A Long Vacation

It has been a long while since my last post. We have all been extremely busy. The kids and I left Nashville on Friday, May 29th to make the drive to Kansas City. My best friend, Sara, from high school was getting married, so we stayed at my parents house for about 10 days so I could attend all of the wedding festivities. It was a beautiful wedding and SOOO much fun, and I am grateful to my mom and to Mari for being so great by caring for my kids in my absence!!!

Me, Sara, and Amy at the Bachelorette Party at the bowling alley. The 3 of us cheered together during high school, so it was a mini-reunion for us!! (I still can't get over that it has been 10 years since we graduated!!!)

Sara's dress was gorgeous! It was full lace with periodic beading. And the green sash was a perfect touch, I thought.

The cake was amazing. Every layer was a different flavor.

...and the groom's cake. Apparently Jeff has a thing for John Deere and baseball.

We very nicely decorated their car during the brunch the following day after the wedding. I was so excited to revive my sign making abilities!! I even threw in a few paw prints just to remind Sara, "Go Huskies!"

We also got to visit with Tristan and Alicia's older sister, Dominic, and her baby girl, Haylee. Haylee is about 6 months old and SOO cute. The kids really enjoyed getting to spend the day with Dominic. We only get to see her once or twice a year, so it's always a special treat.

(Alicia and Addi really enjoyed pushing cousin Kate in the swing.)

Tristan left Kansas City a little earlier than me and the girls. Daniel's brother, Jared, was in town for an appointment, so he came to pick up Tristan to take him to the Lake. Tristan then made the trek up to Chicago with Daniel's family for the annual "Old Church Meeting." Since I had wedding festivities until after 3pm on Saturday, I certainly didn't feel up to jumping in a car and driving up to Chicago for less than 24 hours. Besides, I was exhausted from having so much FUN!

Originally, Daniel was going to meet me in KC to attend the wedding with me and then he was scheduled to have vacation for a week so we could spend time together at the Lake afterwards, but he ended up having to go to Seattle for a conference. He is one of three Chief residents this year, so he and one of the other chief's had to go to the conference for some training. He also needed to go to accept an award from the Society for Education in Anesthesia. They are sponsoring him to go to Tanzania for 4 weeks to help train nurses in safe surgical practices. All I know is that I'm going to be out of a husband for 5 weeks because he decided to tack on  a week on the way home to stop in Kenya to visit the international anesthesia program that Vanderbilt sponsors. He leaves August 15th and doesn't get home until September 19th. I'm grateful he gets this amazing opportunity, but I can only get so excited about it! Can you blame me????

On Monday, June 9th, the girls and I drove down to the lake to meet up with Tristan and to spend the week at the annual "Camp Nagrenol." This is always a very fun event every summer for all the cousins and 2nd cousins to get together at Grandma and Grandpa's for a week full of fun and exciting events. We spend most of our time on the lake or in the pool with a few field trips scattered in between.  This year it rained a lot, so thankfully Brenda and Cindy had the insight to order a bunch of crafts from Oriental Trading Company. My sister and her 2 kids were once again able to join us, but sadly it may be their last year since next summer they will be moving. Every year, her and I get a dinner assignment. This year we decided to make pizzas. I think I totally under estimated what we were in for! Feeding almost 30 people can be slightly overwhelming, but I think we pulled it off beautifully!!

Somehow I got suckered into stirring the root beer one night.

So then I got Lily to take a turn.

Tamblyn, Morgan, and Alicia decorating their bug jars.

Addi and Betsy working on her bug jar.

Addi coloring a pillowcase.

Alicia, Austin, and Tristan working on their pillowcases. Tristan decided to flip his over and make his own design.

"Snakes Alive!!"

Max and Tristan painting their sailboats.

Adelaide deep in thought while painting her sailboat.

Cari amongst our pizza dough and crusts.

Alicia and 2nd cousin, Izzy, swimming for the clue on the annual Pirate's Treasure Hunt. The clue is tied to the bottom of the tree right off the shore.

Swimming back to the boat. Just a little side note: Alicia and Izzy share the exact same birthday, so they are naturally pretty good little friends.

Out of all the girls, Alicia and Izzy were the bravest ones to  jump into the cool water and swim for the clues. Finally, I managed to get Morgan and Addi to swim with me on another clue, but I didn't get any pictures of that one!

Addi enjoying a S'more at closing campfire.

Alicia enjoying the bubble wand she got from the pirate's treasure chest.

Daniel finally joined us at the lake early on Saturday, June 13th. He worked all day on the 12th, then started driving at about 9:30 that night which put him getting to the lake at 5am on Saturday. We were excited to see him again!!! Unfortunately, he had to spend quite a bit of his time working on a video for the graduating residents. It was quite humorous when he pulled out his Mac desktop to get to work. It's hard to explain, but typically you are used to one pulling out a small laptop when they travel...Daniel pulls out a 24" screen. It's so convenient to have a Mac since the tower is built into the screen...fewer wires, etc and just one chord to plug it in to turn it on! 

On one of the days while Daniel was there, we took the kids to Minor Mike's (an arcade for kids), where they also have bumper cars. It took Addi a little bit to figure out how to drive it, but she LOVED it! And it was quite entertaining to see Tristan and Alicia try to fit their long legs into the tiny cars. Tristan and Daniel also enjoyed going golfing one evening, but mostly we just enjoyed going swimming together everyday for a few hours. We finally made the trip home on Wednesday, June 17th in 2 cars..... Oh, and the kids and I leave again this Friday for St. Louis where we will pick up my sister and her two kids to then drive the LONG drive up to Alberta, Canada for a family reunion celebrating my grandmother's 90th birthday. I'll be gone another 2 weeks, so it will be another silent blogging month for me!!! Perhaps longer if I decide I need to check into a mental institution when I return............