Road Trip! (Part 1)

Our summer started off with a bang. And it just kept on going right through the end of June. Now that July is here and half way over I finally feel like I have time to breath again...and maybe start blogging again. 

In order to catch up I'll start where we left off. The Rollins family was here for a visit before we were going to head out on a road trip to Oregon to visit my parents.  We had sick kids the whole time the Rollins family was here so we were a little worried we'd be dealing with it on the two day drive but we got lucky and no one was too terribly sick. (Just poor little Laila who really struggled to get over it).  We made it without incident but by the end of the second day my back and rear end had had enough! 

Our first big event while in Medford was watching my brother Tom in a Civil War reenactment. I've never been to one before and I have to admit it was kind of fun. My brother "got shot" and we were all so bummed but then we saw him army crawling away and cheered. It was silly but fun.

 Coolest part though? I got to fire a canon! It was pretty awesome!

After the battle was over we had a picnic lunch and then we headed off because time was a wasting and we had things to do. i.e the train park.

Its hard to see but my brother Shaun who is currently serving a mission in Fiji came with us. :)  Can you find him?

Who are those two hot mamma's? Oh, yeah, they are my beautiful, talented, smart, amazing sisters! :)

After the train park and pizza we headed home to my parents house and had a birthday party for my Grandpa. He got his own tablet!

My parents had seven children. All but one were in Oregon. (Shaun's head makes an appearance though). Of those seven children 4 are married and only Chris was unable to make the trip. They have 9 grandchildren with two more on the way and all of them were in Oregon as well. And we all stayed in the same house! Who knows how we all survived, but we did.

We kept ourselves plenty busy. I don't think there is one day that we ever just sat around and did nothing. It may not sound like a big deal but I live in the country, 20 minutes from the closest town, so we do a lot of just hanging out at home. It was a little overwhelming to be going going going all the time. But we made the trip count! 

Monday night we had a family picnic at the temple and then Grandpa prepared a lesson for FHE for the kids about temples. 

My niece Scarlet: the Ninja!

Next up was beautiful Crater Lake. There is nothing quite like it. This picture is totally unedited. The water really is that blue. Its amazing!

In case you are wondering why Sadie isn't in this picture its because she was off with her cousins exploring.  We went in the evening so it was a little cool and the bugs were bad but it is always worth the trip to see it.

Well that about wraps up the first half of our trip.  Second half to follow soon!