Dillon Lake

last Monday our neighbors, Mark and Leslie, invited us out on their boat for some tubing and water skiing! the kids soaked up every single second on the water before sunset. it was a magical evening!

have I mentioned before how lucky we are to have such incredible neighbors? chris has really grown fond of mark and they can often be found hanging out, chatting in the driveway. he is one of those guys that is incredibly knowledgable about most things and is very kind with his talents and time. we feel so blessed to have them!

we had an early dinner that evening and got to the lake around 6:00. so we let the kids tube and swim for a while. Owen and Charlie each had two turns tubing and jack and Ellie took one turn because they were excited to try water skiing for the first time! while tubing, jack and Charlie both wanted Mark to go as fast and crazy as possible to try and tip them. and he did!

we swam for a few minutes and had some pretzels before getting the skis out.

both Mark and Leslie are accomplished water skiers so it was really cool to hear them teach the kids how to do it. Leslie even let the kids use her skis that she learned how to water ski on over 50 years ago! 

chris had only done this one other time many years ago, so it was super neat to see him get up on his very first try! he is a natural. 

you can't beat the sunset in the background with the warm breeze... its one of those memories that i'll always be able to feel when I think back on.

Ellie was up next. she was so close to getting up all the way on her first couple attempts, and finally did it on her third try! beyond proud of her!!!

last but not least was jack, who is just like his dad and got up on his first go round! he immediately tried to go over the wake and ate it, but got back up for another ride.

the small skis ended up breaking and the sun was fading fast so we had to call it a night, with promises of another evening on the lake. Ellie and jack felt the exhilaration of trying something new & exciting and Charlie is really hoping for a chance to give water skiing a try. 

it was a real joy to hear Leslie and mark share stories of taking their daughter and now their grandkids out on the lake to teach them how to ski. it felt like a gift for them to not only share their stories, but also to include our family in their adventure. 

we saw Mark fixing the beginner skis the other night and have hopes for another trip soon!

the last of our visitors

Layna and kids, along with grandma and grandpa, stayed with us until July 16th! 

we mostly hung out playing ping pong, badminton, and Pokemon Go for the kids, and Mexican Train for the adults. One morning we ventured out to a local blueberry farm and picked 5lbs. they were delicious! we made a blueberry pie that turned into more of a cobbler with a flaky crust (that the kids got to cut out shapes and decorate the cobbler with)

its hard not to be more into bikes when grandpa Dave is around, he is the bike man after all!

after helping put together a couple small jumps in the backyard, he took the kids to a local bike park. this is all they think about now and ask every day to go to the bike park. 

jack has even started building a small dirt track in our backyard. so far he's done one wooden ramp, a small jump and is now working on a berm.

we put grandpa to work while he was in town. their bedroom had a small leak behind one of the walls that had traveled down into the crawl space below their room. so grandpa lifted the carpet and was able to replace the rotten wood and also fix the leak from the roof outside. 

Quinten and jack set a few traps in the creek and caught some minnows.

we also discovered some blackberry bushes right before they all left! the morning that grandma and grandpa left, Ellie and Lani made this silly video to text them on their drive for a little laugh!

it was hard to say goodbye to each and every one of our visitors. that's always the worst part of our summer vacations. but we made memories and strengthened bonds that will last forever and that is what keeps us going until the next reunion!

Browne family reunion 2020

grandma and grandpa Browne came on June 26th! it was perfect timing because the 27th was grandma's 65th birthday and chris celebrated his 40th birthday two days later on the 29th!

grandma wanted to have Raising Cane's for her birthday dinner since they done have any in FL.

she also wanted a chocolate cheesecake. she's a wise woman!

Alli, Jacob, Louie, and olive arrived on Sunday the 28th and Layna, Quentin, and Leilani arrived on Monday the 29th and we were ready to party!

chris had to work on his birthday, but got home pretty early. he, along with jacob and grandpa, put in horse shoe pits, which has been so fun.

that evening we celebrated with burgers and chris' choice of scotcheroos!

