Stowell Family Reunion/ Campout!

I was SO excited that the reunion included a campout this year.  And then as it got closer to the date, I slowly started to chicken out of the whole thing.  First with Nate's new schedule and realizing I would have to do it all on my own, and then with the discomfort of the pregnancy, and bla bla bla.... but eventually, we finally came to the conclusion that it would be worth it to go!  

I had a lot of help packing and getting the car loaded from the kids.  I was actually really impressed with how well it all went.  I couldn't believe I still had the energy to pack it all in the car when I did.  

By that time, we knew Nate was going to be able to come up for the Friday evening part of things, and I was waiting for him, but then realized he was going to be longer than we thought, so I ended up doing it all myself.  We drove up without him, got up there, set up our tent and got things all unpacked, and then Nate showed up :).  

I was so relieved when Sarah informed that she was going to be going too!  We were really happy to have company!  And since we were both going to be "husbandless" it worked :)

Funny enough, Brent and Nate both ended up coming up Friday night, spending the night, and then Nate was actually able to stay all day Saturday too.  (thanks to his back pain)  Funny how things work out :).  Wish I'd stressed less and just been tough about the whole thing.  Could have saved me a lot of trouble.  

We spent some time roasting our hot dogs, eating grapes, and Kelly took off with my camera.....

She took about 300 pictures of some of the scenery and mostly the squirrels and chipmunks.  Some of them turned out really cool!  And I know she was very proud of these ones, so I thought I would post them....

We did take some time out to go watch the "Birds of Prey Show" that the campground had.  It was pretty cool, we saw an owl and a Peregrine Falcon!

We go to feel how light the wings are and touch the talons.  Pretty cool stuff.

And some more pictures from Kelly

There's a chipmunk AND a butterfly in this pile of wood!!  Pretty cool!

The evening was really relaxing.  We made s'mores (luckily Sarah remembered graham crackers), the kids ran around wreaking havoc.  Noah almost chopped his toe off with Charlie's shovel, that was pretty exciting.  

The kids all seemed to sleep okay.  Erika woke up once and Nate talked her into going back to sleep, that was nice.  I must say, I wasn't comfortable, but for some reason, I think I slept okay.  It didn't seem any worse than home in bed.... strangely enough.  

It was a good time though!  I think camping is the best.

In the morning, we had our cereal, got dressed and headed out to the pavilion for the reunion.  I was very proud of myself for guessing the exact time that my mom would show up :).  She said 10:00, I guessed 11:15, she showed up at 11:13.  Awesome!

Good times.

Unfortunately, this is the ONLY picture I have of any extended family.  Go figure.  Who was expecting to see pictures of the actual reunion anyway?

This was during the auction :)

I love, love, LOVE family reunions.  I think they were some of the highlights of my childhood, and I still look forward to them for some reason.  

This year's will be remembered.  We were on the edge of the Rockport Reservoir. It was pretty windy the ENTIRE time.  And when I say windy, I mean WINDY!  Everything was blowing all over the place, the whole time.  

We had to wait for some of the slow-pokes to get there to finish making the lunch since they were bringing some of the main ingredients, so that was a long 2 hours with hungry kids :).  But I chatted a lot and totally enjoyed the time visiting.  I was proud of how many reunions I actually remember and was able to fill in blanks on the charts for.  

We finally ate, then Charlie got burned, and Sarah took off with her boys and Charity for the instacare.  After we ate, there was a long discussion about how to pay for future reunions and how things should go.  That was boring.  I don't enjoy getting together to talk about how we're going to get together.  I'd rather do fun stuff.  Then we talked about Aunt Danny being the only one left of the original Stowell Family.  And some other ancestors.  This part was a little boring too.  Sorry.  

Then we had the beloved auction.  My kids had really been looking forward to this for some reason :).  We spent too much on things, but ended up with a bunch of cute headbands, a nice "Families are Forever" sign, and my favorite, a monkey blankie for Wormie :)  His first blanket!!  Kelly and I had made some flower clips that really didn't make it big at this reunion.  I will have to remember that for next year.

After that, we visited some more, that's my favorite part, and then Nate's back really started to give him trouble so we left.

Overall, I enjoyed my time!  I had a lot of fun listening to Mary Len's stories, she's hilarious, and talking with all the Wrights.  The girls had a blast with Priscilla and Amanda, and later on in the day, with Emily too.  It's funny how much my girls latch on to the teenage girls.  Kelly was so thrilled that she gave her email address and that Priscilla is going to email her :).  I love them having good, upstanding girls to look up to.  That is what family (family reunions) is for!  It's fun to catch up with everyone even though we see a lot of each other on Facebook.  I really wish the Mottishaws had made a presence, but can't have everything.  

ConGRADUATIONs AuNt HeIdI!!!

Thursday was Heidi's big day!  

I was so honored to be the one she chose to pin her at her pinning ceremony.  That happened earlier in the day and was a lot more casual than the graduation, but really cool nonetheless.  Heidi said some sweet things about me as she introduced who was pinning her, then I shakingly pinned her pin on her shirt and failed to give her a hug.  We both admitted that we were too nervous for that whole thing, so I think all was forgiven.  

