reunion day four - fourth of july

to prove that i am not a complete holiday grinch, we started out the day with a fourth of july photo shoot, although, admittedly, aunt marte bought the shirts.

"get your hand off your face..."



"a little too close..."



"no, look at the camera..."



"madeleine, look at the camera..."



"hand out of your mouth..."



"all the way out..."



i give up. but there is some serious patriotism there.

we played some croquet. i won the first game, and the second game was delayed (without ever resuming) due to distracting children. i'm not sure what i'm doing in this picture. some kind of ballet croquet move.

randy, with more conventional form



lots of playing with cousins and hanging out in the backyard













these two were inseparable all weekend, in case you haven't picked that up yet.





we had a delicious fish fry dinner



with dutch oven cobbler for dessert, made by kyle.







we had a bit of a talent show in the evening



with dancing by calli





and a recital by randy

it was getting late, and i wasn't willing to stay up late with the kiddos (okay, so maybe i am a bit of a holiday grinch. but in my defense, randy tried to keep madeleine up to see fireworks during orem days a few weeks ago and when he took her outside at 10:30, she looked up and said, "oh. can we go back inside?" i wasn't doing that again), so we did some early sparklers with madeleine (see? her fourth was not completely devoid of fireworks) before heading home and getting the girls to bed before it was even dark out yet.

reunion day three

after river rafting all morning, everyone was pretty tired and took it easy the rest of the day on saturday. in the evening, we went over to jeanie's cousin, lee's, house for dinner.

kyle



lainey, kim, and madeleine



"sleeping"



madeleine could not get enough of her cousin, lainey, and her aunt, kim, this weekend

the post wherein i try not to sound completely bitter... and fail

one of the family reunion activities was tackling the payette river...

on these.

and i didn't get to go. giving me yet another bitter chapter in my rant about how i never get to go river rafting.

in case you haven't heard...

my younger brother has been on several white water rafting trips through the scouting program. and i did crafts at girls camp.

my parents went on a river rafting trip with randy's parents. and we weren't invited because i was pregnant.

and now, everyone got to go river rafting at the family reunion. and i was a nursing mother. oh, the sacrifices i make for you, children. oh, the sacrifices...

but, randy did go, and he had a blast. and randy's aunt got some great pictures of the whole ordeal that almost made me feel like i was there. okay, not even close (remember how i'm bitter?), but they were fun to see.

randy and his brother, kyle

bob, jeanie, randy and kyle

the whole group

randy's boat

the rest of these are pictures that the rafting company took and sold to us for a pretty penny. but they are pretty awesome pictures. and randy looks like a first class rafter in them.

someday i will be a first class rafter. after my children are gone and i am too old to lift an oar.

but i'm not bitter.