summer vacation

 Lucy is so excited to fly to utah

hummingbird lucy

 It was so cute to me to see these kids with their little backpacks ready for the trip.

 Our first trip with three kids.  Joey did double duty and I held a sleeping maryanne.  Luckily, it was a good and easy flight.

Songers in Huntsville

I was in charge of the reunion this year.  (meaning I just coordinated a few things but we sort of do the same thing every year).  So this year's craft was "design your own slap bracelets".  They were a hit.  The kids spent hours coming up with some really creative designs and they turned out really cool.... I mean, rad.

 My grandma was staying with my mom and nobody gets more delighted with kids and babies than my grandma.  I was so excited to get to spend a little time with her and watch her with my kids.

and Luke greeted his cousins Truman and Andrew warmly

 Shaun making Maryanne's day.  (while we all hang out and bond inside while it rains.  It was supposed to be the waterslide day but it was just a chill day inside.  kinda nice)

These three boys played for hours and hours with no fights or whining or needing anything from parents.  It was kinda awesome.   The Jack and Truman and Luke trio.

Rosalie, Lucy and Eliza being little cuties. 

Happy swinging Lucy.  My parent's yard always looks amazing.  Victoria mentioned it's one of my dad's great works of art.   I think so. 

 Waterslide day. 

truman

 comfy grandpa. 

 My little chunkwonker

Traveling to Grover... hopped up on blue sugar

 Grover with the Hales

5 for 5 (smiles/kids)  Luke was in heaven at the ranch with all his cousins.  We try to make it like the old days with no video games or movies during the day so they will explore the red rock hills but every once and a while the kids find a phone, computer or ipod laying around and play games on it.  (joey said - yeah, instead of hunting for lizards, it's hunting for ipods)

It's cool because everyone sort of comes to the ranch with something to share.  Clint with his zombie shooting range, Chad takes a group on an adventure hike, people bring new board games, etc... well Joey's contribution was????......  you guessed it - disc golf.   There is actually a really highly rated disc golf course just down the road from the ranch in Torrey.  It was cool to go from our lush memphis forest courses to a red utah desert course.

Another contribution was Sarah's treasure hunt for the kids.  All the kids ran around to each clue that so cleverly rhymed and eventually led them to the treasure.

They had each of the older kids have a younger buddy.  So there was some cute cousin bonding.

 Cole helping Luke read one of the clues.

One of my favorites clues was something like "underneath the trunks of Tonka is treasure made by Willy Wonka"

Luke and Rosalie :)

 

Dividing the spoils

 

We also experienced some rain during this reunion as well.  But since we only had a few days I made us go tubing in the rain.  It was cold - but we tubed through the this fun tunnel that was super fast in the Fremont river.  

so that was short lived and we ended up in the hot tub... lots of elbows and knees.

 I give it a 10 on scenery though

 ahhhh, a mysterious stranger

 

My favorite night at the ranch was one where miraculously all the adults got to have a lengthy and interesting conversation.  All the kids were in bed and all the teenagers were at the Brian's.  I stayed up until 2:00 or so soaking up the awesome company.

Also, not pictured was Joey's disc golfing adventures.  He played night and day disc golf at the kinderfarm  - a course he & his siblings created.  I think we figured out - out of his first 13 hours spent in Utah, 7 of them were spent disc golfing.  He also took all the Songer nieces and nephews to the Snow Basin disc golf course.  So, it was a whirlwind trip.  Way too short - but as always it was pretty dang awesome.