Christensen Reunion

On Saturday afternoon, we headed up to Royal City for the Christensen Family Reunion. Jay & Erma's family was in charge this year. There are a little over 300 family members now! All started with LeRoy and Lucy Christensen. Most of the family is still active in the Church which is pretty awesome. We have this big reunion every 3 years. I'm glad they still have them and put forth the effort to plan it. Debra (Erma's daughter) and everyone did a good job planning it and putting it on. 

I was impressed with all the pictures and genealogy information displayed. Whoever did the chalk work is amazing. I'm in awe. 

Paige showing off her cool butterfly face painting. They had little games for the kids to play to win candy or prizes along with face painting and a dunk tank. 

My Uncle John trying to dunk his son Brady. I went after John and got Brady on my first throw! I impressed and surprised myself! ha!

Kate was SOOO excited to be the one to get dunked. She was begging us to let her do it so we did. She did it a few times and I finally had to tell her that was enough. There was a line of other kids too. Who would think getting dunked would be so fun?!

They had water balloon volleyball going as well. Most of the adults visited with one another and tried to stay cool in the shade. 

Here are the living adults from LeRoy and Lucy Christensen with their spouses, they are underlined.

L-R: Bob and Jo, Bill and Joyce, Ted and Jean and Erma

Jay passed away a few years ago and was married to Erma. Dee passed away quite awhile ago.

Debra's daughter, Tara, put together The Price is Right, and all of Jay's family were involved and it was awesome! The contestants were called out of the crowd and gave such enthusiasm for being chosen and were pretty funny. They had all the sound effects to go along with spinning the wheel and stuff. They did a good job. 

Some of the contestants were Gary, Tom, Michael and Kelly

Gary playing one of the games, trying to win some toy truck. haha! Good times.

For dinner, they were genius and had a line for adult food and a line for kid food. The kids got popcorn chicken, jello cups, chips and rolls. For adults we got tri tip or bbq chicken, fancy salads, jello salad, rolls, baked beans, homemade rootbeer and probably more that I can't remember. It was tasty. They ended the night with a huge firework show good enough for a big city. It was impressive! What a fun reunion!

Wright Reunion

Last weekend we had double reunions to attend. Kyle took a day off from work so we could go to both of them. The kids do pretty well in the car and they should since we make the trip almost monthly. I liked Kate in this picture because she had the best seat in the car. She was comfy. Preston has a patch on because he's supposed to wear it every other day for 4 hours to strengthen his weak eye that he was born with. So nothing happened recently if you were wondering. ;)

My Dad is always good about taking the kids for rides on motorcycles, four wheeler, tractors or whatever. 

On Friday, we went into Richland for the Wright family reunion. It's for my Mom's side. All her brothers came from Utah with their families so it was good to see everyone that came. My Grandpa's relative manages a hotel there so we were able to meet in one of the banquet rooms and use the indoor pool. Good thing because it was chilly that day so after a while of swimming in this outdoor pool at the nearby park the kids were freezing and ready for the hotels hot tub! 

My cousin Austin and his wife Giselle with their twins, Hudson and Sydney. They were so nice to come all the way from Utah with young twins!

Aubree and Emily played with Chelsea the whole day. It was so nice to have "babysitters" willing to play with her and watch her.

L-R: Brady, Marci holding Zane, Sara, Jeni, Aunt Liz (married to Tom) and Uncle John

Kids waiting for their turn on the zip line. I love the random kid in the black shirt in the pic. haha!

My Mom with her family

L-R: Tom, Jim, John, Gpa, Vicki and Gma Joyce in front

It was fun to visit with Cari. She is my closest cousin in age. She's married to Ryan and they have 4 kids too. 

L-R: Aubree, Jeni, Cari and me

My Aunt Dana (married to John) was amazing and pushed Thys and Chelsea in Cari's stroller until they fell asleep. It was so nice of her to do that. I was glad Chelsea got some sort of nap.

Stephanie, Gabby and Marci being silly. We took some fun and silly pictures outside in front of the river.

John had planned some activities for the kids like bubbles, toy airplanes, kites, releasing balloons into the sky and this little parade for Gma Joyce. 

Almost all the great grandkids with Gma Joyce (Preston isn't in there because he was having a major meltdown and would not go in the picture. fun times. he was having a hard time there.)

