2 Years in the Making

Yes, it's been almost two years since we had a family picture taken.  I feel really bad about that because my kids are still so little.  I hate to miss a year.  But, unfortunately, all the little kids are part of the reason for the lapse.  They keep us busy!

But, while we were at Haigler Creek for the reunion, I heard someone mention that Delsy was taking family pictures for Rayla.  Since not knowing who to have take our pictures in one of the hold ups, I figured now would be a good time to just take a few shots while we had a photographer and a nice camera.  In an incredible stroke of luck, I just happened to have coordinating clothes with us.  Arie was the exception, but she was close enough.  Wardrobe choices are probably my number one hold up when it comes to family pictures.  I never know what to have us wear and I'm NOT spending money on new matching outfits for everyone. 

Anyway, I was really excited about the clothes in the same color scheme, a photographer on hand, and a beautiful location.  I think we got some great pictures!  Now, I can't decide which I like best.  Help me out...

Photo #1

Photo #2

I can't decide if I like the picture showing all of our bodies and more of the scenery (#1) or if I like it to be cropped in closer (#2).  The picture needs to be horizontal.  All of the kids are smiling in #2, but the picture was taken vertically. So I don't have the option of photo #2 to be further away--it has to be cropped close in order to be horizontal. 

Photo #3. 
This one probably isn't my favorite, but I like it because it's different.  And because it was a small miracle to get everyone standing in a line, holding hands.

 

 

Individual shots of the kids. 

I'm so glad we did these.  I'm even happier that I didn't let the guilt make me buy expensive school pictures a few weeks ago.

 

Natalie 

9 1/2 years old



Kelton

6 1/2 years old



Damon

4 1/2 years old

Arie

almost 2 years old

Webb Family Reunion

Nate's parents recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  As a surprise, the kids put together a family reunion for them.  We rented the Haigler Creek Lodge, which is a house big enough for all of us to stay in together.  We drove to Haigler Creek on Thursday.  It was a four hour drive that turned into over a five hour drive because we couldn't find the place.  We weren't given directions and the address doesn't exist to google maps.  I don't think the town is a "real" town and it's located on a mountain.  It's close to Payson, AZ mile-wise, but it takes about an hour to drive there from Payson because a lot of it is on a windy, narrow, mountainous dirt road. 

But, we all eventually arrived.  Mom and Dad Webb and all of their children were there, except Tyler and his wife Aurelie.  (They live in Switzerland, so they had a pretty good excuse.)

At the back of the property is a creek.  The kids had fun playing in it for a while on Friday.  This is Natalie and Stevie.

Arie had fun walking along the creek.  She didn't really like how cold the water was.  I am in my running clothes because I went for a run that morning.  It was nice to run in the cooler weather, but I didn't think about how not nice it would be to run on the road there.  I was always either running up or down hills.  I don't ever run hills.  My legs were mad at me for the rest of the day.

There was also this fun little train for the kids.  Uncle Steve was nice enough to take the kids around on it several times.  From front to back is Kelton, Paisley, Damon, Stevie, and Qinsey.

One afternoon some of us shot some basketballs around and then played a little volleyball.  Delsy (Nate's niece) took this picture of her daughter Emma with Arie.  (Arie is on the right.)  They are about six months apart in age.  They don't look a lot alike, but their size and curly hair made us do a few double takes over the weekend. 

Here's what we really did all weekend.  We ate.  Then we talked for a while.  Then ate again!  I think it's safe to say that we are all a little sick of food.  But it was all very yummy.  We just had tons of food!  Here is Nate loading up his plate along with Steve and Lynnette.

Kids eating outside.  Starting with Kelton and going around clockwise:  Kelton, Kirstie, Natalie, Qinsey, Stevie, Owen, and Paisley.

Here is some of the family all ready for the talent show.

Natalie and I represented our family by playing a half learned piano duet.  We didn't know there was going to be a piano there so we didn't practice enough to learn the whole song.

At the end, Mom and Dad Webb accompanied a sing-a-long.  I thought this picture was really cute.

We left to come home around 11:00 this morning.  It was a fun weekend, but we are all very tired from the late nights.  And kind of a sad end note, Laura got sick with a stomach bug on Friday.  By this morning, at least 5 other people had caught it, including Nate and Natalie.  Poor Natalie threw up a lot of the way home in the car.  I very much hope we have it contained!

33

Nate turned 33 on August 30th.  It was a Saturday, which meant that no one had to go to school or work.  In the morning we sang Happy Birthday and Nate opened his presents.  Each of the kids used their own money to buy a present:  Natalie bought Milk Duds, Kelton bought a bag of caramels, and Damon bought Junior Mints.  I got him new sunglasses, Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, and a magnetic iPad pen (to replace the one he already had that was misplaced somewhere in our house by Arie).

My visiting teacher was nice enough to offer to come watch our kids for us so that I could take Nate golfing after lunch.  We went to a course here in town and had a lot of fun.  I hadn't been golfing in at least five years and had only been a couple of times in the five years before that.  I was worried I wouldn't really be able to do it anymore, but I surprised myself by being able to pick up about where I left off.  Not that that's saying much... but I was at least able to hit the ball and did well enough to get a bogey on a couple of holes.

That evening we went into Tucson to have dinner at Chili's.  I had a genius plan.  Instead of paying $15-$20 on kids meals that the kids never even eat, I bribed them with ice cream.  They agreed to let me make macaroni and cheese at home (which is one of the things on the menu at Chili's that at least one kids always wants to order) and then we would take them to McDonalds after we ate to get ice cream.  They were very excited about the deal.  But by the time we got to Chili's, they were all begging for food and chocolate milk.  We ended up buying two kids meals for them to share.  Then, they still wanted the ice cream we told them they could have!  No amount of explaining could get them to understand that the deal was either food from Chili's OR ice cream.  But the kids lucked out.  Because it was Nate's birthday, he got a free scoop of ice cream which he let the kids share.

I honor of turning 33, I will list three (because I can't think of 33!) random birthday facts about Nate:

1) He has always insisted on the birthday tradition where we wake the birthday person by singing "Happy Birthday" and then the birthday presents are opened in bed.  Since we've been married, this has been done for every single birthday whether it's ours or the kids.  And yes, sometimes the birthday person is actually awake, but they have to wait for the family to "wake" them.

2)  Nate never has a birthday cake.  His birthday treat of choice is a banana cream pie.

3)  Every year we celebrate by going out to eat dinner at a restaurant with the whole family.  This is per Nate's request; he wants the kids with us.