Thursday, June 25, 2009

What a trip!

Well we survived our stay in Royal City, WA. In fact we had a BLAST!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE going home. I know it is not technically my home any longer, but because I grew up there it will always be home to me. There are so many things I love about going home, but for sure the best thing is seeing family. My kids have soo much fun with their cousins, and every time we go they beg us to move there! I have the greatest family in the world! We have so much fun together! In 5 days here is a list of things we did: (remember this was only Monday -Friday! And with 11 children in tow!)

*Swimming at the pond (complete with rope swing, zip line, paddle boats and canoe
*Swimming at another pond with a HUGE concrete slide the kids LOVED!
*Swimming at Christensen's baby pools
*Swimming at a different Christensen's big pool
*Swimming lessons at neighbors pool (man we did a LOT of swimming!)
*A day at the lake (although boating didn't work out so well..mechanical trouble!)
*visited Great Grandma A in her new assisted living apt. twice. Ate lunch there too!
*Boys went paint balling
*Girls got pedicures and went to dinner
*kids played at the school gym several times (one of their FAVORITE activities)
*worked 3 mornings weeding and picking up branches at the cherry orchard
*hours and hours, miles and miles of riding 4 wheeler and golf cart illegally around town! (no calls to the cop this time, luckily!)
*hours and hours and more hours of jumping on the tramp
*toured a mint plant where they take mint from the mint fields and turn it into mint oil that goes in gum, toothpaste...etc. This was cool!
(I know I am missing soo much...but these were just SOME of what we did)


WHEW!! No wonder we are EXHAUSTED! So exhausted that on the way home Brian and I were struggling to stay awake (that NEVER happens to Brian!)so we stopped and stayed the night in Boise. It was such a fun trip though, and we discovered that if we "schedule"out every day we went crazy...oh what I meant to say was we stayed very busy and got to do everything we wanted to do in our time there. Thanks sooo much to Mom, Becky, and Courtney (and their families)for dropping everything for the whole week and keeping us constantly entertained! We honestly had the BEST week! I took hundreds of pictures...so here is just a fraction of the ones that show all our adventures! WARNING: A LOT of photos coming up!

Tyson on the rope swing....thanks Matt for talking him into this!!


Visiting Grandma Great


Two monkeys in a canoe


Three monkeys in a canoe


Sydney flying high!


Kylie looking a little nervous!


How many monkeys can you fit on one golf cart?


Grandpa and Aftyn with their kind of fun at the pond!



Grandma making cookies with the kids (she's so great!)


Dad's gotta have fun too!



It's a speeding bullet! Seriously you went soo fast on this slide! It was great!


ahhh summer BBQ's at the Lake!


Uncle Matt is such a show off!


The "big" kids went to lunch all by themselves! They are growing up!


hot tub in Boise on the way home


My crazy, crazy kids! (pool in Boise)


I wish I had pictures of the kids working in the orchard, although you could not really get the full effect unless you could hear the whining that constantly accompanied the kids. The grand kids love working on the farm about as much as us girls did growing up. Ha! Guess they are taking after their parents. They ended up working fairly hard and getting everything done Grandpa had scheduled for them. My kids of course have already spent their money! Thanks Dad, for helping me teach my kids to work. I might plant a small orchard to keep them going! Plus the cherries are SOOO YUMMY!

A great big bonus of the trip was that Dad let us take the ski boat back to Utah with us for the summer. They don't use it much anymore and we live soo close to the Lake, that we will use it a TON. We have already gone out twice. Both times we had technical problems, but my amazing hubby has got the boat working and the kids are loving it! I'm sure there will be lots of boating pictures coming up! I just wish all the cousins were here to enjoy it with us! Those Andersen's really do know how to have a good time!

7 comments:

Louise said...

So glad you came, it was a blast for us too. The kids are getting easier to "haul around". You know, no bottles, naps to interfere with "the schedule", or wet diapers to worry about! Hope you've worked out the bugs in the boat. I guess not using it for 2 yrs wasn't a good thing, hu?

Granny DeeAnn said...

Hey Holly..... do you think you could paln my trip in July? Sounds like you had a ball. Kids always remember the crazy, fun-filled days of summer. I can't wait to get "home" either! Love ya.... AD

Heather said...

Wish we could've gone with you guys. Too many trips planned already :( Thanks for letting us "hang out" on the boat today. I'll e-mail you all the cute pics I took. Great times!

Becky Noftle said...

Looking back we really did run those Monkey's ragged didn't we! Not to mention us.....I need another pedicure come back.

Heidi said...

What a blast! I always call my parent's house "my home" too. :) You guys did a lot of swimming! That rope swing and slide look amazingly fun. I love fun times with the family. Your kids are lucky to have so many cousins their age.

Brooke said...

Ahhh so much fun! Your family really is the BEST! Gotta love your cute Mom! Glad you all had fun. I sure wish I got the stinkin invite... xoxo

melanie said...

My kids were talking about that big slide that went fast into the 'green' water a couple days ago. It was great to see you as always. Love you!