Homemade Hot air balloon?

For as long as I've known Chris, I've heard about this mythical home-made hot air balloon that he made with his school class in Switzerland. Apparently it was very memorable and Chris has every so often expressed a wish to make it sometime. I pictured some small lantern-y thing and once I saw Tangled, I assumed it was a lot like those floating lanterns that Rapunzel was fixated on. 

We found ourselves with a spare couple of hours after we returned from the Heber Archibald Reunion and before heading over to my side of the family for a few days. It was the perfect time to try it! Chris was got all the supplies together and set to work at the table with the kids, some glue and tissue paper.

First you glue sheets together in pairs. I don't remember how many we did. A lot. Maybe 8 or so pairs.  

Then he glued some triangles on either ends and glued the pairs together.

Then he glued the bottom triangles all together and glued the edge of that to some foil and with wire hung a little tin (a cute burrito tin left over from the wedding).

Then he glued the top triangle pieces together and we taped all the corner seams so it would be as air tight as possible.

Then he poured rubbing alcohol over some cotton pads in the tin.

And lastly...light the alcohol soaked pads on fire!!

Oops. The tin was hung a little too low so the flames were licking the bottom edges of our tissue paper...

Instead of a hot air balloon we had a pyrotechnics show and watched the ashes float into the sky. It went REALLY fast. In seconds, our hours of work was gone. 

I can totally understand why Chris' memory is so awesome and I'm excited to try to make it again sometime. It was really fun.  Not to disappoint our aerial dreams, Edward prepared some rockets to launch. I guess Kayla has never seen him launch them before.  Wha?

Oh, and Frederick is still the Cutiest of Pies. 

Archibald Extravaganza: Heber Reunion

The day after the wedding, We all (except the bride and groom) drove up to Heber to stay in this big house all together for a few days. It was so fun to sleep in the same house. Usually, when we come to UT, Jess and her kids stay at their own house and we get together during the days, but that leaves out a lot of 'together time' around waking up, bedtime and post-bedtime. There were enough bedrooms for the older cousins to share a bunk room and Chris told or read them stories every night. We somehow lucked out with the sleeping arrangements and got the master suite - and it was SWEET! It was our first experience with a master bath and a walk-in closet. The double shower and king bed were huge! 

We really didn't leave the house much except for an outing or two. We walked down to the fishing hole and fished. The kids LOVED this, although no one caught any fish. I think one of the cousins, Jackson or Graham 'caught' a cool magnetic ball bracelet thing. 

Grandpa taught the older cousins how to cast and reel in a fishing rod.  He told them he used to fish when he was a boy. 

Cy and Freddy are so close in age and so cute to see side by side. Cyrus has such a deep voice, it is super cute to hear him babble and talk. 

Kayla and Edward made an appearance and stayed the night twice towards the end of the week. Kayla feels like one of the family.  She seems like a perfect last puzzle piece to the Archibald family. We really had such a nice time all together, I really love this family I married into. 

We mainly hung around the house - doing puzzles, playing outside in the sprinklers and hot tub, watching movies, taking naps, eating food, doing crafts. The boys went golfing one morning and later in the afternoon the girls went shopping at the outlets in Park City.  Most nights the adults all gathered in a room and talked. We planned our next reunion (an adult-only trip to WA for the 2015 US open!!), sat around the projector and looked through the old family slides, shared spiritual experiences, did puzzles, and ate popcorn, wedding cake, and peanut M&Ms. It was a perfect family reunion. 

WARNING: CRAZY BACK POSTING

I promised myself I would never get soooo far behind on my blog posting, but alas I have. I've got the first 1/2 of our summer posts uploaded and the first 1/2 of those posted. I'll eventually back date all of them to fall in line chronologically when they actually happened but not until I get up to date. Wish me luck!

The Wedding Extravaganza

Congratulations to Edward and Kayla! Chris and I first met Kayla in the temple a few days before their wedding. I felt instantly like she was such a sweet person. Their wedding was such a beautiful thing. I practically cried through the second half. I really enjoy sitting inside the temple with Chris watching a live wedding ceremony. It always helps me reflect back on our wedding, but also on our marriage as I listen to spiritual giants give wedding advice to the new couple. I always come away feeling inspired. (if I wasn't writing this post so many months late, I would have remembered some particulars about the advice that I LOVED...maybe I'll have Chris help me remember and come back later to add them in...something about  how the husband should view the wife and vise versa?)

Their reception was so beautiful and had so many decorations, it really looked so different from all the wedding receptions I've seen in that same place.  Such a fun evening. 

Can't resist taking pictures of my biggest and littlest boys. 

Archibald Extravaganza: pre wedding and Chris' birthday

Before the Wedding Festivities could begin we had to celebrate Chris' birthday and get in some classic UT activities such as golfing at East Bay and eating at La Casita and Bombay House.

These boys look so grown up carrying their clubs around.

Because we knew we would all be gorging ourselves on wedding cake, Chris graciously allowed us to substitute his birthday cake for some birthday trifle. Dixie's trifle. I'm glad Chris had lots of family around to help make his day special, since I didn't have a lot to offer him myself.  

I'm SOOO grateful that we could celebrate another year of his life.  He's my best friend, my anchor, my safety, my joy, my champion, my support, my love, my life. 

Tiffany helped me do the corsages and boutonnieres for Edward and Kayla's wedding. Its always fun doing flower things with her! 

Frederick had solid food for the first time! He loved rice cereal and ate it up pretty good. Of course, he always tried to suck it off the spoon with his well developed, super kissable sucking cheeks, but somehow still managed to gobble down all the rice cereal, every time.  Also, Dixie told us about how Jess is giving Cyrus lots of regular food in finger-sized portions at this early 7 month age. So we experimented with Freddy and gave him some strawberries and watermelon. He pretty much thought he was in paradise. He would suck and gnaw on everything until it was a pulp.  He also gagged a lot which was very scary for us, but after a week or so, he seemed to refine his gagging skills and gave us less and less scares.