Summer Trip Part 2: Yellowstone

After spending some time at Mt. Rushmore we took off for Yellowstone! It was another long day of driving and we almost quit and stayed somewhere else because Sullivan was so sad, but he finally calmed down when I sat next to him and stroked his face and sang Primary songs to him. I think I sang for over an hour! But we made it to Yellowstone that night and camped right in the Park. It was so busy, but we had a great spot and it was much warmer this night. The next day we met the Seedall family! It was so fun to see them again! Later that day Emily Huff and her kids also met up with us. We drove around and saw some fun sights and then camped about 20 minutes outside of Yellowstone in Montana.

We had  to get a picture of Brian holding Miles and Eliza because he spent a lot of time holding them both when they were babies. 

I wish we could do this every month!

Huff visit part 2

Some more fun times with the Huff family....

We stopped at a fun children's garden on our way to visit Lake Michigan. It was small and lovely and adorable, with each spot based on a children's book.

Here we are at Kohler-Andrae State park. We were supposed to camp here for two nights but the weather reports were 80% chances of severe thunderstorm so we opted for a day trip instead.

The kids were loving playing in the sand dunes and didn't care about all the sand all over their faces.

Emily and I try to get a picture together when she's here and they never turn out great, this time being no exception. Ha! Oh, well.

Of course we had to go to Ella's Deli for some ice cream and a carousel ride!

We visited the Madison Library that is right downtown. It was pretty nice, but I won't be taking the kids there on my own. I prefer my small library that is 3 blocks away :)

Here we are hanging out in the basement during a tornado warning. A tornado came through a town about 15 minutes away and did some pretty good damage the night we got home from being at the lake all day. The sirens went off and we got messages on our phones at 1 in the morning saying to seek shelter..... and not one person in the whole house heard it! The next morning I saw on facebook that many of our friends who live nearby spent the night in their basements and that the sirens were so loud. I couldn't believe I didn't wake up for it! Because we were all fine I was grateful no one woke up for it though, it would have been quite a party downstairs with all of us in the middle of the night!

Brian always has something funny to watch on the computer!

We were able to fit all 8 kids in our two cars so this was usually the group Brian and I had in the van, with Sophie, Isaac and Lily in the CR-V. Brian and Matt were actually rear-ended up on campus in the CR-V and the back door of it needs replaced now. Luckily it didn't affect how it drove!

Brian and Emily were doing the dishes and Brian was trying to act like he was a kid again and throwing a fit about doing the dishes :)

Feeding all these kids is a lot of work!

The boys played so cute together. Miles and Wesley still say how the wish Owen could come back!

I am sure I'm missing some things that we did (catching fireflies, for one), but this will have to do for now! We loved having the Huff family come and see us. It's so fun to spend so much time together and let the cousins really get to know each other. We can't wait until they come again.

Huff visit part 1

The Huff family came to visit us for 10 days and we were so excited to have them come! Brian picked them up from the airport and the rest of us were anxiously waiting in the front yard.

We crammed a lot of fun in while they were here. Here is some of it!

 Lots of hanging out in the backyard. Sophie and Owen built the fire so they were quite proud (even if Brian added gas to make it start...)

 Lily checking out my big belly

 Isaac turned 4 while they were here. We spent the day at the zoo and then had a bbq in the backyard with a yummy ice cream cake Emily made.

 Lily found the marshmallows

 The happy Birthday boy!

 It was so fun having all these cute cousins around to play together! I think the entire time they were here the kids only had one very small problem over a video game with the boys - that's pretty good for having 8 kids in one house for so long!

 Sophie adored Isaac and loved playing with him and carrying him everywhere. He loved it too and probably got carried around more than usual with Sophie around to do it whenever he liked.

 Here we are at our awesome free zoo on Isaac's birthday:

Brian and I managed to collect 12 free summer passes to the Wisconsin Dells for us all to use. A radio station here gives them out every year and we went to all 3 of their events so we could get the passes. We used them and went up to the Wisconsin Dells and went on a River boat tour and to a water park. It was a fun day! 

It's fun to have kids around who are old enough to sit and play games!

We went up to UW and had some of their yummy ice cream.

 These two had a great time together.

 After ice cream we went on a walk to Picnic Point on campus. It's a long strip of land that goes out into Lake Mendota. The kids were having fun playing in the water until Nora saw a sign that said not to play in the water because of blue green algae. Oops. Luckily, no one got sick.

 Cute Emily and Lily.

 Miles, Owen and Wesley had a lot of fun together. Cousins are the best!