July- Family Reunions in Oregon & St. George

 

This month is jam-packed since we went on two family reunions back-to-back, so get ready for a long post. 

Playing Pretty Pretty Princess with Audrey:

Jewelry time with Natalie:

Back home in Hawaii our ward helped move our stuff from our old house to our new house's garage. Brent had packed and prepped all of our stuff and left it in the living room, but he was in New Zealand on July 1, so our ward was super nice to move it for us!

Bob made us dutch oven dinner one night:

We went to visit Laura and see her new house (although she's been in it for a year or so now.)

The kids had lots of fun doing plays while Laura and I chatted.

The 4th of July- we started out watching the parade on my parent's street.

Brent was on the other side of the world where it was now July 5, and they don't celebrate July 4th anyway. We went to Nana's and had brunch there, and the kids played in a splash pad Kari brought.

We then went to visit my Grandpa for his birthday. Being at my grandparent's house on the 4th of July are some of my very best memories from when I was a kid. 

I love them!

That evening the kids and I watched the fireworks from my parent's house and also did some fireworks and sparklers with the neighbor's daughter. The next day Ava got to go to lunch (I think this was a late birthday lunch) at Tucanos. She looooves steak and my parents said she ate more than they did.

I took the younger two shopping at Target and we bought some school clothes. Audrey picked out this Elsa nightgown for her birthday.

Silly Audrey joking around:

Andrew's kids came into town and my mom took them to play at our neighbor's house and do crafts.

July 9- the day finally arrived, Brent flew in from Hawaii! It felt like Christmas morning to all of us to be together again after 5 weeks.

That evening we planned a dinner for everyone to see Brent, and also for it to be a gender reveal. Brent's siblings didn't know I was even pregnant, so I think a lot of them were shocked and confused when we said "Surprise! We're going to do a gender reveal before we eat!"

Laura had seen my report and filled the balloon for us. She did the spare one too in case one popped in the car coming down. Since both were still in tact, we let Ava and Coen each pop one. 

I had told Laura that it felt a bit silly doing a gender reveal when I was 90% sure that it was a girl but I guess that 10% is what makes it exciting. If you zoom in on mine and Brent's faces, you can see our shock when we see BLUE confetti!

Coen was SO excited to hear it's a boy!

Marcie happened to have blue balloons in her car from a conference she had just been at, so they worked out perfectly for our picture!

The next morning after Brent had arrived, we drove to Idaho, on our way to Oregon for a family reunion and also to pack up our house and send our stuff on a pod to Hawaii. The timing worked out so perfectly. I should also note that I suddenly started feeling MUCH better from the morning sickness on the morning that I turned 13 weeks and 1 day, when I woke up in Idaho. It was so nice to feel like eating again!

It was a bit of a nightmare getting our car rental (we had to find a new company last minute when we found out the first rental company wouldn't allow us to take the car more than 500 miles from SLC). The new car rental place didn't have our car ready so offered Brent a van, which turned out to be a blessing because we ended up taking a lot of stuff to be put on our Hawaii shipment. Brent was sick with a cough, so he wore a mask in the car to not spread it to us all. 

Brent convinced his mom to let Ava stay those couple extra days (we were driving up early to Oregon to pack our house) and Ava drove to Oregon with Brent's parents and Daniel. This worked out very nicely for us to have less fighting in the car, and less fighting at our house while Brent and I were trying to organize and pack. My parents took Ava to 7-11 day:

We drove in the Portland way and stopped at the waterfalls that we've always wanted to see just off the highway.

This is called Multnomah Falls, and you can walk across the bridge in front of the falls.

We stopped at the Portland temple:

It was so weird arriving in Eugene and seeing all of the familiar streets. When we drove up to our house it felt like we had just gone on a long vacation to Hawaii and were coming home. It was kind of hard, mentally, to go in and see my beautiful home, and leave it again. Another blessing was that all of our renters (law students) had internships this summer, so none of them were home! We were able to even sleep in our own bed (that we had lent one of the renters) and spread out our stuff throughout the house while we sorted and organized it, prepping it to go on the pod.

It was very convenient that we had just found out we are having a boy, so that we could give away all the girl clothes we had stored in our garage. 

Audrey was able to see her bestie and play with her.

The kids were so excited to see their toys!! They played really well while we worked.

Meanwhile, Ava and Grandma and Grandpa stopped at Twin Falls.

