Family Reunion: Day 3

Monday, the third day, was lots of fun. There were still a few lingering relatives from Sunday, so we got to spend time with them a little bit and take some fun outings. There is a picture of Lucy jumping with her cousin, Amanda. Lucy loves her so much, she still tears up (in the true, forced, dramatic Johnson style) when she talks about her. Elliott loved the swingset, and I was able to snap a few pictures of him twisting in the swing.











I was soooo excited to find out that Laura Ingalls was born near Plainview, and my father-in-law, Larry, was good enough to agree to take me to see her home town! On our way to Pepin, Wisconsin, we stopped by the neatest toy shop EVER! It has a great carousel, which you will see pictures of, homemade toys, every other kind of toy you can think of (I got Heather Jareth and Hoggle figurines from the movie Labyrinth!), and ice cream, which you will also see pictures of in the form of the chocolate pencil mustache Elliott is sporting. I love his expression in that picture too. He was so excited that his famous mustache was now visible to the rest of the world. Gotta love Rowan, Lucy and Elliott in the cut-out! There is also a picture of Lucy in the Laura cut-out.















These last two need a little background information. The first is me standing in front of a giant buffalo. On my parents'mission to North Dakota, they took hundreds of pictures of the strange oversized statues around the state. I had to let them know North Dakota isn't the only state with Big, Weird animal statues.

The next is Elliot stretching in the hotel. I think he sees his mom doing this enough to relieve her back pain, that he just caught on. Every once in a while he will just stop and stretch...funny kid.

Family Reunion: Day 2

Day two was a Sunday. We woke up and started to get ready for family pictures when my lovely husband who I love so much told me the picture was supposed to be dressy...shoot. I hadn't packed any "dressy". After an emergency trip to Rochester's mall, we were off to Plainview for the day. This was the day when ALL the family was coming for dinner at the Catholic church, and pictures. It was soooo amazing to meet the family. We were only there a few days, but we really learned to love them, and we certainly felt love from them...it was an amazing time.

Elliot was very excited that his Great Uncle Jim is a postal carrier...in fact,he is playing postal carrier in our hallway upstairs right now.
Lucy LOVED her second cousin Amanda. She spent every second with her. Amanda is 14 and soooo sweet. She never tired of her little korean shadow.

I get too frustrated trying to line up my comments with the appropriate picture, so I am just going to sum them all up right here! First is my favorite little family...MINE! Aren't we cute?!

Then we have the whole gang: Grandma Joan, 9 of her 10 kids, their spouses, their kids, and their grandkids.

You couldn't find a prouder grandma in all the world! Here is Harmony with her granddaughters Lucy and Merric.

Thanks for checking in...day 3 tomorrow!
The kids passed the time playing in an adjoining school yard, here they are burying Elliott and Rowan's shoes in the baseball field dirt...fun times.

Grandma Joan and her great-granddaughters--very special.

Then we have Lucy...I just think she's so cute, I had to put this picture in. I love that she is only 6, and she already has her photo face down. It has to be because Harmony and Had Abogi had a camera in her face constantly for the first 14 months of her life. She was born ready to pose!

Family Reunion Day One

And we're off! We spent the last nine days in Minnesota (Plainview) at a family reunion for Mikey's dad's side of the family. They have 10 kids in that family too, so there was loads of people, loads of love, and loads of fun! Every moment was so dear to our little family, and we wanted to remember as much as we can, so every day, i am going to blog about another day of the trip. If I keep it up and don't slack, I should have the whole trip blogged in nine days! So, keep stopping by...you don't want to miss this!



These are some pics from the airport. Elliott doesn't remember ever riding in a plane, so it was pretty fun. He was too short to look out the window though; he was quite disappointed!




We had a nice rental car, the kids loved it because they got their own cup holders.The driving on this trip was especially fun because we just taught the kids about "slug bugs" right before leaving on this trip. So, we had a lot of fun in the car seeing plenty of slug bugs. We were in the car a lot. We also tried to keep the kids awake for our 40 minute drive home at 10:00pm every night. We made up a plethora of new verses to the Johnson classic "Oh I wish I were a ______". Some were actually pretty good: monster truck, big bright moon, dump truck, mailbox, stop sign, 4-wheeler. It was fun because it was a fun way to review what we did that day through song.




