Soaking it all in...

There were several things we wanted to get done before my parents left for China- one of those was the trip to Chuck-E-Cheese that was "promised" to the grandkids. We "celebrated" my dad's birthday. (He acted like a crazy man I might add). We had a great time and were able to get that crossed off the list.

The kiddos also wanted to have a water party- so we got balloons filled with water, got the hoses out, and had a great time. I noticed Ella wasn't in any of the pictures- she was having one heck of a nap. During the water party, Greg called to tell Nat that their cow had had her calf, so we loaded up the truck and went to check it out. We ended the night lighting up my dad's fire pit and roasting some hot dogs and smores.

Bear Lake

*These pictures are way out of order, but I don't have it in me to fix them.

Before my parents left, we wanted to have one last family get-together. My mom and dad flew Brett and Chelsea in for the weekend- this was a surprise for the kiddos. We discussed different things we wanted to do for the weekend from going to Yellowstone (this didn't work due to Brian being in China/Japan and then flying straight to Michigan), horse ride, golfing, going up the canyon, and Bear Lake. Bear Lake was the obvious choice. My parents and Nat and I and our families went up on Friday evening. We knew Brett and Chels would be arriving in the morning and were anxiously awaiting them to arrive to see the kids respond. It was as great as we thought it would be. We were all hanging out outside when they pulled in in my dad's truck. They kiddos were confused for a bit because we were all up there. It took a minute to realize it was Brett and Chels and then the screaming began. The kids and everyone else were so excited to see them. So we had basically 1 day to do a summer worth of fun at Bear Lake and boy did we do it!!! We were excited when Brian and Sher arrived too. The kiddos sure love spending time with their aunts and uncles. So to recap it all: we went Go-Carting, swimming at the pool and the beach, mini-golf, drove around a scooter, went on a "dog run" and had a famous raspberry shake, went and saw the Blackhawks that had been flying over the cabin all weekend, went to church, tried to get a family picture (tried being the key word), and had lots of quality family time and lots of laughs!! It makes me tired thinking of everything we fit in, but it was SO much fun!!

We also had a fun surprise when we were hanging out one evening and Garrett comes over and hands my parents a piece of paper. My mom starts looking at it and says, "what's this?" It ended up being a baby announcement from Brett and Chelsea they have a baby girl joining our family the end of December. (Later we found out the Sher was sicker than a dog the whole time we were at Bear Lake due to her expecting a baby girl the end of January.)