Thursday was the day Olivia has been waiting for for 2 years. We told her we wouldn't ride horses every year, but she's totally into it, so we let her do it this year again. Carter declined :). She got to ride a sweet old horse named Trunkle, and Grandma was a saint to drag the horse around (and around and around) the arena SO many times.
She never would have gotten off, but after 6 or seven big loops the horse and Grandma were both done :)
Post horse-riding treat of ice cream by the stables :)
I can't even count how many times I looked around and each of the kids had picked a buddy to walk with, and it was never me :). They love all this time with family, and I love how amazing our family is to stop and play with all the kids every time we're together :)
Exploring near the meadow :)
Alex's birthday was that evening, and we had all the family over for dinner. We are missing 3 Rock boys and a Duerfeldt baby boy, but here are all the kids that were at Black Butte this year! We have all the faces and only one screamer, so it was a major win in my book! 8 kids under 7, and half of them are ours!
Happy Birthday Alex! He's entering his 30s in his favorite place surrounded by his favorite people, which is what he asked for for his birthday. It was really fun celebrating him for a day, because most of the time he is behind the scenes making happy happen for the kids. I'm happy to be entering my 30s (next year of course...he's much older than me) with him by my side and our little troupe of munchkins following *hopefully* closely behind. Happy Birthday Babe!
Getting help opening presents...we don't do many things in peace these days :)
Friday I apparently took 0 pictures all day, but it's safe to say that it was full of swimming and resting and more swimming and ice cream :) That evening we let the kids stay up late-ish to do s'mores and go golfing with Dad and Grandpa. Olivia and Hunter passed on the putting greens, so they started s'mores while Alex took Carter and Makenzie to golf. Hunter wasn't so sure about his first s'more...he like the marshmallow, until it wouldn't get off :)
It's pretty apparent here that O needs more sleep. She gets this way on every family vacation because she is all about playing and not missing anything, so she stays up late and wakes up early almost every day.
These little golfers may have had more fun 'fixing' the sand trap than actually hitting the ball, but Carter really wants to learn to golf with Dad, which is my favorite.
Mixed up pictures because they are taken on multiple phones...but here is Max and Haley enjoying their marshmallow masterpieces.
Pretty soon Grandpa, Alex, Carter and Makenzie came back so they didn't miss out on all the action.
Grandpa Gary is really big on fire safety, so we make sure to light a few things on fire every time we do s'mores :)
The kids love to watch the marshmallows grow and grow before they plop into the fire and turn into black messes. Grandpa is awesome for letting them do it and then cleaning up all the special fire rocks...not entirely sure this particular fire pit is used for s'mores very often :)
Saturday was our last full day at BBR, and we didn't want to miss out on the crazy bikes! It's so fun to take the whole family out (last year we took 3 and left baby Hunter, the year before we took 2 and left baby Makenzie), but we have to enlist the help of some more grownups :)
We rode around the meadow to Jim and Kathy's house. They were packing up to go home that day, so we wanted to say goodbye to these cousins who we might not see for a few months. As usual, Hunter and Makenzie stopped first at the snack table, then headed straight for Mila. They were getting more comfortable with her though, so after a minute I had to stop them from poking her eyes and nose and mouth...
Thanks for endangering your life to be in the selfie, Max!
I'm pretty sure these are out of order because this is our first night of Pickleball. Pickleball is this awesome smaller tennis with a wiffle ball that is perfect for kids and uncoordinated moms alike! I really enjoy playing it, and the older two kids were able to have a lot of success right off the bat, which makes for a happier afternoon!
Just had to put this picture in of my old-man husband...not sure what he was complaining about, but it's pretty clear that he got beat bad :)
On Sunday morning we let each of the kids pick one last activity before we left at lunchtime. In a super huge surprise, Olivia picked pickleball over swimming. I couldn't believe it, but was thrilled that she loved it so much, Carter also wanted to play pickleball, so Grandma and Grandpa took them up while Alex and I took the little ones swimming. I didn't even get in the water this time (I didn't want to drive home and take family pictures with wet hair...lame mom status here!) so we corralled them on the steps and Makenzie jumped in about 100 times.
We braved a field of more mosquitos than I've ever seen before (one step on the grass and you were covered by at least 20, even on the patio we were getting bitten the entire time) because I have this family picture every year with the most perfect background ever and I didn't want to skip it. Super huge thanks to everyone else for putting up with my lack of desire to switch locations, the pictures turned out well, and we treated everyone for 10+ bug bites for a few days afterwards.
We were so sad to go, we had the best, most relaxing week. However, I was anxious to get home and switch gears for Twin Lakes 5 days later, so we headed out at lunch on Sunday. Our first stop was Moro, OR, where we happened upon the cutest tiny little history museum that will definitely be a destination next time. This time it was just the only place open on a Sunday afternoon for us to buy some water (noted for next time...come prepared :))
Stop 2 was Tri-Cities. We failed (for the second year in a row) to navigate the intercrossing highways and make it down to the river on the Kennewick side to a beautiful park that we really want to see. Instead we ended up at a little park in Pasco that had a porta-potty and room for us to eat our fast food dinner :). Not our plan but we made it happen. We got home about the time all the kids were falling asleep, so we tackled Olivia's crazy pool hair the next day :)
We also passed evidence of a roadside burn that was pretty crazy. There were businesses just on the other side of this hill, but they all had their sprinklers on and it looked like damage was minimal. Thank you Firefighters!!
O is gearing up for 1st grade, and when she tried on this dress up I couldn't believe it. She is just too grown up acting and looking for me.
We had a pretty busy week getting ready for company Friday night and Twin Lakes on Saturday, so I let the kids have a free reign science day. They really wanted to try mixing a concoction that included baking soda, various vinegars, soda, and water. I'm not sure what they learned, but they were happy and cleaned up after themselves (that was my only rule...) so it's all good here!
This is how I lunch during packing day (cheesecake, bread, vinegar, potato soup). Comfort foods all the way, and a Diet Pepsi to get me through the rest of the day.
