What could be better than spending three weeks with people we love in places we love?

Well, I will tell you - All the pictures to go with it!  

This summer vacation post must be setting a record for pictures, but here it will remain for future posterity to see all the fun things we did.  Let us begin:

My very kind, patient, and wonderful mom and sister volunteered to help us drive from Phoenix to Idaho.  They rode home from the California reunion with us, helped me pack and get organized and then we were on our way. 

First stop: Grandma and Grandpa W's

Tummy time with Nels

Grandma has an amazing stash of fun, antique toys

The refreshments Curly made - Mint leaf wrapped Raspberries  a la scotch tape - delicious!

Sweet Grandma

 Then we headed to Idaho.  We enjoyed a day at LLL Ranch for the Lovell reunion.

Curly and new found friend/cousin Eva

Ready to zip on the zipline

 The girls had a lot of fun in Grandpa and Grandma's beautiful yard and garden.  They loved picking flowers with Grandpa and loading branches he had pruned onto the trailer.  K-Rae was in Rexburg during our visit, and JG also joined us.  We enjoyed jogging in the cool mornings with my good friend Ash, playing games, trying out new recipes, chopping JG's hair off, and just being together.  Curly and Lou never ran out of fun things to find in Grandma's playroom.

The view on our jog

Pretty as a princess

 My SIL Jenny came up for a day visit and we also enjoyed dinner with Grandpa Lake, friend Nia Mae, Bryce, Jenny and new baby Wren.

Grandpa Lake and friend Nia Mae

 Rick, Elyse, and Nels even made it up for a few days!

Thai food - yum!

Hi Babies!!!

Playing in the rain

 After a week in Idaho, we headed back to Utah and spent a fun filled week with Oma, Grandpa, and all of the Lake cousins.  Oma took us on many fun outings.  The girls loved spending time with her and Grandpa and their cousins!

The aquarium

Checking out at the Children's Museum

Getting sandy at the Park

A very fun park near DayBreak

Bryce and Jenny

Berry looking sweet

 We also took advantage of the beautiful weather and Utah mountains.  Ba, LE, Lynette, Lincoln and Grandpa took us hiking in Bountiful.

Hiking in Mueller Park

  Funny LE

Lydia managed to bum a ride for the last 50 feet

 Fisher arrived at this point and we had a mini reunion with all the Lake family.  Everyone gathered to attend the newest Lake baby blessing.  We celebrated with a swimming party and BBQ

The Grandchildren

 My SIL had a neat idea to take a picture of the "sixlets"  (six girls born within 15 months of each other) in their blessing dresses.  It was a nice idea, but hilarious to implement!  Here are just a few of the pictures we attempted.

 We finally gave in and had the mom's hold the babies.  It worked much better.

Sixlet #6's blessing day

The "original" Lake children and their daugters.

Oma and Berry

Crazy kids!  Ry and LE

Sweet new baby

 We enjoyed another hike in Big Cottonwood canyon.  Ba, LE and JG came too.  It was beautiful!   Oma had a hurt food and volunteered to stay home with Berry.

Fisher and LE

JG and Curly

Fun getting wet in the stream

Stories with Oma

After so much fun, most normal people would head home, but now that Fisher had arrived, we headed back to Idaho.  We happened to celebrate our 9 year Anniversary while there and since my wedding dress is stored at my mom's house, we celebrated by trying it on.

 

Back in Idaho, we made a quick evening trip to West Yellowstone to see "Joseph" at the Playmill, floated the river, and went hiking,

Look how strong I am!

Stories with Grandma

Getting ready for the float

Fisher, Grandpa, Curly, and Lou

Hiking at Grand Targhee

Picnic Dinner at Treasure Mountain

 Grandpa is a good sport and volunteered to "camp out" with the girls.

Idaho grass is cold in the morning!

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We had a blast, but our deadline arrived and we headed back to the heat.  Thanks family for making our summer vacation wonderful!

First Day First Grade

Summer has officially reached its finale and I have so much to blog about, but I will start with today.  Admittedly sending Curly to Kindergarten was harder than first grade, but sending her off to spend the majority of her day without me is scary, sad and exciting.  Curly was too excited to sleep and came into my room no less than three times, the first at 4:30 a.m. to see if it was time to get up and get ready yet.  She looked adorable once she was ready and I stared at her thinking about how quickly she is growing.

