Eight Isn't Enough

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Monday, Funday

Monday we slept in a bit and then headed out to Liberty Park for some fun in the water. They have a bunch of little rivers and ponds to play in, modeled after the Jordan River and it's tributaries, Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake. The kids loved getting wet and cooling off. It was beautiful in the shade with a nice breeze.

Sam took a TON of pictures of the flowers there. It truly was beautiful landscaping, also a greenhouse. Sam got these cool ones of a dragon fly.

While taking photos, Sam stepped on a bee. He had never been stung by a bee before. Sara quickly got some mud to put on his foot to draw out the venom.

Ash and Josh having fun together

Richard having some lunch

Nate

Ashley

Kim holding her adorable little nephew.

Matthew chillin'

Drew

The water gun fight

The mom's hangin' out in the shade. Kim's sisters Amy and Carrie came and brought their kids.

Josh took this pic

After the park we packed up the kids and went to Temple Square for a couple of hours.

We let the kids split into groups and walk around at their own pace. Richard, Kim and I stayed with the little ones. Sam was off on his own to take pictures.

Lovely Natalie

Bethany and Laney

Susanna

The little guys, Bethany, Timothy, Laney, Susanna and Daniel posing with the incredible statue of Christ. The visitors centers there are full of beautiful art and displays portraying Christ, His life, followers and His church. It teaches what we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe and how we strive to live our lives.

Josh and Ashley just being silly.

Here are some of us on the pedestal used for picture taking.

Matthew and Drew were great buddies during this visit.

Timothy, Tim, Andrew, Sara and Nate

Matthew

Timothy

Bethany, all worn out.

Sam took gazillions of pictures of all the pretty flowers and the temple. Here are a few of the temple. I am sure he will post his favorites on Facebook.

It was a wonderful day. We were all pretty worn out when we got back to the house. We ate dinner and settled down for Family Home Evening with John. Poor guy, he had to work while we were out having fun. After FHE we watched Rob Gardner's The Price of Freedom. It is so amazing! You can't watch it and not have your American heart be stirred. Have some tissues handy. It was a great way to end the day.

Sunday Best

I like to get pictures of all the kiddos in their Sunday best before church. They all cleaned up very nicely. Amazingly things went pretty smoothly even though we had not had much sleep. Luckily, church didn't start until 1pm.

The Girls

Sara, Ashley, Natalie, Laney, Susanna and Bethany

We took pictures of the kids by age groups next.

Tim, Sara and Andrew

Drew, Natalie and Nate

Sam, Ashley and Josh

Matthew and Daniel

Timothy and Laney

(They were the babies when we met.)

Aww... lots of love going around.

Susanna and Bethany

All the kiddos together this year.

All of them from last year.

They have all grown up so much!

Maybe I am crazy, but this really doesn't look like that many kids to me. Maybe I am just used to it.

Kim and her cuties (Isn't she gorgeous!)

We were missing John because he was gone to early church meetings.

Church was great. Kim taught a beautiful patriotic lesson in Relief Society. She had me in tears several times. I have deep feelings of gratitude for all those who have given so much for our beautiful country.

We came home and had chicken noodle soup, (star shaped pasta to be patriotic) and relaxed the rest of the evening.

The Beginning of Our Salt Lake City Fun

The most looked forward to event of the year has been visiting our dear friends, Kim and John and their family. Our kids have talked about almost nothing else this summer. They are all the best of friends. They were so kind to let us stay 10 nights with them.

We arrived Friday evening and had delicious Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner. Yum! We got settled and visited until bed time.

Saturday the real fun began. Everyone gets along amazingly well. We had almost no arguing or injuries during our stay, which is incredible considering we have 15 kids between our two families, from 4 to 16 years old.

A bit of Star Wars

Some Julian Smith

There was an epic battle, the Nerf kind, all over the house. This went on for hours. The kids were hilarious.

I asked Ashley to show me her war face.

Andrew protecting Sara and Laney

That night we all went to the drive-in with Kim's sisters Jennifer and Tiffany and their families, to see a double feature, Brave and The Avengers. Richard popped at least 10 batches of popcorn for us to take along. The kids piled on top of the van and their Sequoia to watch the movies. It was a bit stressful and hard to see during Brave, but The Avengers went pretty smoothly as most of the kids fell asleep and a lot of the cars left because it was so late. We got back to the house around 2:30 am and had everyone in bed by 3:00 am.