Brown Family Reunion Part 1

In July we headed to St. John's, AZ for John's family reunion at their family homestead. It was a 16 hour drive. Luckily, we were able to break it up by stopping at my sister Katie's house in El Paso. Here are the kids ready to go. EZ's fake smile sums up how I felt pretty well.

Our poor car got absolutely covered in bugs. It looked like beautiful stars, but unfortunately it was disgusting bug guts.

On the way we stopped at a gas station and saw this humongous spider. The picture doesn't do it justice. I made John do like 3 laps around the parking lot trying to get a better picture. If I was brave enough I would have gotten out of car, but I didn't want to get attacked by the mosquitoes or the spider.  

Since we have a baby we got to sleep in a cabin instead of a tent, which was a huge score for me. This was the last picture of all the kids laughing on the top bunk before King and Netta almost killed themselves falling off.

You can't really see it, but I the background there is a wooden fort that EZ was obsessed with and spent much of the week working on.

John's family was in charge of the reunion and they had this fun check list of things to do. One of them was to find a horny toad. EZ was so excited when his cousin found one.

The only downside to camping is that Conrad is still just crawling and it was hard to find non-dangerous/dirty places to put him down.

The summer at the homestead has some crazy weather. It was warm and sunny the whole time exact for about 2 hours everyday starting around lunch time. Then it would pour.

No story behind this pic, except that it is adorable.

They don't mess around at these reunions and everyday is filled with cool activities. They even have a family 5K. It might not be quite a true 5K, but they take it very seriously with numbers and different category winners. Here is King showing off his speed.

Netta got really angry with me for letting her run in those shoes, because they kept falling off. In my defense John was in charge of the race and I was in charge of Conrad, so I wasn't really paying attention to Netta's shoes. There were some tears shed, but of course she put on her best face for the camera.

EZ's age group taking off was hilarious. They almost took out some adults who got in the way. 

One day was dedicated to cowboy life and there were some awesome activities. They had a real cattle brand set up so the kids could brand a piece of wood. The adults actually did the branding of course. 

The girls all used rag rollers to curl their hair and the kids played marbles. 

Someone came up with this bucking bronco and it was the coolest thing ever. Like I said, they don't mess around. 

We also learned to shot marbles. Not sure doing this with Conrad in the carrier is the best idea.

And finally, what is more fun then using a washboard. Who knew Netta would want to spend so much time doing laundry. 

The Round Rock Express

John's work rented out part of the Dell Diamond for a big party, which meant we got to watch a baseball game, but we also had unlimited access to the special activities area and the swimming pool. It was kind of the coolest thing ever. The kids loved getting to jump on the trampolines with the bungee cords.

 

 

EZ got really into it and loved doing flips. I tried my hand at some flips and then my body hurt for days.

 

Netta got some super high bounces thanks to this guy.

 

They also had a sweet climbing wall that all the kids tried out.

 

 

Poor Conrad just got to spend the whole time in the stroller.

 

We did get to go swimming as well, but I don't have any pics of that. While we were swimming John kept doing his trick with Conrad, where he holds Conrad by his feet with one hand and Conrad stands up all stiff-legged and John can hold him up in the air. He could hold him up really high since we were in the pool and they actually put him up on the jumbotron. The day was already awesome and that was just the icing on the cake.

4th of July

John got really into the phrase 'merica this year and got himself this lovely hat for the 4th of July. Then his work had a white trash day and he got this lovely mullet wig.

 

When EZ saw this picture of himself he insisted I delete it, but of course I didn't.

 

We are kind of obsessed with minions so we took the kids to Despicable Me 2 that day and it did not disappoint. Then we sent some good old fashion family time playing with John's old xbox that was modded to play all the old Nintendo games. Dr. Mario is in the house!

 

Then Sarah, Casey and Lincoln came over to help us enjoy our new grill. It's about frickin time we got one. We can't light any sparklers here, but we did have tons of those champaign looking poppers and those snap things. It was really hard to get an action shot of the kids, but I did my darndest.

 

We are really concerned about safety at our house.

