Trip to Washington - Reunion Fun!

Sunday, June 19 - Wednesday, June 22

MJ with one of her cousins - he loves babies!
DH has a brother who is currently living overseas with his family. Towards the beginning of the year they announced to all of us that they were going to be coming to the states to visit for about a month in June and they wanted to see all of us if possible. We were able to finally work around everyone's schedule and come up with some dates when we could have a family reunion up in Washington. DH's parents were able to find a really nice vacation rental home in a little town called Mossyrock, WA - about an hour or so from their house. The layout of the place was awesome and great for large family gatherings. It was in a very secluded area so we had plenty of privacy - and no cell phone service! The house had a large kitchen with 2 large tables, a large living room/gathering area with a lookout from the second floor, a large den/playroom area with lots of toys, games and movies for everyone, a huge master bedroom suite, 3 additional bedrooms - 2 with a set of bunk beds and a twin bed + trundle and the third with a queen size bed, and two full size bathrooms (not including the huge bathroom in the master suite). I think the only thing we would have done differently in the design of the place was to add one or two half baths. There was a basketball hoop out front and a fire pit off to the side of the place.

Unfortunately we didn't take a lot of pictures of the downtime that the kids had. And we missed a few of the main activities, i.e. Family Home Evening and the Talent Show. We have some video of some of it, but no pictures. The kids absolutely had a blast and really enjoyed being with their cousins. Each of the married siblings got a bedroom for their family to stay in, but most of the older kids slept each night in the den with all of their cousins.

Nature Walk/Bug Hunt for the kids organized by Aunt V - she also made these cute bags and bought cute bug kits for each of the kids:


Macarena Dance (see, they do learn things at school):


Adult "hike" (really more of a stroll) at Riffe Lake:
MJ loved having free access to my hair...

Campfire with S'mores!!:
Unfortunately it was quite wet where we were staying and so our last night there we were finally able to have a campfire - although the logs were pretty smokey and the ground was pretty wet & muddy.

Target Practice/Unbirthday party activities: