Family reunion-Getting there

The Campbell family was planning a family reunion around the 4th of July until we found out Ashley was having a baby around then. Fortunately Mark's spring break coincided with Rachel's spring break, so we all headed up to Utah for the second week of March. 

We left Friday early afternoon, planning on getting to Las Vegas to sleep at a hotel that night. Phoenix had other plans for us. We hit Phoenix at rush hour (apparently by 3pm in Phoenix rush hour is already in full swing). Traffic was at a standstill and it took about an hour to get through to the other side of Phoenix. Then we missed the turn off and when we got off the freeway to turn around everyone was hungry and had to use the bathroom, so we ate dinner and ended up leaving Phoenix at 5pm. Two hours in Phoenix was not conducive to us arriving in Las Vegas that night. 

We got to Wikieup around 7:30, which is normally the kids bedtime. Megan was SO tired of being in her carseat, and just tired in general. She (like all our other kids) will only stay asleep for a half hour in the car, so though she had already fallen asleep for what would have been the whole night at home, she was already awake again and cranky. We tried to find a hotel there in Wikieup, but there was only one hotel in the town which had 3 rooms, the only one left with just two twin beds. It was a no go. 

We continued on to Kingman and found a nice hotel we were all happy to find. So happy that all the kids that had complaining they were SOOO tired were all of a sudden wide awake and eager to explore the elevators and light switches. We eventually got everyone to sleep and had a much less eventful travel day the next day. I drove most of the time since Jacob wasn't feeling great and Megan did much better with me behind the wheel where she couldn't see me. 

An hour or two before Provo we stopped one last time for a pit stop and the rest stop we stopped at happened to have a petting zoo, which was closed. But we still went over to see the animals. There was a camel the kids liked to look at.

They also found some hay that the burros were happy to eat from their hands.

When we finally arrived in Provo the kids did what we always do when we get to Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's house: feed the ducks across the street.

 Ryan recruited a neighbor kid to come across the street next to the pond so he wouldn't be the only toddler near a large body of water without permission.

He would have stayed there all day if we let him.

Crawling around was a welcome change from the chair of cheer (that torturous car seat).

Cari had some dinner made for us, so we chowed down, and the girls began their week long effort to smother Cari in love.

Cousins meeting for the first time:

Matthew and Megan were intrigued by each other. They had several staring contests over the course of the week. Beverly was not too eager to see her cousins in person rather than on the computer, until they headed back to the toy basket, then the cousin bonding began.

Sunday morning we were all up bright and early to enjoy the change to daylight savings time. It actually worked out pretty well for us because our family is always the first to bed and the first to wake, so we kept our kids on Arizona time, and when they woke up at 6:30 Arizona time every morning, everyone else was starting to stir at 7:30 Utah time. And when they were going to bed at 7:30, it was actually 8:30 Utah time and closer to the other cousins' bedtimes.

After church, Grandpa got in some time with his youngest granddaughter.

And Cari had a picnic with the kids and one of the girls from her primary class.

We spent a nice afternoon playing together.

Dinner time:

Annie is always eager to help out in the kitchen, so she jumped at the chance to help Grandma Campbell make some cookies. They kept us well stocked with goodies all week long.

Rachel played some songs on the piano for Cari, and Cari played for Rachel.

Ryan and Bevy danced to the music.

Sunday night Rachel and Annie had a sleepover with Aunt Cari. Cari got suckered in to doing "the dribbles" for the girls for almost a half hour. Sometimes when the girls have a hard time falling asleep we'll lightly run our fingers across their forehead and face for a couple minutes to help them fall asleep. Rachel calls it the dribbles. And if she had her way we would do it for her every night for 20 minutes. Cari learned her lesson and in subsequent nights limited the dribbles to a couple of minutes before she retreated. :)

I'm not sure the sleepover was a great success as far as sleeping goes, but any extra time close to Cari is sure to make Rachel and Annie happy campers.

We read bedtime stories on the stairs one night and when Megan or Ryan called me away Rachel finished the story for Bevy and Annie.

It's always nice having a great reader around.

More fun to follow...