The last part of Oregon and our Utah homecoming.

      After arriving back to Grandma's from the camp out this girl showered and then crashed. We spent a couple days getting laundry done and relaxing before heading home.

Fresh salsa with our yummy street tacos.

    There was even more swimming at the Larson's house.

     On the way back to Utah Charlie had several photo ops. She loved her new sunglasses and sticker earrings she got from the dollar store.

McClane photo bombing his dollar store purchase.

    The best part of the week was the spontaneous visit from my sister Jackie and her husband Ben from Australia. A friend and father figure for Ben passed away and they made the quick decision to fly in for the funeral and we were thrilled to have them come stay even if only for a few days. Of course we would have loved for the girls to come too but that would have been a bit expensive!

    They may not have brought the girls but they brought the next best things, GLUECOJEL/jelly beans! I love them so much!!! I'm going to fill a whole suitcase of these when we go visit Australia in November!

     Another fun and exciting week in a different way. Only two more weeks before we have our first grand baby and this week we get to celebrate Alpine days, so still a few more adventures to go before school starts.

Carnival, swimming, and camping!

      I accidentally deleted this post from last week so hopefully I haven't missed anything in doing it a second time. We had a great time at the American Fork Carnival/picnic in the park. There was face painting, bouncy activities and even a carnival ride or two.

Cutest Unicorn!

Quite the mustache!

McClane insisted on a velcro bounce.

There weren't a lot of bouncy activities but Charlie made the most of what there was.

Charlie went on the swings with her dad only to realize it was to high to 'enjoy'.

These three boys had to ride the Gravitron in honor of "Stranger Things".

      Monday we enjoyed a fun day at the Payson pool with cousins, aunts, uncle and Grandma.

Cousin time is the best time!

Charlie was loving the slide!

     Then the trip of the summer began! Off to Oregon!

Isaac's fake sleeping!

     We made sure to pester the Larson cousins before heading out for the camping trip/reunion.

     We got to Buck Creek Thursday afternoon and got our tent set up. The younger kids were itching to get in the pool.

The pool constructed by Uncle Mark Budden was definitely the hit of the 'party' for my kids and several others.

    There was so much to do. All the Aunts and Uncles had different activities for all of us over the three days and we made the most of it. There was story telling, each aunt and uncle shared three different stories of Grandpa Budden and had cards with the stories to pass out. That was awesome.

    There was fishing, gold panning, shooting games, bingo/Jack of all Trades, a compass adventure, a matching photo game, of course swimming and yummy food. All the meals were provided, which made camping a lot more pleasant for me!

Me with my 'group' on our compass adventure. Aunt Gayla put the course together and Mary and Analeigh Budden with Uncle Craig Wilson were in my group.

Carter had a real swelling reaction to all the mosquito bites he got.

There were lots of sitting around and visiting, which is my favorite.

Cousin bonding.

The fishing instructions from John and the fun matching game with Sally and Mike.

The shooting game, thanks to Elizabeth, Jack of all Trades/bing courtesy of Elaine and a fun song performed by all the children of Raymond and Rose Ellen Budden.

We had a crazy rain/hail storm Friday night!

Charlie found some fun 'chairs' at camp.

      It was such a fun time but I was anxious to get back to civilization so I could shower and get back to normal but Greg insisted on taking the long way back to Klamath and driving around the northwest side of Crater Lake. It was a pretty view but no one was that excited about the detour.

     Well that was one busy week! We had such a fun time! The family reunion in honor of Grandpa Raymond Budden's 100th birthday was amazing and worth the long drive. Thanks to everyone who put so much time, money and effort into making it memorable. We loved it!

Cars, bikes and floats!

      Steel Days in American Fork kicked off with the car show and we found a few cars we really liked! This Corvette is only $65,000! I'd buy that in a heartbeat if money was no object.

27 windows in the bus! So cool!

     Another neighbor enjoying Charlie's cool bike.

    This weekend we finally busted out the outdoor movie equipment and watched, "Monster's University" with a few Kmetzsch relatives.

Fun times minus the bugs!

     Charlie found her sleep mask and actually used it.

Silly girl!

    This morning we enjoyed the parade in American Fork and later tonight we hope to enjoy the bouncy houses and fireworks.

All my kids were there minus Mark.

These were Charlie's favorite floats.

      It's been a fun week and a full week with summer weather. I LOVE IT! Now we get to prepare ourselves for our fun in Oregon!

Anniversary and more fun.

    Greg and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary last weekend and decided to splurge on a hotel and dinner up in Salt Lake. The hotel was great and we had a fun view of the valley from our 11th floor room but dinner was a bit 'overpriced' shall we say! Someone gave Greg a gift card to this very nice steakhouse in Salt Lake but it turns out it was really a bill for $176. The food was yummy and the service was exceptional but not worth the prices. Now we know and it was our first real dinner splurge in 24 years so at least we haven't made a habit of over priced meals in the last 24 years.

Yummy dessert, maybe we should have started and stopped with that.

    We did a little site-seeing and shopping.

    I wish you could appreciate how tiny these outfits are, especially the Guns N Roses outfit. It was a no-brainer purchase! I can't wait to see baby Wendel wear these cute clothes!

   On our way home from the hotel we stopped in to visit Mark and Marcus in their cool loft! They have quite the setup.

     We had Charlie take a commemorative photo of our 24 year anniversary.

     We also had fun playing with Belle's puppies this week. They are so adorable!! There's nothing like puppy snuggles!

Lucky kids!

    I've sure been enjoying having my fingernails painted on a regular basis and not worrying about chips or breaks for weeks at a time. This blue color is one of my favorites!

I don't know if this photo was edited but my arms look strange for some reason.

     I also took the four youngest and a couple bonus kids swimming at the Provo Rec. Center this week. It's by far their favorite swimming 'hole'. Everyone was big enough for all the slides, lazy river and general fun.

    And to end the week we get to have Smalls' best friend, Chloe, visit for a few days. She's big and adorable but also terribly naughty, she ate Greg's tinfoil dinner he had prepared for his campout! Obviously it's more Greg's fault for leaving it anywhere she could reach but still upsetting. Thankfully he had enough ingredients to remake his meal so he's not going to starve tonight while he's out camping at Strawberry with the Teachers quorum.

      We're sad to see summer cruising by so quickly but we still have several more activities to enjoy before it's over so here's to the coming week with cousins, car cruise and other fun stuff.