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.