We love having company!

The Huff family came to see us! We had a GREAT time having them here. It's fun having company because it gives you a reason to be a tourist in your own town :) We fit a lot of fun things in, as well as had some nice down time hanging out at home together.

Eating at the table together...

We went to our two favorite parks - this one is what we call the "Blue Park" (good name, right?) I believe Ava is having a sand issue in this picture! :) We also walked to the "Dream Park" on a super hot/humid day so the kids didn't have quite as much energy to play, but it was fun! Here is Wesley's red, sweaty face:

 
The kids playing at home:

 

Here's the girls eating some homemade ice cream. Yum!

Isaac really liked Brian, they started a secret handshake or something where they'd wave both of their hands up and down and say "da da da da" Pretty cute.

The kids playing in the family room.

When we got home from our outings Miles and Owen would make a bee-line to the cars and start playing again right where they left off (they didn't even bother to change out of their swimsuits this time!)

Playing in the backyard. Ava really liked Scooter and liked running with him and holding his leash.

The kids (minus the babies) all slept in the girls room and were up pretty late every night - but had a wonderful time!
Of course we had to go to Ella's Deli and order a giant sundae and ride the carousel!

Yummy!

That's a big spoon!

On the Carousel

This was an attempt at a family picture in front of Ella's Deli,  obviously no one else was too interested!
We went hiking at Devils Lake and then for a swim afterwards. It was SO humid this day we were so sweaty and gross the lake felt great - even though it was warm water - which was weird. I'm still wondering why it was so warm??

Crazy face Nora (look at Owen looking at her!)
 

Isaac fell asleep on the way down! Not pictured is the huge sweat mark on Matt from where Isaac was being carried. It was impressive!

There were lots of overlooks and fun rocks.

Here's the kids on elephant rock.

 

On our way to Devils Lake we take a ferry across a lake to get there. It is free and runs all the time.

 

I think the biggest drama we had from the kids was deciding who was riding where. It got pretty funny at times with us trying to keep everyone happy and moving car seats here and there.

 Emily and I took the kids to the Madison Children's Museum, which was pretty fun. Owen got lost once and that was a bit scary, but Emily found him pretty quickly.

We did some other fun things; Emily and I went to the American Girl Doll Sale and Matt and Brian went to a house concert at a place called, "Kiki's House of Righteous Music" featuring Matt the Electrician. They had low expectations but ended up having a great time!
We also went to our amazing free zoo in Madison:
 
 
We drove to Lake Ripley, which is about 20 minutes away, and had a great time playing in the lake and on the playground there.
 

We stayed up to watch the fireflies come out and the kids all caught one in a jar. It was fun to see Owen and Ava see them for the first time. They are so magical (I mean the fireflies, not Owen and Ava.... although they are magical too!) Unfortunately we didn't have too many out when they were here, I think because of the heat wave we had the week before. A few weeks before the visit I walked across the lawn and counted 30 fireflies. But it was still fun and I'm glad there were a few still out!

 

Excited kiddos!

We went to church twice and it was fun for the Huff's to come and meet some of the members of our ward and experience our.... unique and fun ward :)
We went to the Farmer's Market on the Capitol Square right downtown Madison. It was a lot of fun and then we took a little self tour of the Capitol. We went as far up as we could go and walked around outside the dome. The best part was when we were in the Capitol walking around Emily turns to me and says, "So is Madison the capitol of Wisconsin?" Haha! Why, yes it is! Awesome.

The kids had a blast doing this on the Capitol until some security guard told them to stop. Lame. I was just about to hop up there myself before he got there!

Nora and Ava planned a little program with skits, songs and dancing from all. Oh, and cupcakes for treats. It was fun stuff:

 The Huff's also went up to campus to check it out and sample the ice cream there. (We think MSU's was better!)

Now just some random pictures: 

painting nails...

One of my kids' favorite pasttimes..... sitting on the deck rail. I know someone is going to break something one of these days.

Sophie loved holding Isaac... well, who doesn't?

Owen Road is pretty close to our house so we get to think about Owen every time we drive on it!

The kids playing in the pool.... I believe this is Sophie pretending to sing in the shower.

Two cuties with their Care Bears and matching hair-do's.

 Aaaaaaahhhhh...... movie time! Peace and quiet for about 10 minutes.

Wow!! Writing down all we did makes me wonder how the heck we fit it all in - and with 7 kids! But I don't feel like we were rushing around all the time or anything, so I think it was the perfect mix. Thanks for coming Huff's! We look forward to next time!

Colorado!

A few weeks after my mom went home we packed up and drove to her house for a family reunion with my brother and sister and their families. It had been over 5 years since all of us were together! Way too long. It's a 16 hour drive and the kids (and the dog) all did really well traveling. Wesley watched a lot of Wiggles DVD's and the girls were begging us to turn off the dvd player, but Wesley wanted to watch and he has a very persuasive scream. :)

The cousins all had a great time together playing in the treehouse, swimming in the pool, doing crafts, playing with toys and making funny videos in photobooth on the computer. My sweet Grandma Johnson even flew out to be with us for a few days! The girls went to the American Girl doll store and the boys went to the Lego store. The moms took the kids to see Brave (I left Wesley napping while Brian worked, he was teaching an on-line class so was a bit busy). Both Nora and Miles didn't really like Brave, it was too scary, but Sophie and I loved it!

There was a big waterfight - instigated by my brother Aaron I'm sure, the girls played for hours with all their dolls, the kids watched movies every night until the fell asleep at 11:00, we had a fun 4th of July - even though we couldn't have a campfire or fireworks, and we had a family "Variety Show" where we had songs, skits, dances and lots of fun! Miles was especially funny that night and insisted on wearing a "costume" so Naunie found him a cowboy hat and huge cowboy boots and he gave us a great dance to grandpa singing 'Lime and the Coconut".

We had a great time being with my family, even though it was a bit wild with all of us in one house. Wesley was quite a terror while we were there and the cousins resorted to calling him "King Wesley - the Supreme Ruler" and asking his permission for everything they did. He was especially a stinker to Ruby, who is only 2 months older, and would hit or push her if she was within reaching distance. This part was not so fun for Brian and I because that meant we had to watch his every move. Stinker!

We rented a trailer to pull home because my mom had a bunch of stuff to give us (a bed frame and headboard/footboard, a lawn mower, some bikes and other stuff) Oh, and we brought home a kitchen hutch I bought at Goodwill while we were there. She also sent home some huge containers of colored chocolate disks for dipping. The green container tipped over in the back of the trailer and we had green chocolate oozing out the back of the trailer on the way home. Luckily it didn't get on anything that couldn't be washed off. It was pretty funny to be scraping melted green chocolate off the bottom of the trailer before we returned it! :)


We had a great time and were so thankful for the generosity of my mom and John for having us there and making it possible for us all to get together. I'm sure they are still recovering from it all! :)

I downloaded all the pictures from our trip to my mom's computer, thinking I could burn a cd of them before we left. But her computer was being funny and slow so I didn't get them burned. Once I get them I'll add them on to this post.