Hawaii Cousins Visit Us!

Malia came first.  My mom picked her up so she could attend girls camp with my girls.  They went up near Paradise Lake.  It started raining sometime in the middle of camp and it didn't let up.  It was getting so wet up there that they had to come home a day early.  We needed all that rain.  Our drought conditions were so bad that we were on water restrictions which meant no outdoor watering, no garden, bye bye grass.  We were saving bath water and pouring it on our trees and shrubs. So, although the girls were sad to miss a day of camp, we all rejoiced to have a good downpour.

With Malia here, we took her up to This Is The Maine park where we were doing a photoshoot for the Petersons.  The girls all went off and had fun and snapped photos of their own.

What do you think of the water, Amara?

Cold mountain water

A few days later we were joined by my brother Joe and the rest of his kids.  We often would grab free sack lunch from the schools and head to a park to eat and hang.

Can you see the girls in the tree above JJ?

There's me, Pip, and Maizie.

Lily, Amara, and Malia decided to buy matching aloha gear and dress up.

Another fun activity we did was go to the Outdoor Trail Theater's production of Hello Dolly.  Apparently Maizie loves that show. I had never even seen it until Steve introduced it to me a few year ago.

A local pizza place, High Country Pizza, offers giant pizzas.  I decided to get us a couple of them one night for dinner.

The slices are so big, a normal paper plate can only hold half of it.

We had a puppy photoshoot for Little Paw Acres and the kids all wanted to go pet the puppies, so we brought them all along.

Steve is sitting on the ground while Malia is placing the puppy perfectly.

The pine trees at Constitution park became a favorite climbing place for the kids.

One day, we went on the Dino Trax trail hike at Red Fleet Reservoir.  The hike is a good family hike, about a mile long with amazing views and fossilized Dino tracks at the end.

We used some gift cards to get delicious Cold Stone ice cream after our hike.

Jayden thought these stickers were hilarious.

wisdom.  I guess.

Everyone needs a photo with the giant gorilla at Allred's Yard and Garden.

I showed Joe and JJ the hidden poem carved into the mountain in Roosevelt across from the cemetery

We ate breakfast at JB's right before the July 4th parade.

Parade time!

We went to the History Museum and looked around.

We are doing our creepy doll faces to match the doll behind us.

There was a display of the First Ladies of the USA and a quote from each of them.  I must say, some of the quotes they chose were RIDICULOUS!

Jayden liked the gun display.

We watched 4th of July fireworks at the Constitution Park.

We also went to the Bullock and Cottonwood Reservoirs to look around.

It was my first time ever at Cottonwood reservoir.  Such a pretty place.

Took everyone disc golfing.

There was a volleyball party at our Bishop's house that we all went to. The kids played in the yard with other kids while the adults played volleyball.

Amara found a white preymantis.

This was at Karla Hullinger's backyard where we picked the most delicious apricots ever!

 

Fort Robinson Nebraska - Blad Reunion

The 8-hour drive was 100 percent worth it!  Our family had so much fun at the Fort Robinson Blad reunion.  The memories and the fun with family was incredible.  It reminds me that all the spent effort and money and sacrifice that goes into reunions and vacations and family outings is important.  Life is what we make of it and our memories are blessed gifts to our future!  Just looking back on these photos bring me such happiness.  I'm so glad we spent time together doing fun things!

Steve and I had this lovely blue themed 2nd floor room next to the stairwell.

Amara and Lily slept on bunk beds on the 3rd floor.

My Journal Entry:

Monday, June 14

"We're here! Fort Robinson Nebraska! We're staying in 19B, an old 3 story building w/ bedrooms, kitchen, living room, dining, etc.. It's cool! And the State Park around us is beautiful and manicured.  You can see a lot of sky here- no mountains!  So different!  And things are so green!

We've had a good time thus far- a spaghetti dinner together, and FHE which was a total chaotic but FUN time.  We listened to Grandpa Blaine Blad give advice and then split into our Olympic teams and played "Geneopardy" (a trivia-jeopardy-style game w/ Blad genealogy).  Lily's (orange team) won.  My team (light blue) took 3rd.  Steve is team captain for green team and Amara is on that team too."

Let the Blad Olympics begin!  The house in the background is one of the 3 that our reunion rented. There was also a smaller white home that Kirk's family stayed in.

Getting ready for the wet sponge relay

There were great expanses of green space all around.  Plenty of room for all our fun games.

Go Cami!  Our Hanging Donut Chomper Champ!

Winner- Cami - my team captain!

Walking back to our room after a swim at the pool!

Journal Entry:

Tuesday June 15

There's been ticks!  But we're doing good.  Amara found one crawling on her.  I'm thankful to Heavenly Father that I had the thought to spray my skin down with repellant b/c I was in shorts and totally exposed.  Amy flicked 6 ticks off herself at dinner!

Lily won the hula hooping award!  She beat ALL of us, all 48 of us!  YEE HAW!!!

We had a full, fun day!  

• We made Trent's Hay Bales for breakfast. 
• For the Family Olympics we did a hula hoop contest, water balloon relay, donut-eating contest, and sponge water relay!
• For lunch- Nacho Bar
• Swimming from 1-3pm
• Self-toured around the state park
• Hayrack Steak Cookout in the Mountains (where we discovered all the ticks)
• Hangout/ Play games

The hayrack steak dinner was a beautiful evening ride on a hayrack pulled by a jeep to a picnic area on the mountainside.  The food and portions were so good and generous that we decided to take it home with us.

The Blad clan.  It was so beautiful we asked the driver to stop the jeep so we could take a picture.

This was a fun olympic game- the beachball on your back relay

Layla and Joylynn were on my team and they were so CUTE!

This relay was fun to watch- I was terrible at it. Steve was good at it.  You use a straw to keep a feather in the air and blow it from one side of the room to the other.

There was a nearby lake that some enjoyed fishing and kayaking.

We signed up to go on a jeep tour.  That was a lot of fun.  I think Lily wished she had a hair tie for the ride.  They took us up steep climbs to a vast lookout.

Dad and Deb were in another jeep on the same tour.

You can't tell really well from the picture, but the trail was steep.

Lily and her lapdogs.  They're Colleen and Kurt's.

BUBBLE BLOWING CONTEST!

Guess who won?  That's Super Steve for you!!!

Look at the fancy highchairs of yesteryear!

I thought this table setting had a couple interesting features: the plates are upside down and there were tiny finger bowls of salt and little butter plates for individual place settings.  I love that.

There was a free rodeo every Thursday night.  The sunset was beautiful that night.

Our last day was Friday and we signed up for an early morning trail ride. It was probably the one thing the girls were looking forward to the most.  It was beautiful.  And aren't horses amazing creatures?  They are strong and powerful.  My horse was good, but even so, I was still really saddle sore.

 Such good times! I loved what we saw of Nebraska, too.  It reminds me of how majestic and incredible God is.