Summer Vacay

Oh, we had such a lovely time getting away from the heat this summer. We spent the first half of our summer vacation in Prescott (actually Groom Creek). We went on plenty of afternoon drives and morning hikes. We got to explore a lot of the area that we had not had the chance to before. On one of our drives we saw a wild turkey and its babies, which were so cute! We also saw the most hilarious squirrel. It was laying on the edge of the road, all sprawled out. I actually thought it might have been dead, but as we got closer it stood up and scrambled off the road. When it stood up, we could see that its pouch was stuffed full. On our way back, we saw the same squirrel sitting all sprawled out exactly as before in the exact location, still with its pouch stuffed to the max. It was like an old man sitting on his couch, relaxing and trying to digest after a huge meal.

On our hike we went to a currently dry waterfall. The monsoons hadn't started, so the creek wasn't flowing yet. We took the chance to go digging at the bottom of the waterfall for some dirt. The boys are really into gold panning right now. (Thank you, Gold Rush.) Even if they didn't find any gold, they still had fun trying to dig it up.

Sorry about the next image. My phone automatically edited it for me and got rid of the original. J is climbing the dry waterfall to find dirt in the little crevices, hoping it has gold in it.

 
Jayke is really into the camera now. He takes pictures of everything! I thought he was pretty serious before, but I was wrong. Anytime he has any free time, he is either taking pictures or working with the images on the computer.

V once again loved being carried on my back.

There was a bit of complaining about the heat on the girls' part, but we got over that fairly quickly when they got to play on the rocks.

By the time we left Prescott, it started its daily evening rain. I am a little sad that we didn't have monsoons the entire time we were there, like we did last year, but I was so glad that it was a lot cooler than it was in Mesa.

For the second half of our vacation, we went to Snowflake for my family's reunion. We had most of the family there, but we did miss Deanna and Luiz, Kaitlin and Daron, and Dorothy. We were so close to having everyone there, but with a group this large, we are bound to miss someone. 

Since the time we last went to my parent's house, they have put up a big swing set in the back yard. V was in love! She would have sat in the swing for hours if I (or her cousins) let her.

The kids had so much fun playing with cousins. Some of them had to be introduced to each other again since it had been so long since they had seen each other. It was a little comforting to know that even my kids had a hard time telling the difference between Andy and Jane. (Glad I'm not the only one.) Seriously, if Jane's mole was removed I would not be able to tell the difference between them. I still have a hard time remembering all of Michael's kids' names and how many there are. Does this make me a terrible sister? Probably. Maybe it just means that Michael needs to send us more pictures of his little munchkins so we can see them more often.

We took a few full-group photos. I am really surprised at how big the family is getting! I am even more surprised that we were able to get everyone facing the camera at the same time. Obviously not all smiles, but it was quite a feat to get all the littles facing the correct direction at the same time.

And here is the parent/children shot (minus Deanna). We definitely look related!

The weekend was enjoyable. It was really nice to have most of the family all in one place at the same time and be able to catch up with our lives. It is crazy that out of one family we could live in so many different places. I miss hanging out with my siblings already.