that she did, in fact, have control.  We went to BluBerry and then I had her help me pick out some activity books for our upcoming road trip.  The decision process on which one she wanted for herself was long, arduous, and took up half of the aisle. :)  It was also very cute.

Tyler ripped out the old, broken, wood-planked path on the side of the house (to the previous owner: WHY build something like that with wood in Washington?) and built a new, much nicer one.  I love my handy man.

We took Max out of school 5 days early to start our 3 1/2 week travels.  It was hard to say goodbye to his class and teacher, but was made a little easier by the fact that he gets the same teacher (and most of the same class) next year!  I helped with part of the class gift...errr...my sister, Bethany did. :)  She put this sign together for Mrs. Robillard.  Max also wrote a really cute story for his teacher, which we had printed in book form with pictures of Max in school throughout the year and some pictures of them together...it was adorbs.

Then we packed up (I got the van totally packed solo...no small feat with all of the baggage and the people to account for...so proud of myself :)  that cute little face in the back seat?  no help at all, except for being eye candy) for our 3 1/2 week, 4-state adventure and were off!

We stayed overnight with my friend from college, Val, and her adorable family.  It was SO fun to see them.  We were kinda wet blankets because we'd started our trip at 2 am, but we did enjoy some good chat time and our kids had fun with theirs.

First stop...Littleton, CO.  

My father-in-law retired and we went to a fancy, delicious dinner in his honor.  There were touching speeches and gifts.  He is a great man whom I love very much and am honored to know.  Nobody got pictures that night, which is a bummer.

We also had the Foster Family Film Festival (movies each family made...we announced we were pregnant at the end of ours); a talent show; several of us went to a yoga class led by Liz, my sister-in-law; went on a few runs to prepare for the Ragnar and acclimate our lungs; and took family pictures.  Again, I was terrible about taking pictures of all of these!

Then we all packed up on Father's Day and headed to Breckenridge, CO for the FOSTER FAM REUNION!  The ladies all made a delicious dinner for Father's Day (I did BBQ ribs for the first time!) and Megan put together a really cute slide show of all of the dads being dads.

We hot tubbed, had the annual Pinecone War, the guys did their Manliest Man competition, the kids participated in the Kidliest Kid competition, we went into town for the gondola ride (twice...lightning thwarted our first attempt), the ladies went to lunch....this was our third year in Breckenridge and we've loved it every year.  I feel blessed to be a part of the Foster Family.  They are seriously some of the best people in the world.  Seriously.

Needs to be documented: We threw all of our dirty clothes into a garbage bag (4 days worth for 6 people...clothes, socks, underwear, exercise clothes) and took it up to Breckenridge where we were going to wash it before heading off to Utah.  Well, a series of unfortunate events landed that big, black garbage bag FILLED with our clothes in the city dump.  For real.  I cried for a few hours.  I felt so dumb because I knew it wasn't the end of the world, but I just couldn't stop crying.  Blame it on the pregnancy?  I mean, you pack the cutest clothes when you're going to be visiting family.  And I am a bargain shopper, so that bag represented a lot of TIME too, not just money.  And this was at the beginning of our crazy trip.  But we got over it and moved on with our lives. :)

Next stop: Utah!  

We picked up my dad in Salt Lake, where he'd flown in to watch our kids while we ran the Ragnar (he's the BEST dad).  We stopped by Burger Bar, of course, for dinner, and then had to hit up Wal-Mart for food for my dad and our kids while we were gone, and clothes for me and Ty to run in (ya know, since we threw ours away.)  We drove to my Aunt Ronna & Uncle Brent's house, who were so gracious to let us crash with them.

The next morning we left our kids in my dad's very capable hands and met up with the other runners who would be in our van (Drew & Kristen - brother & sister-in-law, Andrew - cousin, and Randy - cousin's friend's dad).  The Ragnar was as awesome as ever.  My runs weren't particularly awesome, but I had decent times and got through them!  I totally worked the pregnant excuse.  I did throw up after my first run...in a Honey Bucket...which is a memory I wish I could erase. I loved being with Kristen, I love her so much and we always have such a great time together!  I LOVE doing Ragnars with my hubs; one of the coolest things to do together fo' sho'.  And Utah is gorgeous!

We met at a park as a team after the Ragnar and my dad met us there with the kiddos.  It's always SO fun to see them after being away!  We decided as we were driving back to Pleasant View, to stop at Temple Square in Salt Lake City since we had time.  Tyler and I hadn't showered, had hardly slept, but we changed clothes in the car and then trekked out to see the sights.  Kelly was SO excited to see the Conference Center; she had been asking to go and talking about it for months, it was the thing she was MOST excited about on our trip. The kids thought it was a hoot to take pictures posed like the statues. Fatigue and pain really started to settle in by the end, but it was still a really great time and memory.

Then we got to stay with my grandparents home for the night.  I love seeing them and love that my kids have a relationship and memories with them!

The next morning we were off to Provo to check out BYU campus (with Ty's brother, Adam, and his family..and my dad, of course!) get some goods at the BYU bookstore, see the BYU football field (Max's dream come true!), eat Burger Supreme with some good friends, the Jaeckels at a park...and then we hit the road!

3rd stop - Vegas!

We put Ty on a plane back to WA on Sunday night (someone's gotta fund the madness) and for the week, we played hard with cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grammy & Papa.  Lots of swimming for us wimpy Washingtonians in the Vegas HEAT.  It was the hottest week of the year while we were there...reached 118 a few of the days.  But we had a really great time with everybody.  We are so lucky to have the family that we do!

The heat threw a wrench into our family reunion plans, so we went back to square one.  We ended up having SO much fun!  Circus Circus Adventuredome (my kids are still talking about it...Max and Kelly were much braver than I thought they would be.  Max rode the big, serious roller coaster 4 times even though he wasn't officially tall enough to ride at all, plus a few other crazy big people rides), a hotel stay where we swam late into the night, a detour with Papa Dan to see the new Hoover Dam bridge (on the HOTTEST DAY EVER...a sign said 121 degrees...our kids thought they were going to DIE), an afternoon of fun at the church (talent show, yummy food, movie, glow-in-the-dark dance party), Mt. Charleston to escape the heat (Ev got a bad fever there and spent most of the time asleep...I was worried).  Man, Vegas was perfect!

4th stop - Iron Springs, AZ

There's this magical place north of Prescott called the Iron Spings Club; it holds a lot of family history for Tyler.  It's a very small cabin community with dirt roads, cool rocks to climb, a general store with cheap candy and ice cream for the kids to buy...it is a kid's paradise.  Well, it's paradise for the grownups too.  I LOVE it there.  Such a beautiful, perfect escape.  We stayed at Tyler's Aunt Carson's cabin this year and we had the most amazing time.  Tucker had a few hard times/nights...well, so did Everett....but for the tail-end of such a LONG trip everyone did wonderful and we are so glad we went.  We also drove into Phoenix one day to visit Tyler's Grandma Helen who is 95 this year.  She is such a firecracker, I love visiting her!  I wish we lived closer to see her more often.  But she knew all of the kid's names before we told her.  Amazing woman.

Finally we headed back to the Pacific Northwest.  It is so good to see family and when we visit we sure wished we lived within at least a 1-day drive of everyone...but we seriously LOVE where we live.

It was good to get home and we JUMPED into summer!  You know what that means...more blog posts and pictures to come.  I know.  You can hardly contain your excitement.