The kids had such fun at the Dessner's house! They loved their swingset and trampoline. We have a tramp at home, but it just isn't as fun without cousins to share it with I guess.






Aunt Angie's house was on several acres right next to a--get this--SOYBEAN FIELD! I loved that I could show the kids where edemame grows! It was beautiful and much happier than the soy beans I tried to grow last year.











Great-Grandma Joan was such a trooper! She didn't want to miss any action. I had to take a picture of her all bundled up and enjoying the family.






Elliott is a sugar-MONSTER! Starting this first day, he consumed sugar non-stop...he loved it. I took this picture of him eating a twizzler because I remembered that we had a similar picture from a camping trip a long time ago. Here is the picture. He's a little tidier eater now!











This is the kids catching fireflies with their Dad. I was soooo excited about those fireflies! I had never seen them before, and they were everywhere! They are suprisingly slow, so they were very easy to catch. Lucy doesn't much like bugs, so she threw her first catch after it crawled on her. Don't worry, she got much better.

One of Elliott's favorite things to do on this reunion was the CAMPFIRES!! This first night, he was especially excited. He waited patiently by the fire from the moment Uncle Darrel started gathering wood, until the moment it was ablaze, and then even longer until the logs had fallen and the coals were ready for roasting the marshmallows. He loves roasting the mallows, but he wasn't very fond of the messy smore, he doesn't much like messy food. Side note: these were the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen...as big as a fist! So fun.

summer fun

I love my new camera, so there will be many pictures with this post! We have swimming fun at Harmony Grandma's neighborhood pool, water slide fun in our backyard, motorcycle riding with Dad, and Elliott's graduation to Little Tiger's yellow belt!

Elliott begs every day for the chance to ride on Dad's motorcycle, he even let us know that he has been praying that he will get a ride. What can we say to that?!? So, he got a ride. Super cute in his helmet, I must say.

























I love these pool and slide pictures. I like Elliott's serene expression on the sea horse, his pure joy at spraying his sister with the slide, and I love the glistening water on Lucy's foot...fun times













Next is Elliot's tae kwon do proudest moment. I love to see his anticipation, then his pride in getting his belt, and finally, his showing respect to his classmates by bowing. He came out of the class and said his teacher told him he is doing great he just needs to work on 1. (holding up index finger) confidence, and 2. (holding up pinky finger) focus. Don't we all. Side note: I love how he counts on his fingers like that! He loves his pinky in any application. On the way home, i commented on how excited I was to fly on an airplane on Saturday for our trip to Minnesota. Lucy agreed, but Elliott quickly said, "I'm not excited about that, I am only excited about my new belt!" I'm so glad he has something to be excited about.

She Graduates part II

Here are some pics of the graduate and her proud parents. Lucy is the tallest in her class, so she was in the back row (sounds familiar to me) and she was the last one called for her diploma! She was alone up there for about 2 seconds, but I thought it was cute so I took some pics. And, the Wilson's have a great tradition of giving roses to their graduates, so we picked up the tradition too. Thanks Heather and Kimo.















Here are some pics of Lucy in Tae kwon do. She is the loudest "Hi-YAh" girl in her class, and she always looks angry when she does it. I'm glad I got a picture. The first is the actual yell--very loud--and the next is her angry face she has when she's done. Super cute.

She Graduates!

I got a new camera from our rewards points, so I am having way too much fun taking pictures. Here are some shots from tae kwon do class yesterday, and Lucy's graduation today!
It looks like I'm gonna have to do this in installments because I don't know how to adequately shrink my new pics! YIKES!




Elliott is waiting for graduation to start; he did his own hair and everything...So FANCY! And, this is Harmony and Lucy. Harmony wanted a picture wearing Lucy's hat because she has never gotten to wear a graduation cap before; I think there will be many in her future with all these grandkids around.