Pioneer Day Weekend

We went to Monroe for Pioneer Day (July 24th) and the festivities they put on and to stay at Grandma and Grandpa Parsons new house for the weekend. Let me just insert that we love the new house: roomy, lots of bathrooms, room for the kids to run and I personally covet the kitchen and the glass front cupboards and the over sized island. Anyway all the family came at some point in the weekend which was super fun for Allie. She adores her cousins and loves playing with them. I can't believe that she isn't shy or hesitant around them at all like she is with some other kids. She just dives right into the fun. It was so great to see her with the other girls playing and running and of course her and Zach got along great as well. All in all it was a pretty good weekend. We had a showing of the "terrible two's" when it came to bedtime a couple of nights (those who were home are probably thinking "ya, terrible two's-more like horrific two's") but it could have been worse is what I have to tell myself. The weather was perfect and the festivities were...well festive.
The day started off with a parade-note to self: when watching a parade do so from the shaded side of the street and avoid having your brain baked by the sun. I knew this but we were late getting to the parade and had to take what we could get. It didn't seem to bother the kids much.
Allie ran back and forth between everyone giving a commentary of what was happening in the parade (possibly a future career path-who knows).

After the parade daddy took Allie down to the park where his family was selling cotton candy and snow cones while mommy and Brailie took a much needed nap. Allie got to ride in this fire truck (super cool).

Later that evening Grandma kicked us out of the house while she was having a class reunion so we all went out to eat and ended up at a restaurant with a broken air conditioning. People-if you having no AC in the middle of summer put a sign on your business door stating that fact and offer a 10% discount. We had hungry small children and were settled when they bothered to inform us that the air was actually broken so we stayed anyway. We were compensated with extra ice. After eating (the food was mediocre I might add), we went to Greg's cousins to see his elk and other animals.

Ignore the wonderful hairstyle my daughter is sporting and imagine her giving a running commentary to her cousin Rylee about the animals in the fences. "Wanna come see? Come on, lets go."

Rylee was not as enthused as Allie. Good to see a bit of my farm side coming out in her.

Brailie getting friendly with this mule.

The evening finished with fireworks. Allie's words were, "oh wow, that was my favorite one." (said after most of them)

On day two, cousin Kinsey came and that added even more excitement cause now all the cousins were together and they played and played. Grandma said she wanted to get a picture of all the cousins together. Now when ever I hear those words my blood pressure immediately starts to rise because I know what a task it is to get all the cousins together and I also know that there is about a 1 minute window of time that the picture will actually work and I don't want to be the parent who's kid is not cooperating-causing the picture to have to take much longer than necessary which usually leads to children crying, parents yelling and empty promises of ice cream and other treats if they will "just sit still." Guess what-I was that parent-my child would not cooperate. AHHHHHHHH. Before the babies came out the cousins were just sitting waiting so perfectly

And then we have this:

and this,

and this. And then Allie was everywhere.

Brailie actually loves to get her picture taken. She always smiles for the camera.

The reason no cousins wanted to have their pictures taken was because of this pile of left over ice from the snow cones. It was just too tempting and much more fun.

And then we have this-the family picture. It doesn't happen that often that we get together as a family so we wanted to get a family picture. Can I just ask the question: Are there any families out there in which the taking of a family photo brings out love, joy, closeness and agreement? In my life experience I would have to say NOPE!!! Something about families and cameras just don't seem to mix I have to say. Then the photographer says, "Smile you are supposed to look happy." We'll let the pictures speak for themselves. (P.S. Greg says, it looks like I am trying to get him to stop pinching my bum but I was trying to hide Braille's bottle).

Good times, good times. Thanks family for getting together. We had a good time seeing everyone and our children had a blast. It is fun to get to travel to visit Grandma and Grandpa. "Over the river and through the woods..."