On Saturday she sat on my lap while we attended her cousins baptism.  I suggested that maybe she would like to go sit with her Aunt and she said, "That's okay" and wiggled in closer to me.  I know these moments are fleeting and was happy to just sit and hold her while it lasted.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

For the past few months, we have been planning a family reunion in California with Lainey's parents, and most siblings.  We decided to surprise the girls mostly because it would be fun and partly because we knew that if we told them, there would be very little sleep at night until the event actually took place.  Curly and Lou knew we were preparing for a trip, which assumed was our summer visit to Utah and Idaho, but they were surprised when Fisher came home from work on a Wednesday and said, "Let's hop in the van and go on a trip!"  They spent the first 15 minutes excitedly discussing where we were going and then fell sound asleep.   At the hotel we had a connecting room to my brother's family, so in the morning, Fisher told Curly to knock on the door and see who was there.
After the girls discovered their cousins, they began to chat excitedly and a few minutes later, Curly came to me and said, "Mom, Lettie's going to Disneyland today, Can we go too?" She was shocked and excited when I said, "Sure, that sounds fun!"

We had been in the park for about an hour when the cousins looked up and saw Grandpa, Grandma and Aunt JG approaching!  Squeals of excitement and delight!

We enjoyed a day together and were able to go on almost all the rides on our list, watch the parade, and see Fantasmic.  We were all exhausted and crashed in bed early.

Baby girls getting reacquainted

K-Rae and Baby - both lookin' cute

Grandma arrives!

Curly, Lettie, Gracie, and Lou in Goofy's car

Baby loved Minnie's nose... I hope she was the first baby to try and eat it, but I doubt it

JG, Lainey, and K-Rae on Minnie's couch.  We have the same picture plus Paisley from Disney World 10 years ago.

The crew on Goofy's boat

Waiting for the Dumbo ride

T-man with the almost lost little girls on Small World

Grandpa can sleep anywhere!

JG soaked on Splash Mountain

Monkey's on Casey's circus train

We love Space Mountain!

Lettie loved Toon Town and we spent our evening free time exploring there.

Sardines squashed in for Fantasmic

Worn out!

Friday morning we headed to San Diego.  We had a picnic lunch at the beach and played on the beach and in the very cold waves.  We headed into old town San Diego to the Mormon Battalion Center.  It is newly remodeled and a very cool experience.  The adults and the kids all enjoyed it.   We walked a few blocks from the center to a quaint plaza with a Mexican Restaurant and little shops. After dinner, we headed to the Davies (old family friends) to stay for a couple nights.

Beautiful San Diego Temple

T-man, Lettie, JG, Lou, and Kendra getting sandy!

Bathing beauties - Curly and Lettie

The girls dressed up as soldiers and a laundress

Panning for gold.  Lainey's cousin-once-removed Elder Woodbury handing Curly a nougat

Dancing to the live music while waiting for a dinner table

Grandpa got to sit at the girl table.  "Girl trapped!"

Ready for ice cream at the Davies

On Saturday we had a slower morning and then headed to Sea World.  In the evening a few people braved the cool pool.

The girls loved "practicing" in the Davies' music room

Ancient Shark Jaws at Sea World

Mesmerized by the show... and the heat!

Why is it that kids could care less about how cold the water is?

 On Sunday we packed up and went to church before all parting our separate ways.  T-man and his family to northern Cali, my dad and JG home to Utah and Idaho, and our family plus my mom and K-Rae back to Arizona.  It was a wonderful trip full of surprises that we will remember for a long time!

A goodbye Squg

The Biggest Party of the Decade!

With Curly's and Lou's birthdays a week a part and many of the same sibling friends, it made sense to have a joint Birthday party.  The theme, per Curly's pronouncement was cupcakes.  So we decorated cupcakes, played lots of games, and ate cupcakes.  The only complicating factor to the equation is that we had 22 guests under 6 and it is too hot to have an outdoor party.  So, we moved ALL of the furniture out of the family room, planned more games than we thought we would possibly need (and we did need all of them), recruited three tween girls to help and braced ourselves.  The party was fun, crazy and wild at times, but very fun!  Fisher was an awesome ring master and we could not have done it with out the help of our sweet neighbor girls.

Parachute Time was a hit!

The theme of most cupcakes was to see how much candy you could fit on top.

Lou held her own in the cupcake contest.

Friends

More friends

Cute helpers

The Prettiest Parade in Town

It's too hot here to do much on the fourth, but the girls really wanted a parade, so we improvised.  We called the neighbors, then pulled out the crepe paper and balloons and decorated their bikes.  Never mind that it was 100 degrees, the girls had a blast riding their bikes up and down the street and throwing candy at the crowd of four cheering parents.  In the afternoon we went swimming and grilled some hot dogs.  We watched the city fireworks display from the Costco parking lot.  We missed having family around to do things with, but had a fun fourth together!

Baby celebrated her 8 monthiversary on the fourth by getting sick :(

Ready for the parade!

Here they come!

Stopping for some candy.

Swimming! and watching the fireworks from the top of the van.