Lincoln is a little lush and spent all his time trying to drink out of these suckers. Don't worry, we only let him do it with the popped ones. We will let our own kids hurt themselves, but not other people's ;)

Pittsburgh Part 3

No Pittsburgh visit would be complete with out a trip to Kennywood. Luckily, my dad was able to take a day off of work and my mom and Katie were willing to watch Conrad, so we could take the big kids for a full day of fun. EZ is tall enough to basically ride everything at the park and is already too tall for a bunch of the rides in Kiddieland. He already informed me that next year we are going to have to divide up so he can ride all of the big rides. I almost died when he asked to ride the Steel Phantom, which is a huge roller coaster. But, he did it and he loved it. This is such a far cry from how EZ used to act at the park.

Luckily, EZ was still able to ride the Whip in Kiddieland. You should click on the pictures to really see their expressions. So classic. 

 The Turtle is another favorite. I love this action shot. King was having a little too much fun. 

My grandpa and Uncle Tom and Aunt Nancy came down again from NY. I am so glad they are willing to make the trip every time I come to visit. Too bad it is so hard to get a good group shot with them. 

We spent a lot of time with them outside enjoying my parents' awesome yard and the new swing we got my dad for Father's Day. 

The kids all loved the little pool my parents got for them. I would kill for a big flat yard like they have. Oh and no fire ants. 

 

There was a lot of impromptu playing in the pool, which meant someone swam in his undies a lot. 

  My niece Ellie's birthday was in May and I told her I would take her to the drive-in to celebrate. We saw Monsters University and everyone loved it, even though King only lasted about 20 minutes before falling asleep.
 

EZ has been trying to learn to ride his bike without training wheels and thanks to my dad's help we were able to make it happen in Pittsburgh. I loved watching EZ riding around on my old banana seat bike. 

We didn't get to stay for the 4th of July, but since you can't burn anything in Texas we had to get in a round of sparklers. 

The flight home was a bit eventful. My dad had taken the morning off of work to take us to the airport and help us to the gate. Good thing he had, because while we were there waiting, our flight to Chicago was cancelled because of weather. We had to sit around for 2 hours to figure out when we could leave and we found out we wouldn't be able to leave till the next day. They said I could get my luggage back or have it sent to Austin and I opted to send it to Austin without us. There was no way I was dragging all that crap back to my parents' house and dealing with packing up again. So we were all a bit dirty when we made it back to Austin, but luckily the next day's flights went without a hitch. 

Pittsburgh Part 2

We managed to go on quite a few outings. I love love love Moon Park and we took the kids there a couple of times. It is shaped like a big bowl with a bunch of different play areas and it is great because my kids can run free and I can just stay at the top of the bowl and keep an eye on all of them. I wish I could bring it back to Texas with us. Oh and the cool weather as well. Here is a pic of my dad and Conrad hanging at the park. 

EZ was very proud of how high he climbed and wanted me to take this picture. Funny what we think is "so high" when we are little. 

We were also able to take the kids to play mini golf. EZ and Netta got really into it. 

King tried, but basically just dropped his ball into each hole. 

And Conrad was just along for the ride. 

The best part about this golf course was all of the water features. There is a little creek that runs through it that you have to putt over a couple times and then this one hole had a small fountain in the middle of it. It was hard to get the kids to move on from that one. (The other child is my sister Katie's son Noah. They were in Pittsburgh the whole time we were there).

There is this program that allows kids to bowl free in the summer. Who can turn down free bowling? So we hit up the lanes. EZ was very insistent on bowling like a man and not like a little kid. It was very loud when he chucked that ball and it hit the lane. I was scared he was going to break something. 

Netta had no problem using the ramp and had a very laid back approach, which meant it took forever for her ball to make it's way down the lane. 

When we have gone bowling before, King hasn't been very interested, but he was all over it this time. 

Of course Conrad was yet again along for the ride in his stroller. They let you bowl up to 2 games per kid, but between all the potty breaks and snack breaks, one game took plenty long enough. 

Stay tuned for Pittsburgh Part 3