On the road again... Texas for the 4th!

We left for another big road trip, TX for the 4th of July and then on to UT for a Betteridge reunion and the Shakespeare festival.  We got on the road fairly late since it took a while to clean out the car (there was a really nasty smell that I could never find the source of!) and Chris had to go to work. We left around 6:00 pm and had an 8-9 hour drive ahead of us. We had some flies in the car at one point and we unrolled the windows to get rid of them. The kids weren't expecting so much wind to blast their faces: 

We arrived at Thom and Brittany's around 3AM or so and then got up early to make it to the McKinney Texas 4th of July parade. A small town American parade was a great start to celebrating the birth of our country. We saw fire trucks, boy scouts, veterans, old fancy cars, horses etc. 

Then we hit up a splash pad and park for a hotdog roast dinner with really yummy cupcakes. 

Chris wanted to get some practice in for the magic show he was thinking of doing at the Betteridge reunion and the kids were more than happy to oblige him.  His made up Land of Mysterioso and the magic words, "abra ca-da-myrioso" made the kids smile and laugh. 

Anxious to explore their new surroundings, we decided to go on a hike at a nearby nature preserve with mountain bike trails. We found a tire swing and of course HAD to try it out, over and over and over again. It was so much fun. The dads decided to rent mountain bikes on Monday and come back to actually ride these trails. 

The only down side to the hike which we didn't really figure out for a day or two was that we didn't adaquately guard against chiggers. Charlie, Alec, Graham and I got SERIOUSLY munched on. I counted 40+ bites between my knees and my navel. Eugh. Those huge, raised, red bumps were terribly itchy, painful and so ugly.  Poor boys had them all over their groin...wherever their underwear was tight against their skin. 

But we didn't realize what had happened so we obliviously enjoyed the rest of the day at a delicious, Texan BBQ house -- where they're so chill they don't even use plates, just a square of wax paper-- and then off to Brittany's parents house for a swim. 

This was the first time we went swimming this summer and Freddy's first experience with his swimming suit. Gwen tried out her swimming-by-herself-with-a-lifejacket skills and did AMAZING. I love watching my kids be so independent in a swimming pool (with life jackets still, but it is nice to not have to be the human island for all three of them all the time...their toes can really pinch and scratch!) 

Monday we went to the Dallas Science Center. It was so big. They had this cool interactive displey where you stood in this special spot and flapped your arms or leaned this way or that and the projected screen in front showed your flying movements as an eagle or hawk or something. Also there was this cool device where you program into the computer a picture and then a wheel of lights spins so fast that it makes your picture blur together - hard to explain. 

Chris had just as much fun as the kids figuring out how all the robotics stuff went. It was a really fun science center. 

Whew! a fun fun weekend. It ended kinda crazy with our first car crash, but more on that later.  It was really fun to see Chris' brother's beautiful brand new house and let the cousins play while the adults talked. I love our family. 

Betteridge Heber Reunion

First off, we all just love this boy. He's so good at eating and will eat ANYTHING. He loves to much on onions, pickles, celery, green onions, apples, watermelon, pizza, cucumbers etc. Mostly he loves breads and crackers.

Our Betteridge reunion happened to be in the house next door to the one we rented for the Archibald reunion the previous month. Kinda funny. It had 8 bedrooms, a huge game room with ping pong and pool tables and a theater room, and a playground, firepit and flat grassy area outback.  It was just about perfect for our size of group (some of the things were falling apart in the house...like the sink, hottub, grill ... but the home still had an open luxurious feel to it). Again we lucked out with the pick of the rooms and were given the master suite. I felt pretty guilty about it at first but then got over it. I think because we have the youngest baby and the recovering cancer patient people were being extra nice to us.

Our first day we celebrated the Birthdays: Gwen, Dyln and Lynae with cake and ice cream and just explored the place.

 

We also held our first official meeting and talked about the schedule and activities for the reunion. It was kind of a Survival/Emergency Preparedness theme reunion. My sister and brother organized this weeklong game of performing or learning about survival skills and getting points for each thing you do. Then the points can be redeemed for prizes. It was supposed to just be a filler activity that you take a few minutes to do in between meals or down time or whatever, but the kids were so motivated for the prizes that they were like survival nutjobs for the whole second day, running from adult to adult asking them to help them learn/do then cross off some skill. It was kind of exhausting but also pretty interesting. I learned how to do lots of knots, find North and South using shadows, use a HAM radio, make a tepee, identify edible plants, update our family's emergency plan, build a fire, make a bow and arrow, find animal tracks etc...

 We also had one of my sister's friends come up to Heber to take family pictures. Its fun to document the kids and family at various ages. I always love having a recent family picture.  The kids were pretty good champs about it all and lasted longer than they should've been expected to.  Grandma and Grandpa were prepared with "encouragement" in the form of fruit snacks and tic tacs. :)

All the grandsons: (we tried getting a picture of the granddaughters, but we had some young, strong-willed sweeties that had been asked to smile and hold still for too long...understandably so!)

All the grandkids:

We can never have too many pictures of our Frederick. 

The kids really enjoyed the wild area above the hill in the backyard. They built their own forts and tepees and had lots of unsupervised cousin time - which is good for them.

The adult fun began when the kids went to bed, strictly by 8:00. We had lots of tournaments: pingpong, pool, washer-toss, ladder ball, and spike ball. We also spent a portion of each evening taking turns sharing about some spiritual insight or lesson we had this past year. I really enjoyed doing that and connecting with my amazing siblings and parents in such meaningful ways. Chris and I were in charge of the evening activities and had MSU tshirts for tournament prizes. We also played lots of games and watched a few movies. We stayed up pretty late many nights just enjoying being together. 

One morning we went on a 'hike' that got downgraded to a walk around the neighborhood. Euhh... you can't win them all. We practiced making some survival knots on this big long rope thinking it would help the kids be safe as we crossed roads etc... but after only 100 feet or so, we realized all the kids had let go of the rope and were running up ahead while all the adults held onto the looped rope. Ha!

Other activities included an all-inclusive game of missionary tag before bed and a day trip to swim at a cool Rec Center pool with water slides and lazy river. Chris did a magic show for all the kids (all the adults watched too) Sunday afternoon. It turned out pretty good and his orange trick with the ripped card was very impressive. 

Monday morning was check out and clean up. We did a paper airplane throwing game to give out the last of the survival prizes.  The meals were all really simple but yummy and we rotated on a schedule for cooking and clean-up. It is always nice to gather as an ENTIRE family even if its a little crazy with so many kids. We love our Betteridge family so much and feel blessed to know all of them. Seriously, every sibling and spouse is really nice and fun to be around we all just enjoy being together. Can't wait for next year.