Colorado

Every other year my family gets together for "big" family reunion. On the off years, those of us who can will meet up in St. George. This year was a "big" get together that Richie and I were in charge of planning. It works out great. This was our first year planning it, and we won't have to plan it again for another 10 years! We all decided on Colorado since it was a little closer to the mid-westerners. (They still had to drive 17 hours. Bleh.)
We vacationed on the Vallecito Reservoir, about 30 miles from Durango, CO. To find a place to rent that will fit 28 people was difficult, even when I started looking in January, but we found a few cabins (which looked much larger online) on the lake and they suited us just fine. Monday everyone filtered in and got settled.

Tuesday we hung out at the lake and the pool. At the stage Miles and Gwen are at, all the need is a pool and it's the best vacation ever. I'm glad they're so easy to please. I hope it stays that way for a loooong while. We also went out to eat that night at the Bar D Chuck Wagon. It's dinner and a show! They even had a little train there to ride, which just made the best vacation, even better in the eyes of Miles and Gwen.

Wednesday we took some family pictures in our official Crosby family reunion 2013 shirts. Pretty sweet huh? I don't have one of the siblings/everyone because we only had our volunteer photographer use one camera, maybe I'll post it later, but here's all the grandkids (minus 2) in almost perfect age order. We bribed with candy to make this magic happen. Afterward we decided to hike to a river to swim and fish. When we got to the trail head, we asked some hikers coming out how long the trail is. They told us it was 3 miles there, 3 miles back. Yikes. Knowing our kids would never make that on foot, we quickly took our position in the back and enjoyed looking at every flower, every rock, every butterfly, every cricket etc.... We probably only made it a quarter mile, but our kids were so ready to be done, so we turned around and went swimming at the pool when we got back.

On Thursday we sectioned out time for just the gals to be together, and just the guys. I feel silly that I didn't take any pictures of us girls window shopping and eating in downtown Durango! The guys went river rafting later, and I didn't get any pictures of that either. Lame! However I took a bunch of pictures later when we had a talent show to celebrate my Dad's retirement! This might have been my favorite part of the trip. We had guitar, ballet, singing, dancing, skits, football instruction, art, and a grandkids flash-mob. Yeah, we've got a pretty cool family.

On Friday some family hit the road, but before doing so, we watched a movie my sister put together all about my dad growing up, marrying my mom, working, and raising 5 kids. I sure loved that. Throughout the week we made sure we fit in game playing and crafts.

Saturday, the rest of us hit the road. On our way back to Utah, the Lamb family and us Garners side-stepped a little to make a trip to Mesa Verde National park. Despite car-sickness and some fatigue, I'm glad we went. It was a really neat place and Miles keeps talking about where the Indian's used to live. We made it back home Saturday night, and I think I'm still recuperating. We finally got through all the laundry, I think.... The first couple days home were hard because the kids kept whining to see their cousins again. I'm sure glad they are forming friendships with each other. That's the best, most important part!

sleepover

My sister-in-law and I had been talking about letting our kids have a sleepover together for a few months, so we decided to finally make it happen. We had music time with friends during the day, naps, dinner, then a movie. What sleepover would be complete without a movie and popcorn? We let them stay up a little bit later than usual and played around with the idea of letting Ethan sleep in Miles' bed with him. After our bedtime routine, we tried it out and it was totally obvious sleep wasn't happening as long as the 3 oldest were in the same room together. We indulged them a little and let them jump on beds and scream, while we waited outside the door smiling and rolling our eyes. Then we put our mom faces on, separated them, and made them sleep. Mean huh?

The next morning we went to a park to play and visited with (Great) Grandma Garner who was in town, before Makenna headed back up to SLC. This picture is special. There is a picture of me, when I was a little younger than Gwen is in this picture, with my Grandpa Hinckley in his flower garden. He's bending over to show me a flower, just like Great Grandma Garner is helping Gwen find some strawberries. Same beautiful white hair on the both elders, and same white blonde hair on the babies. I felt lucky to snag this picture right before my camera died.

A Fabulous Fourth

Our neighborhood was an annual kid's bike parade and pancake breakfast. We didn't go last year because we were moving boxes in! We were so excited to be able to participate this year. It was a true, small town celebration full of patriotism. Miles impressed us all by riding his bike the entire route (much longer than he's ever rode before). Gwen didn't surprise us when she gave up on her bike before we were even down our road. I pushed her in the stroller, and Richie pulled her empty bike on a rope behind him.:)


We spent the rest of the day with Richie's family at their house, at ours, and at parks! If Miles and Gwen could have one day to re-do over and over again I think they would choose this 4th of July. We blew up a mini pool, roasted marshmallows, ate outside and listened to music, flew kites, played at 2 different parks, and stayed up later than they have ever stayed up in their lives. We bought a few sparklers and pop-it's, figuring we'd be able to see the city's fireworks from our house. We couldn't see the city's, but our neighbors probably invested hundreds and hundreds of dollars in fireworks, and we had a front row seat! We let the kids stay up to watch them since they would have been kept awake by them anyway. It was awesome!! By the time 1030 rolled around, both kids were practically begging for bed. The next day, they slept in till 10. Best day ever.