Everyone that was there!

L-R Back Row: Kyle holding Preston, Me holding Chelsea, Ryan holding Thys, Giselle holding Sydney, Austin holding Hudson, Dana, John, Marci, Jeni, Kevin, Liz, Tom, Vicki, Craig, Shellie, Jim

L-R Middle Row: Gabby, Gracie, Natalie, Cari with Piper, Jaac, Brady, Gpa Bill, Gma Joyce, Sara, Derek holding Zane, Aubree

L-R Front Row: Ellie, Carter, Kate, Paige, Emily holding Hailey and Stephanie holding Lindsey

John doing bubbles with the kids

 Visiting and then we ate dinner, baked potatoes with chili, broccoli cheese sauce, rolls, caesar salad, fruit and cupcakes.

On Saturday morning, everyone came out to my parents house to swim and eat lunch. Here's some of my cousins. L-R: Kyle, Lindsey, Brady, Gabby, Natalie and Stephanie. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them and laughing with them. 

 My Grandma Joyce (my Mom's Mom) has Parkinson's and it's hard for her to leave the house, but amazingly my Grandpa was able to borrow a wheelchair van so she could go to my Mom's house and to Royal City for the Christensen reunion (which was later on Saturday). Anyway, she was sitting next to Chelsea and it was hilarious and cute to watch them interact. Chelsea would just stare at her. Then my Grandma would move her hand to Chelsea and Chelsea would push it away. It made my Grandma laugh. Then Chelsea reached for her hand and pulled it toward her which was so sweet. 

Here Chelsea is pushing her hand away. Too funny.

Here's my Grandpa Bill and Grandma Joyce Wright. They are very supportive grandparents. They would come to our birthday celebrations and sporting events growing up. It was fun to have them live so close. It's hard to see my Grandma suffer with Parkinson's because it's been slowly getting worse. My Grandpa is so good to her and so attentive to her needs. 

My Mom with her parents

Ice Caves Hike

We went on a family hike to the Ice Caves a couple weeks ago. We have heard about this hike from neighbors and friends so we decided to just do it. It's an easy hike, but we pushed our kids and walked to see all the ice caves, it's treacherous getting to the other ice caves because there isn't a nice path, so on the way down to the car Lindsey was so tired. She was done. She was so excited to see the car she ran to it then fell asleep pretty fast once we were on the road. Overall, though it was so much fun. The kids loved it too. We saw people with strollers and even a wheel chair so it's accessible for all. Oh and not to mention very beautiful as well! 

A cool "L" shaped tree on our way up that Kate found.

The kids in front of one of the ice caves. The caves get bigger the later you go in the summer. The openings were pretty big when we were there and when you walked up to the entrance it blew cold air out. It felt AMAZING after hiking up there on a hot day. It was my personal AC. 

Chelsea was a trooper and stayed in the pack the whole time. 

A nice lady offered to take our picture which I'm grateful for. I didn't even think to ask someone and I usually do so I'm glad she asked me! Our kids had fun up there. 

This was a short cave, you can see the other end. Kyle, Kate and I ran through this one to the other end. They tell you not to go in the ice caves, but another couple said they walked through one and so we went for it. I admit I was nervous, but really wanted to run through and see the other side. I went first and all the kids were crying or whining saying I was going to die because we had told them not to go in just in case it collapses and they could die. So then I went in. hahaha! Bad example. After I came back Kate wanted to go so Kyle and her ran through and back. It was dripping water inside so it was raining on you are you ran through. 

The other side of the cave. The side of the mountain and the ice cave, there's a gap between them and it looked so cool. 

I took a picture looking out of the ice cave on my way back. 

Kyle and Kate coming out and you can see some other people headed in behind them. 

This picture shows 4 caves. They look small, but I'm far away and actually the openings are big. 

Preston wanted to write his name, he actually wrote Lindsey's name though. haha! I think he was set on wanting to write his name because we wrote our names on the rocks when we went on a hike for our family reunion in Mattawa. 

Can you see Kate?

Chelsea fell asleep on the hike back down. 

Cute view of my family. :)

A Little Note

Kate made me this after a hard day and I guess I say, "Thanks"?!?!? haha! I actually started laughing out loud when she gave it to me. Nothing better than kids to love us no matter what.