Extended Family

I absolutely love living around many extended family members. There's really no need for any close friends (unlike when we lived in Arizona) because we always have family to do fun things with. We love it when we have visitors for the weekend. The Bundy's are frequent guests, and we always have a lot of fun when they come for a visit. It's an added bonus that they and the Hatch's enjoy each other so much, because then we get to see even more of Kylee and Brody! Emma is like the little sister all the kids always wished for, but never got. . .

Emma sure knows her way around our house, has stuffed animal "friends" she loves to play with, and always has at least one of the kids to play with.

We always have serious card games going late into the night. This night these four thought they would be really funny and put a huge amount of salt into my glass of ice water when I left the room for a minute. Haha. That got a good laugh from them all at my expense.

These next several photos are just random pictures of different family members taken over the past few years. I think we are so blessed to have so much family within a 2 hour drive. I have all 4 sisters and 1 brother, and Mom and David (for half the year), as well as 6 nieces and 8 nephews (most with families and children of their own). I also enjoy seeing my 6 aunts and uncles and many cousins (who also live within a 2 hour drive) on occasion. Mike has his parents, both sisters and brother and their families all within an 80 minute drive.

Sister Ann, sis-in-law Nancy, bro-in-law Dave, and brother Gary.

Niece Sara, Ky, sister Carol, and niece Lindsey.

Mike's sister Teresa, sis-in-law Jessica, and mother-in-law Freda.

My niece Jamie's husband Ryan, niece Sara and husband Cody. And several great-nephews and nieces.

Sisters Carol and Ann, my niece Stacey's husband Todd, two of Carols kids, one of Jamies, one of Sara's and Brody.

My niece Stacey, her two girls, the Bundy's (nice pose Lindsey) and my niece Jamie's boy Josh

The Handy Bunches as we like to call the Hatch's and Bundy's.

Mom, and three of my sisters. Where's Von?

Teresa's kids, and our kids.

Derek, Jaxon, Ky, Jake (and someone man-handling him- Tommy maybe?) Jess and Stacie.

Jessica, Tom, Derek, Teresa, and Cam and Jake.

Ann, Von, Lindsey, Ky, Sydney, Tina, and Janet.

That's not everyone, of course, but enough to show that I do have wonderful memories of these family members. I wish we could see more of Paul and DeNae, Magen and family, Haley, Stacey, Jordan and Claire and their families. And actually most of the Smith's even though they live within the 2 hour distance! This post is dedicated to all of mine and Mike's family. I love you all!

Great Weekend #5

It's very hard to do a post after the cruise one. But, after three weeks, I guess it's time to move on :( But, speaking of the cruise, I spent much of this past Presidents weekend working on a scrapbook of the cruise. It will end up being 20 pages, and I only have 5 more to do, but I ran out of paper yesterday, and since I was incapicatated most of the day with a terrible kinked neck I didn't get out for more yet. I am home again today (when I'm forced to take a day off from exercising, you know something's wrong) with it still bothering me quite a bit, so I won't get out for more paper until hopefully tomorrow. It's been a lot of fun doing the scrapbook. Friday night was a highlight for Mike. One of his missionary friends who recently moved to Kaysville put together a mini-mission reunion for him, Mike, and two other missionaries (only one could make it) their wives and their mission president and his wife who now live in Farmington. All these four missionaries were assistants to the president, and all are from Cache Valley. We haven't seen any of them (except for one family about 11 years ago) since we were first married, and Mike hadn't seen his mission pres. since a reunion shortly after he returned from his mission in '84. Needless to say, Mike was very excited to see and talk to all these men. And the evening didn't disappoint. They spent three hours reminiscing about the good ole mission days (why were the wives invited? haha- actually their stories were quite interesting). Mike's mission president had a huge impact on him as a missionary, and Mike has often said that President Grant is one of the most influential men in his life. So I really loved being able to meet him and his wife because I've heard so much about them. Incidentally, President Grant was a teacher and athletic director at Ricks when I attended there, so we were able to talk about some teachers I had remembered well and that he knew well also. It was a fun night. We came home to visit with Dustin and Daelynn who were staying the night with us on a little weekend get-away to celebrate Dustin's 30th birthday. It was fun to see them for a bit and catch up on what's happening in their lives. I made what was supposed to be a yummy, fun Valentines day breakfast the next morning, but it turned out to be a disaster as I forgot to add the salt, baking powder, and soda to the pink pancakes. YUCK! And embarrassing! Luckily I figured it out before they left (but not before they choked them down) so I could sort of redeem myself from being a terrible cook. Jake and Cam went skiing/snowboarding for the day, so Mike and I did home projects and cleaning for the entire morning, then we went out for lunch at LaNonnes, an Italian restaurant we've been wanting to try. I had a delicious chicken pasta dish, but sadly, Mike's choice of potato dumplings was a big disappointment. He'll know better next time not to branch out with something he's never heard of. It worked well on the cruise- the only difference there being if you didn't like something, you could just order something different. Oh well, live and learn. That night we ordered our traditional heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphys and spent the evening at home with the kids.

Sunday we had some of Mike's family over for a birthday dinner for Freda and Derek (Teresa's boy who turned 15 the next day). We had a fun evening eating, visiting, and trying to do some tricks that Rick taught us.

This is me and Teresa trying to pick up the paper bag with our teeth standing on one leg. Not so easy for tall people, but little Madelyn did great!

This is Jake balancing a penny on the hook of a wire hanger and trying to make it stay on while twirling it around- stopping it and twirling it around in the other direction. Again, not so easy, but fun to try.

Me with Mike's two sisters and my great friends- Teresa and Stacie.

It was a fun evening. It was nice to have Monday off and the day started out well enough with the kink in my neck for me to go to spinning, but then during pilates, it started bothering me enough that I had to leave early, and spend most of the rest of the day trying not to move. Luckily something like this didn't happen on a day (or days) when I needed to be active- like on the cruise!