We sorted and worked at our house for two days and then drove to Depoe Bay for the Cowley family reunion. This was the view from our balcony- although we didn't see nearly as many whales this year as a couple years ago which was kind of sad!

We did lots of swimming:

This year we had everyone at the condos except for Mark. Each family took a night to cook dinner for everyone. Here we are in our condo for our pasta night:

Coming from Hawaii, it felt extra chilly to us. I had bought my kids coats at Kid to Kid for $1!

Walking along our condos:

Brent made Audrey put on her tennis shoes. She had only worn sandals or gone barefoot all year, so she was cracking me up as she was trying to adjust to walking in shoes. I took a video- you can see her fingers spread, like she's uncomfortable and can't even balance.

Sea stars at the beach! 

Brent made a project of shoveling sand in the river and damming it up, and then releasing it at the end. This took a couple hours, and he shoveled away like he had all the energy in the world, while I watched.

It was SO foggy all the time! A local told us that when it gets hot in the valley in July, the coast gets extra foggy. Two years ago when we came, we had been there a couple weeks earlier in July so we didn't have as much fog. Here are the cousins swimming in front of the ocean, which is covered in fog:

The kids had tons of fun with their cousins- swimming, playing games, going to the playground, etc.

We went to hear the time share presentation and in exchange we got tickets for a whale watching boat tour. When we decided to use our tickets that afternoon it was sunny, but by the time we got down to the boats, the fog had rolled in! 

It was a BUMPY ride. Luckily lots of us had dramamine, but some people didn't, and threw up.

We did see a whale up close for a while! The boat tour was one hour, and we were all glad it was only one hour since it was so cold and windy and bumpy.

We made it!! 

The next day Brent drove back to Eugene (about a 2 hour drive) to pack up the pod that was delivered to our house. He did the entire thing himself, except for a neighbor helping him get the king mattress and couches in at the very end. Brent has a packing talent and got SO much in the pod! 

I thought for sure he wouldn't get the couches in, or our bedroom furniture, but he got everything in that we wanted in Hawaii. 

My tummy was starting show (14 weeks):

Fun in the condos:

A few of our group went on a deep sea fishing expedition and caught some cool fish! Some are endangered and had to be released, but lots of what they caught they brought back to prepare to eat and take home to Utah.

This blue fish even had a blue tongue and blue meat!

That evening we ate some of the crab that they had caught!

The condos had activities for the kids every day, and the smores night was a hit.

We went to an outlet mall in Lincoln City and we bought lots of things for the new school year at the Nike store and Old Navy.

One morning we got up early and went to the tide pools at low tide near the Devil's punchbowl.  It was super slippery because of all this green stuff (I assume algae?)

See all the creatures in the tide pool?

We also walked over to the Devil's punchbowl, which you can only enter at low tide. Here's Coen on the outside of the bowl. 

Then we spent a lot of time looking for agates- all of us, Grandpa included!

Brent and I left the kids in our condo and went on a date to the Thai restaurant we loved from a couple years ago. It did not disappoint and was soooo delicious again. 

We were so happy to be on a date after being apart so much this summer!

Cousins sitting in the corner of the condo, with a great view.

We left Depoe Bay on a Sunday and decided we wanted to drive through Eugene so we could attend our old ward. We debated not going that way since it added a couple hours to our trip, but I'm so glad we went and got to talk to so many of our old friends. 

Audrey got the giggles in the car because of a song that talks about fish that brush their teeth and take a bath:

We stayed the night again in Idaho with our friends the Turnbulls, and then drove to SLC the next morning. We unpacked our clothes for chilly weather, did laundry, and re-packed clothes for hot weather. Then the next morning we were off to St. George for my family reunion. One of the highlights of St. George is all the swimming time:

We went to the dino park and splash pad. Even the adults had to get in the splash pad in order to stay cool. 

We took some family pictures at Tuacahn before a show. We're missing Lucy from this picture:

This was Audrey's first time to go to a play at Tuachan. We knew she was going to love Frozen. Her facial expressions alternated between mesmerized and shy, because she thought it was the real Anna and Elsa.

It was so hot outside still, which was making me feel really nauseous. I eventually had to go walk around under the spray fans, eat a snack, and move seats. So here's the other four who stayed in their seats :)

Audrey stayed awake for the whole play, which went until about 11pm! She kept asking questions about what Elsa was doing right now, where her house was, if she could go back and see her tomorrow. We finally had to tell her that they were just girls pretending to be Anna & Elsa.

Treat break during swim time:

The girls went roller skating and the boys did a ninja obstacle course. 

