Cousins Party

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August COUSIN Partay
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Robert is way excited behind Kenny here... either about Kenny's birthday or that he is leaving on a mission to Mexico next month...
not sure which. :)

I love all my cousins. We use to have cousin parties way more often than we do now. They are some of my favorite people to hang out with!

My parents stopped by for a little while to crash the younger generation party, ha ha. They wanted to say goodbye to Chrissy and Rich going back up to Idaho.

Then Blake and my mom got REALLY in to telling GHOST stories. um, and I am not joking:


Above to the right of Bruce is my cousin Casey who is graduating from CSU in May and going to be a Veterinarian and work with Bruce. Who is jealous of that work environment.... they are BOTH so dang funny!!

And below is my other cousin, Fancy-Pants Lance, who is STARTING VET SCHOOL next month in Oregon to ALSO become a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine... it's like the cool thing to do now... hope you got that memo. We will miss them.

Y We were all excited to meet Manuel Y

Below is the SKITTLE toss game. They play so they don't feel like they are getting so old. They get teams of 2 and throw skittles up and try to catch them with their mouths.

They're a little competitive.

This time we all got babysitters, since most are married now with young kids. We had a steak dinner here... then there was some Rockband, Family Fued, and Kenny's birthday cake.

First Day of School

First Day of School 2010

For us this year that means: 1 in highschool, 1 in Jr. High, 2 in Elementary school, 1 in preschool, and 1 baby.
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Ashlin in highschool with an 'A' hour means her carpool leaves at 6:10AM

Dallin in Jr. High
Emma in 5th grade

Logan in 2nd grade

You can see Lily below frantically running after Logan, who forgot to give her a hug goodbye.

and Lily in preschool

And hooray, when we can get them all off to school, that means the baby can get some one on one time with her parents! She's clapping for this, YEAH!

Sophie 13 months old:

Loving school back in session. Although since we start this year at 6:10 for Ashlin, and Lily doesn't go to preschool until 9:00... that means 3 hours every morning is me getting my kids off to school.... they leave at FOUR different times. And everyone gets up at 5:50am so we can read scriptures and pray as a family before Ashlin leaves... it's THE most important thing we do each day.

Staten Madness

And it is always a good day when the Statens come to stay!!

... NEVER long enough, but always our FAVORITE visitors. Clear the calendar, get some good food, and Bring on the Statens. 11 kids between us... notice they have a 15 year old AND a baby, just like us. LOVE them! I heard Logan telling Lily our "cousins" were coming over. They are just our good friends for the last 15 years, but I didn't correct him, because they feel like cousins.

Luckily they're coming back up from Tuscon during fall break!!!

Splashpad

This trip I discovered the BEST idea ever! I HATE stopping at fast food places to eat while traveling... nothing makes you feel grosser than being in the car for HOURS and getting out to sit in a fast food restaraunt... or worse yet, one with a gaggy gross Play Place. However, you go to places so kids can run around for a little while before strapping them back in to their seat belts for hours.

This trip I was SMART and on the way to Utah I packed a picnic and looked up a PARK in Flagstaff to have lunch at... AAAAAH, Fresh Air, Beauty, REFRESHING!! Then on the way HOME from Utah we stopped in Kanab, and scored this AWEsome above park with a splashpad. We went through a drive-thru and had a picnic lunch there. The kids changed in to swimsuits and ran through the water for an hour. Now THAT is what I am talking about for an awesome travel meal break!!

Pioneer Day

Being in Mormonville for Pioneer Day was SO neat. I LOVED the Pioneer Day Parade... We sat right on a residential street, eveybody out front of their houses... with floats going by made by wards and local businesses... and LOOK, it's a Temple float:

And WHAT is this... MY kids in the parade?!

My sisters hubby Rich was putting on a FIGURE 8 Race the next weekend, so did some advertising in the parade. Here they come...

I made the sign... cracking me up. Ashlin and Dallin walked holding these to introduce Rich's sample race car...

Logan and Braxton sat on the car throwing candy. Emma and Keaton walked around passing out flyers for it, saying,
"Come to the FIGURE 8 RACE!"

They had so much fun being in the parade! We turned our grey San Diego shirts inside out and taped black 8's on the front of them, so all 8 kids were matching...

Though I do have to document that Logan fell off the car while throwing candy. Luckily this was not in front of me, but Rich said all the people in the audience screamed, "Someone under the Float!!" Rich, who was driving, stopped immediately, and luckily Logan was fine and didn't get run over. Logan said they hit a bump when he had his hand in the air to throw candy, he lost his balance and dove head first over the front of the car landing on the street between the float and the car, and the float rolled over him, so he was actually UNDER the float, but no tires touched him. It really scared Rich. He said when he heard people screaming, he thought he had run over a child who had run out to get candy or something. Yah, pretty glad it wasn't in front of me, it was a lot easier hearing about it later from Logan, who was clearly safe.
Pretty dangerous doing things in a small town!

Then that night we all went to the:
PIONEER DAY RODEO
Rich actually went with his 2 boys and my 2 boys and signed them up to ride a calf in the rodeo... My boys were SO excited, and SO scared!!! Here is the short video of each of their calf rides:

This is Keatons battle wound from his fall of the calf:

WOW- We had never been to a rodeo before, and it was WAY more fun than I had expected!

La Taqueria Bus

But the BEST part about Rexburg... the

SCHOOL BUS RESTARAUNTS!

Chrissy told me about these on the phone, multiple bus restaraunts here.... ha ha ha, cracked us up! You order AND eat inside! Chrissy and I ate inside there WITH our 10 kids.

Don't be thinkin they got rid of the steering wheel either...

... also don't be thinkin you can't get some good Mexicana food just because you are in I-Dee-ho!