Heidi, John and I all went to get some lunch, we ate at Crown Burger, and then headed back to the cultural center so that I could drive home, get the girls and take the littles to Grandma Hatch's house.  And then get back an hour and a half later.  

The girls were THRILLED to be able to come to the graduation!  I was glad they wanted to come because I wanted to have a big enough cheering section for Heidi.

I think this group is her cohort, but I'm not sure, I just tried to take a few pictures while they were getting them taken professionally so that she could have free ones.    Unfortunately though, I wasn't able to get any good enough to count.  Oh well.

Heidi looked adorable in her hat, even though she hated it.

This was her walking down the aisle.  She looks so studious!

This is when she got her honor cords.  She was so funny this whole time, worrying about every single test, telling me she thinks she's going to fail, and whatnot.  It surprised me to see that she was graduating with honors!  How cool!!!  Makes me so proud of her!  She really deserves all the praise too, because she's done it all on her own!  She hasn't had all the family support and companionship that a lot of others would have had in her situation.  She has done it all!  

This was when she was sworn in as a Registered Nurse!  So cool!!  The one from the front didn't turn out :)

Blurry.  This is her receiving her diploma....

And a picture with the director (aka: gay guy).  Not sure she'll care too much that this one was blurry.  The guy is creepy.

I like this one.  She looks so accomplished!!  And she is!  This is her 2nd time graduating!  She has her Bachelor's in Exercise Science already, and now her Associates in Nursing.  I'm so proud of her!!

Kelly and Charity took turns wearing her cap and gown, and holding the flowers.... they really were just so full of energy!  And it definitely came in handy when we had to cheer for her when they read her name (way later than they should have alphabetically), she ended up having quite the cheering section.  That was nice :).

And of course the "non-photogenic" couple.  They'll hate this picture for some reason, but I think they look good!

I really just LOVED being able to be there for Heidi!  She's done such an awesome job, something I wish I'd accomplished, and done it so well!!  She really amazes me what she can do while struggling so much in the meantime.  She is tough.
Hopefully she can get a job at IMC in Labor and Delivery before August and she can be present for Wormie's delivery :)  Her dream come true :).  Jk.  She's not really headed down that road, just my wishful thinking :).

CONGRATULATIONS, HEIDI!!!!  WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

Going to the Gateway!

I'm not really sure how this idea came about, but I'm SO glad we pulled it off!  Even though Nate and I were both exhausted (for some reason), we dragged ourselves out of the house to ride the Trax downtown to play in the Gateway fountains.  This has become somewhat of a tradition, and something everyone seems to really enjoy :)  I loved watching the kids' faces!  

I think it's safe to say, Erika liked it the most!  She was SO cute!  About the whole thing!  I didn't realize how long it had been since we took the "train" so that was a whole new novelty to her :).  And the fun thing about it being her first time, is it was EVERYONE'S first time watching her "first time".  Our kids are so good at making things fun for each other.  Especially this time.  Erika couldn't stop talking and smiling.  She wanted to sit on her "own seat" on the light rail.  It was adorable.  Noah seemed to be enjoying things quite a bit as well.  He's much quieter as he enjoys things.  

The kids were excited to play in the water, but Noah kinda chickened out after his first run, not wanting to get in the fountains as much.  He's cautious :).  

I was trying different things with my camera and eventually came to the conclusion that I am not good enough at manual to play around with it and still get any decent candid shots.  So I stopped.  Some of them looked cool I thought.

Luke is always so brave in these splash parks, but you can just see how cold he is. I had to keep reminding him to lay on the hot ground, but he just doesn't have enough body fat to keep him insulated.

Erika was very cautious as well.  This wasn't her favorite part of the trip.  But she sure looked cute and sounded happy through it all. 

The girls were off playing pretty much the whole time.  Until they saw Miss Utah High (whoever that is) getting her picture taken in front of the fountain.  They were mesmerized.  This is when Kelly got the idea to want to be in beauty pageants.  She's saving up to enter one as we speak.

Bradley seemed to have a lot of fun as well.  

He was funny though, near the end, he came up to me and said, "What's the temperature?" And I wasn't sure, but I was pretty sure it wasn't 80.  Which is what it has to be to play in water, normally.  He insisted that I look it up on my phone and then was flabbergasted that I had let them go there when it was only 75 degrees outside.  This was about the time that he stopped playing in the water.  Maybe he feels like the rule is more powerful than I do.  Like an expiration date on milk.  Not sure.  But he is a rule follower, and I'm not going to stop him from doing that.  He was ready to go then.

It really was a little chilly.  I should have thought about that before we left, but anyway....

Bradley and Erika totally hit it off on this outing.  They were total buds for most of it.  It's adorable who Erika will cling to sometimes.  Bradley was her little prince. I like that he is willing to play with his little sister and make her feel so special.  What 7 year old boy is capable of that?

He was totally helping her get brave enough to get her head wet in these pictures ;)

Noah stepped out in the water occaisionally :)

We were only at the fountains for about an hour, but I think everyone had enough fun :).  They were anxious to get back on the train too, I think.  

We stopped at the store to get some groceries, and frozen pizzas :), and headed on home.  

I love the last minute fun things, and especially when they turn out to be such a good time for everyone.  I think we all enjoyed it.