Dinner at Outback for the adults, while the kids at Chick Fil-A. Then the kids split up between condos and Ava and Adalyn were excited to babysit the little girls while we were away.

Audrey got to have her first "sleepover" with her cousins at my parent's condo. She was SO excited. They got matching pajamas even. She fell asleep in the bunk bed but we brought her back to our condo for the night.

We spent a day at Andrew's pool. Coen and Nathan love to play together. Ava made up a game for everyone to play at the pool called "jump grades" where Brent came up with a theme, and then each kid had to do a jump into the pool and he would grade them. Many other kids that we didn't know ended up playing the game too. 

Brent's friend Stephanie from his program in Texas was getting married in Las Vegas. He also wanted to take the kids to an interactive Disney animation virtual experience. I was not up to going into even hotter temperatures and walking a lot so I did not go with them.

Brent & Ava will help tell what they did. 

First we went to Andrew's ward and then we drove to Las Vegas and watched a lot of Disney animation in the car to get ready for the show. Our first stop was the temple. 

Although it was super hot it was amazing to be at the temple grounds.

Then we drove to where Stephanie was going to get married so we'd know where it was going to be. 

I've never seen such a limo close up.

This was our hotel. We stayed at the Excalibur. Everyone was super excited to stay in a "Disney" castle. There was a LOT of gambling inside. Audrey really wanted to play the slot machines (which is similar to me who was always fascinated by gambling when I was growing up). 

We went to the Aria hotel and a super fancy mall, "The Shops at Crystals" where the interactive experience was. Brent went to this experience when he was in San Antonio for a conference and really wanted to take the kids to it. 

Each of us got a lighted wristband that interacts with the music and Disney clips. Before it starts it looked like you were in a Disney museum and the floor had pixie dust that would move when you step on it and react to your movements.

The bubbles had stage smoke inside of them so they were extra fun to pop.

You would sit down on the benches and watch the shows on four different walls. There were different music videos, and each different one had a different floor. In the nature one, from Fantasia 2000 there was a lava scene, and the floor turned into "floor is lava." That was my favorite one because you'd have to jump on the rocks to not get in the lava.

We walked past New York New York that has a super big roller coaster. We got to walk in the hotel and it looked pretty cool. 

Then it was time for the wedding. The wedding itself was like 7 minutes, but we stayed for like an hour and a half. It was Brent's first Las Vegas wedding, and he says he can see the attraction of someone else taking care of everything for you. His favorite part was the candle demonstration where they both had separate candles and lit one together to demonstrate they're now one. We were the only ones there besides family so Stephanie was so thankful. 

After, we got to sit in the limo before Stephanie and her husband went away in it. It was super fancy and big. There was a TV and snacks and drinks. 

After the wedding we went to the dinner at In-n-Out, and then we went to the Coke store and m&m store. 

We got an m&m blanket and playing cards. We took pictures with every m&m.

Back in St. George, I went with my family to the Brigham Young winter home. My parents' friends are missionaries and gave us a tour. Free of charge was their comedic bantering throughout the tour which had us all laughing.

Ava and Coen went to see Seussical with my parents earlier in the summer and became obsessed with it. They decided it would be this year's cousin play, which Ava directed and planned. My mom bought everyone Cat in the Hat shirts, and Ava made Coen the hat. Ava stood behind the couch and acted out the choreography that each of the kids should follow.

 Ava says something funny that happened was during one of the songs, Cat in the Hat (Coen) says "hold on to your hat" and Coen's hat fell down.

Ava had built up this play so much in her mind, that there were a few melt downs and extreme emotions leading up to the play, and it was nearly canceled, but luckily in the end it happened. 

My parents, Laura, and I went to see Anastasia at Tuachan. Our kids are old enough now they can put themselves to bed!

Audrey started to complain that her neck was hurting, and she got a little bit of a fever a couple evenings. She had no other symptoms until we noticed the lymph nodes in her neck starting to swell. It was so weird and scary. During the day she acted fine and played though. Here you can see her swollen neck:

Audrey had tons of fun swimming in the kiddie pool:

The last day we had a sibling dinner at our condo, as my parents had already gone back home. We grilled chicken and we all brought out the food we needed to eat up, which worked out great.

And that concludes July! If you followed Brent's travels this month, he went from New Zealand to Australia to Hawaii to Utah to Oregon to southern Utah, and then back to SLC. Between two family reunions and packing up a house to ship a pod to Hawaii, it was a very full month!