Unforgetable Labor Day Weekend

Today is Mike's birthday, so Happy Birthday to you! It was just after his birthday 10 years ago when we met each other the Internet. (If I remember right, it was September 5th). Both of us kept all of our correspondence and we have it in a binder for our kids to someday laugh at. He has all this week of on vacation, and we love having him home with us. Tonight we will go and celebrate, just the two of us while my parents watch the kids. The kids already presented him with BYU plates and cups (to be used mostly on movie nights). We love you Mike!

This past weekend was packed full of fun and as S-girl put it "we have had a sleepover weekend!" (they had two different sleepovers in three days).

The girls had a sleepover planned at my parents house a couple of weeks ago, but when everyone was sick, we had to reschedule for last Friday. S-girl had been counting down the days since the beginning of the week. She would come home from school every day and announce how many days there were until the sleepover.

Friday night, we took them into my parents house for the big night. This was really the first time I-girl has had a sleep over that she can remember at their house. This is a photo I took as we were driving away. I don't think they could have been more happy.

On Saturday morning, Mike had a meeting, so I went back into my parents and we went to a few garage sales. I came back to meet Mike for lunch, but the girls had not had their dollar store trip with Grandma and Grandpa to make their sleepover complete, so my parents brought them back in the evening.

On Sunday, we had planned to go to Utah County to visit Mike's family. Payson has their Onion Days celebration that weekend, and we thought it would be fun to take the kids. When the storm rolled in, we were not sure if we were still going to go or not. By about 6:30, we decided to go ahead and go. On I-15 in Salt Lake, we passed at least 5 accidents. We went really slow, and arrived in Spanish Fork just after 8:00. I was a little concerned about how the kids would sleep, but the actually did very well. I-girl woke up at 4:30 to use the bathroom, and then went right back to sleep. S-girl and M-boy slept all through the night.

The next morning, we tried to go to the parade, but we ended up getting drenched. The parade started at 10:00, and we were at the end of the parade route, so the kids were able to play with their cousins for quite a while until we left at 10:45 when the storm rolled in. The clouds were so black. M-boy got scared and started to cry really hard. That was when we knew we needed to leave. Mike's parents, his sister and their two girls, and his sister in law with her two girls all stayed and watched the parade (you guys are troopers!)

Here are some pictures of the parade when it was not raining. It was a good thing Grandma and Grandpa brought M & M's for the kids. They loved them!

I love the picture below. There are currently 15 grand kids in Mike's family, only 5 of which are boys, and 3 of the five boys are in one family! We of course have one boy, and Mike's brother who lives in Finland has a son as well. This girls love to get together and where they are all so close in age, they have so much fun together. There was one other little girl who was there, but is not in this picture. She was born a week after M-boy, so she was in her stroller when this picture was taken. There will be two more grand kids added in December, one girl and one boy.

This was taken right as it was starting to rain. I kept thinking, "Oh, this won't be too bad", but yes it was. It reminded me a lot of a certain day in March 2003 when we went to the zoo.

These pictures were taken right after we got everyone back in the car. You can't really see how wet they were, but they were soaked. It's a good thing Aunt Rachel was prepared for use when we arrived in our wet clothes. She had clothes to fit us all while I washed our wet ones. Thanks Rach!

M-boy had enough excitement for the day. He fell asleep on the way home.

After we left Spanish Fork, we went to visit Mike's grandma. On the way there, the girls fell asleep. Playing with their cousins had thoroughly worn them out for the day, it was truly a "labor" day for them. Mike's grandma is one of the most amazing women I know. It was so fun to see her and visit with her. We probably ate more than our fair share of her peanut M&M's, and I hope we left everything in tact!

It was a lot of fun, even getting wet at the parade that we didn't see. Thanks to Nate and Jess for the video of the parade, we felt like we were there, even if it "was so not worth it". After we saw grandma we to Mike's sisters that night for a barbeque. We love hanging out with Mike's family! Thanks for the fun weekend!