So I guess I've fallen off the face of the blogging world for a few weeks. That's mostly because we went to Utah, Oregon, and Idaho and got back this week. It was a really fun vacation and we got to see most of the Bates and all of the McBride family members. Thanks to Steph M. and Mom Bates for letting us stay with you! We had a great time!
This is our little family at a lake near McCall, ID where we camped at a church camp for our family reunion. It was a nice little camp with bathrooms and showers, and a big kitchen to prepare everyone's food. The kids actually got brave enough to get in the freezing water. Unfortunately, we all came home with coughs and colds.....those cold temp changes get us every time! Arg. Oh well, it was worth the fun I guess.
So we had a little talent show the night before we left camp. It was fun. I had to do a polynesian dance of course, and my sister Shari did one of her Mexican dances. I love her dress, it's so pretty. She did a really good job.
I think this picture captures most of the family that attended. I think there were about 75 people in attendance for the reunion, and that just covers my mom, siblings, and nieces and nephews. Some were not able to come, and we missed them. It was fun though.
Mom Bates and Lanny.
Marlee and Bryce taking a walk down to the lake.
Logan said his favorite part about camping was helping in the kitchen. Groups of siblings were assigned to cook 1 meal for each day we were there. I think Logan helped with every meal. Thanks to everyone who cheerfully let him stay in the kitchen with you!
Some pics of us waking up in the tent. The nights were FREEZING!! We're use to sleeping in temps of 83 degrees at night. At this campground, it got down to 45 degrees at night. It felt Arctic to us!
Our kids really enjoyed camping, and Bryce and I had a good time too. We all got filthy dirty, but I guess that means we had a good time right? :) We had so much fun, it wore us all out. Logan rarely falls asleep in the car, but on our way back to Grandma Bates' house, the kids slept like this for almost 2 hrs. It was heaven!
So that was our trip! It was a LOT of time in the car, and we're always glad to get back home to our beds, but it was worth all the effort and $$ it took to go. We look forward to the next Bates reunion in two years! Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant. :)
We of course did our traditional "eat at McDonalds, play at Peter Piper Pizza." McDonalds is WAY cheaper, plus we know they'll eat the food. We wasted a ton of $$ trying to get them to eat PP Pizza once and vowed we'd never do that again. We never have. They had a blast at PPP.
Thank goodness this is the last cake of the year that I have to make. This is LEGO Indiana Jones if you can't tell. :) I had to use the x-box cover to try to make the image right. It doesn't look perfect, but it turned out pretty good. Logan and Landon both loved it, so I guess that's all the matters. :)
Now our birthdays are done, for another 6 months anyway. All of our birthdays are in the summertime, so this next baby will be the oddball of the family....with a February birthday. It'll be nice to not be big and pregnant in the summertime though. :)
