Family Reunion: June 16-21

 I had planned on taking the kids down for Brad's family reunion, but I was definitely a little nervous about driving 6 hours by myself and being a single parent for several days.  So when Brad agreed to go, I was thrilled. 

The ride down was actually pretty tough, and that was with two of us, which made me doubly grateful that Brad was there.  It's so nice to have two of us!  One to drive and one to wrassle the kiddos.  They were okay, well at least Noah was, but Ami and Gabe fought, A LOT.  It's really hard to drive when all you can hear is ear piercing shrieking and you feel that dull feeling in your earbuds, as though your ear drums are being damaged.

We finally made it to Las Vegas, and met up with Brad's parents.  They geneously shared their timeshare with us, which was so wonderful that our family got two bedrooms!  Usually we all pile up in one room, so it was pure luxury that the kids had a room, and we had our own!  Last year when we went on vacation, I remember that one night Gabe had fallen asleep at eight and so we quietly got ready for bed in the dark and laid in bed, completely not tired and afraid to even whisper, for fear he would wake up.

So, this was so great!  We had a yummy dinner from Chipotle and then took the kids swimming.  It's so funny, because you can try to do fun things with the kids, but really, the only thing they want to do is explore the hotel and go swimming.  So that's what they did!  It was easy to swim all the time, since the temps were in the 100 degrees.

Gabe had painstakingly watched Amalie and Noah for the past two weeks take swimming lessons and cried and couldn't understand why he couldn't swim too.  We kept promising him that we would go swimming soon, so it was lovely that we got to keep our promise!  He was in heaven.  All my kids are little fish, so they were loving it!

 On Sunday, since my sister lives nearby, we joined her family for Church and I got to help substitute both my older children's Primary classes.  It was pretty interesting that the 5 year old class got off on potty talk and we struggled to bring them back to the lesson.  I was surprised it starts so early!!  Yikes!

Brad and I both took a lovely nap while my sweet in-laws watched the kids.  It was heavenly.  With it being Father's Day, we fixed a nice dinner for the guys and sat down to eat and have dessert.

Monday, my sister and her kids joined us for swimming.  And then my sister took all our kids down to the game room, while Brad and I filled out more applications for jobs.

We didn't plan on searching for jobs while we were there, but Brad knew the kids wanted to stay longer, so he worked on that so we could stay a few days longer.  Oh man, I feel so grateful for Brad, he works so hard for us.  I am so blessed!

 On Tuesday, Brad's sisters Erin and Shannon came up and joined us.  Erin brought along her four kids and our kids had a blast playing with their cousins.  It was so nice that they got to be together since we don't get to see them as much as we'd like! 

  We spent the last few days swimming and eating yummy food and relaxing!  My sweet mother in law took my kids A LOT in order to give Brad and I breaks.  It was heaven!!  I am so grateful she is so good to me!