The last time all my family and I were together was 3 years ago! But we finally all got together over 4th of July weekend and it was as crazy, loud, stressful, wonderful, amazing as I thought it would be. My Grandma Jaeger (aka Grams), my parents, and all my sisters and their families came: 20 people in total, for the 3rd and 4th of July. Everyone hung out at my house most of the time, the kids spent a lot of time playing and swimming, and we adults sat around talking, eating, and working on a 1000 piece puzzle.
Friday the 3rd, most everyone got to my house around lunch and I had a table of fruit, veggies, meat, cheese, rolls and crackers sitting out for everyone. I had a puzzle set up since that's one of our favorite pass-times. For some reason we all love our puzzles when we get together. It must be the combined anxiety disorders that calls for something to soothe our nerves. Ha ha! But seriously...it helps.
Once everyone got to my house, we sat and munched, talked, the kids played in the pool or in the playroom, and then we all headed to Chi-Ku for dinner. Dinner was delicious and of course my children wouldn't eat it...except Miles. If there are noodles, he'll eat. They also were bouncing off of each other and climbing on everything. I had had enough of them and so we were the first ones to leave.
On the 4th, we met at the Megaplex theater in Lehi where we all saw Inside Out. I was impressed that Miles sat through most of the movie; it was super cute and we all loved it! We had planned on getting pizza after the movie for lunch, but as it so happened, Tenney's Pizza was closed. So we went next door to the cafe at Thanksgiving Point, which actually turned out pretty nice and the food was better than pizza.
After lunch, we headed back to my place where the kids all decorated their t-shirts and then Char's family, Fernando, Gabe, Sammie, Cruise, Jett and I all headed to the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point where we killed a few hours. Jett spent a large portion of his time in Kidopolis building a Lego house complete with a bed, table, chair, stove, scarecrow, and dog. He was pretty proud of his project.
Then we made our way home for a BBQ and family pictures. Nothing like getting nine children and eleven adults to sit still and smile all at once. I always have low expectations for family pictures because really, you can dress them up, do their hair, and have the right photographer and location, but it's all on them when it comes to cooperating. Props to Ruth's husband Fernando for doing the photography and the hours and hours of editing! I don't even want to know how many heads he had to swap!
After pictures, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Grams (her 87th birthday was the next week), had angel food cake my mom made, and root beer floats as well. Then everyone wanted to go to my parents' hotel and swim. So I stayed at home with my parents, Abby & Casey, and Miles and relaxed for once that day.
Finally everyone came back and we were ready to do the fireworks! My parents had sent a check beforehand for the food and my Dad told me to use the rest of the check for the fireworks (get the biggest one). So that's what I did. We then got a big box of Poppers and sparklers for the kids. It was a lot of fun and I was in charge of lighting everyone's sparklers. We also got to watch the neighbor's fireworks as well as the Thanksgiving Point fireworks. The Poppers were a huge hit with Miles. He couldn't get enough of them!
That night I had to say goodbye to my sister Charlotte and her family, and Grams since they were all going back home. I wish I could've spent more time with just my sisters, maybe next time we'll get a chance to all go do something just the four of us.
Sunday came and I was so physically and emotionally drained, we decided to stay home from church and relax, especially since I kept getting panic attacks the entire day, which is normal for me before and after big events. My sister Ruth and her kids came and spent the afternoon with us while my parents took Grams and Fernando to the airport. It was nice to hang out with her and her kids who all had fun playing with the boys.
On Monday, I took the kids to my parents' hotel and they got to swim with Ruth's boys and Grandpa! Then we all went to Pizza Studio for dinner.
And then Tuesday, Dave took Dad, Cruise & Jett out on the boat to fish and play. They didn't catch anything, but they still had a lot of fun.
It was quite the weekend! So grateful for my family and the chance I got to hang out with all of them. Thank you to everyone who took off time from work and spent money to be able to have us all there at the same time! Love you all!!!
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