Rikki arrived on Wednesday and we were ready for a fantastic Browne family reunion! last year when we bought our house we thought it would be the perfect place to have everyone get together. we also thought our renovations would be done (HA HA) and everyone would be able to see our improvements... but we haven't started the majority of those projects. but we figured that the get together should continue despite the lack of renovations. fast forward to this spring and we worried that "the corona" would keep us from meeting. we left it up to individual families and those that felt comfortable traveling would do so. everything worked out! 

we sure missed Bo & Larissa's family in Idaho, Tony in Texas, and Andrew in Florida! next time we hope to get everyone together.

this wasn't really an official reunion, but we definitely crammed a lot of fun and adventuring in during the 10-14 days that everyone was here!

we had our first ever Browne Family Field Day

it consisted of:

the Cheetos Toss

Pudding Partners

Watermelon Eating Contest

Marshmallow Blow Darts

Water Ballon Toss/ Fight

Slip n Slide

Trampoline w/ Sprinklers

and

Snow Cones with grandpa

one thing that chris wanted to do with everyone was what he called a "wind blown photo shoot". he got the leaf blower out and we took slow mo videos of everyone getting their faces blown and contorted. it was hilarious! the videos are even better, but here are a few stills from each video:

another great activity we did was one of Jack's creation. He invented Archery Golf, which is similar to frisbee golf, but with archery. 

he would make up a new course around the yard each time we played. so you would have to shoot from one point to another and keep track of how many shots it took you to get to the last target and whoever had the least shots was the winner. it was very fun for the adults and the kids!

we didn't venture out much due to the virus, but one thing we did get on a couple different occasions was Fox in the Snow. its so yummy, we had to share it with the family. chris and Jacob picked it up one day for breakfast and then another time grandma treated all the girls.

grandpa always has fun things to do! besides daily fishing and/or biking trips (ok, sometimes several fishing trips a day were made haha), he cleared our stream for Foil Boat Races (Charlie was the regatta champion), helped the kids make their own blow darts, made kites with each kid, went to the park to launch rockets, and of course a nerf gun blow dart tournament (Jacob, Ellie, Owen and Olive's team won)! its safe to say that when grandpa is around, jack is in heaven... they are two adventurous peas in a pod.

we played SO MUCH BADMINTON! every evening after dinner you could find the kids jumping on the tramp with the sprinklers while the adults played badminton while grandma played DJ. perfect summer nights!

a lot of ping pong was also played, also with grandma being our DJ

we were able to have church at home with everyone, which was a highlight for me personally. Jack and Louie both gave fantastic lessons, jack on prayer one week and louie on the anti-nephi-lehi's burying their weapons the following week.

we visited Hocking Hills and hiked Old Man's Cave. Denise, Spencer, Evan and Blake met up with us for the hike. it was wonderful to see them and I loved seeing my Brower family mingling with my Browne family!

the drive there, everyone was crazy and dancing:

the drive home, everyone was wiped out!

after our hike I tried to win some "coolest aunt" points by jumping on the tramp with the sprinklers. not sure if I succeeded, but it was definitely fun!

Independence Day is a FAVORITE of our family! chris went all out this year with a tasty bbq and a great firework display! our neighbors and also Marc and DeLauna came out for the fireworks and s'mores, yum. the next day, Sunday, grandpa gave a very nice talk about Liberty, followed by grandma's testimony of the purpose of this country and what it means to her to be a citizen of this great land. after, we retired two flags. it was a celebration to remember!

pictures of fireworks never look as good as the real thing, but trust me when I say that chris put on an incredible show! plus, there were fireflies everywhere which made it extra special!

Louie, Lani and Ellie share a love of llamas. we have some friends in our ward with alpacas and chris, Jacob and grandma took them to feed them apple slices and play. some of the alpacas had just been shorn and were adorable!

Alli and Jacob brought Just Dance and most mornings the kids (and Alli) would spend a good hour dancing

we spent two different afternoons at two different rivers and had a great time floating, swimming, and hanging out in the cool water

other fun that we didn't take pictures of was many rounds of late night dice game, bedtime stories with grandpa each night, hiking at Flint Ridge, many meals with kids asking Google hilarious questions (followed by SO MUCH LAUGHTER), bread baking lessons with Rikki and Leilani, the list goes on and on!