Amx and Family Arrive!

Amx and Dave and Jack and Macy and Carly completed the reunion of 2015, pulling into town the day after the Hallstroms pulled OUT of town. Fortunately, Angie and her boys were able to stay with and visit Amy and Dave in Colorado on their way to Utah so they were able to see each other.

Carly and Macy didn't arrive looking like this, it takes some time to get dressed to the nines!
Some of the necklaces that Caroline has on were once Great-Grandma Ranquist's. And the fan Carly is holding Grandma Ranquist brought back from China decades ago. She would approve!

And ya' gotta have a photo driving the lawn mower with grandpa. In a few years grandpa might relinquish the driving duties and we'll see Jack driving all alone?

David at the oars with Macy and Caroline in tow. We spent a day at the newly created reservoir by Tony and Cindy's house in Springville. You can literally walk over to it from their house. People swarm to it from miles around. It is really cool!

Carly and Calvin in the impressive hole the kids dug! "Carly and Calvin" sounds so cute when you put it together! I've always thought that would be good names for twins.

Vivi enjoying the muddy squishiness!

Jack and Eli - all they needed was hard-hats because guess who did lots of digging!

Whitney and Carly - our chesnut-brown-haired beauties!

The teenagers! Lauren and Reagan with Brandon behind them looking like he's in stealth attack mode.

Lots of us relaxing on the sandy beach. If you look at the building in the background on the right, that's the Snow Shack where Reagan and Lauren both worked this summer.  (Lauren usually worked at another location downtown Springville), but that afternoon Lauren worked at the reservoir and made everyone the MOST deliscious snowcones ever!

Then we went back to Tony and Cindy's for the evening and tried our best not to track sand into every crack and crevice of their house from every crack and crevice in our bodies! Carly found this potato bug on the front sidewalk and spent a good 10 minutes gently guiding it around. She loves bugs!

This long shot is of Brandon and Reagan off to explore for a minute in the open countryside surrounding Tony and Cindy's home.

Then back inside where we had another sing-along with Amy joining in on the guitar - such talent!

 And speaking of talent, Jane (and Whitney) win the award for goofiest surprises on my phone!!

The evening ended with some arm wrestling and Brandon doing the refereeing.....

and comparing muscles (go Caroline)! I think everyone slept well that night, and good thing, because the next day we took a hike!

A member of our former Stake Presidency, President Swenson, had posted on Facebook that he took his grandkids to see the beautiful wildflowers in the Albion basin. So I googled it and it looked really fun! We had a fabulous time, and as you can see, it was POPULAR! Like Disneyland popular. Holy Moley! There was about a 45-minute wait for the shuttle, so..............

..............Dave took matters into his own hands and shuttled half our group up in their van, and then we had a ride back down too!

And here's Amx - A real photographer with a real camera. My photos are so lame. Sometimes I look at Amy's and think, hmmmmmmmmm, a camera!

The kids were playing American Ninja Warrior in the trees. Channel 5 carries that show and they've been off the air for a month while negotiating with Directv so we have been without Channel 5! that means no Ninja Warrior, no Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday mornings (yes, we're old now and listen to it) and horrors, no Thursday night football game on opening night. So Dennis went to Best Buy and found out he could buy an antenna for $12.99! And, of course, now they're back on the air. But now we have an antenna, too. I was wondering what would happen if they stayed in a stalemate and General Conference weekend came up. Glad it didn't come to that!

It was so pretty, all along the hike. Ray, Eli and Cal. I like Eli's shirt "I Can Do Hard Things" And that hike was kinda hard for grandma!

 Strong little Macy girl!

Andrea, Caroline, Andrew and Whitney right before they were beamed up!

"High on the Mountain Top!" - a shout-out to Joel Hills Johnson, your relative who wrote those words! Lauren, Jane, Jack, Eli, Brandon and Whitney atop the rock.

Finally, my three cute seven-year-old strawberry-blonde girls, Vivian, Caroline and Macy were together in one place! Their hair is seriously so close to the same color! And next year we'll have THREE baptisms!

And then add to the mix Carly and Whitney with their matching dark hair!

Reagan looking on as Macy swats a bug.

The flowers were gorgeous. The most flowers I've ever seen in Utah, in a wilderness area!

This lake was the destination spot.

 We ate lunch!

We had a great time resting and enjoying the view. A bunch of the family waded out to the rock. As you can see Amy is taking photos too (much better ones!).

And then more of the family joined them, with some getting in the water (although later we found out we weren't supposed to do that!).

Hopefully the watershed will recover!

The gang!

The cuties! Sometimes when we look at pictures of Carly she looks so much like Amy did as a little girl!

The hills are alive!!!

.............with the sound of grandkids!

Macy and Calvin with Grandma doing her best to take the selfie (I hate to even type that word, but, hey, that's what it was!).

 More of cute Caroline and Macy and slightly over-heated grandma!

One more slightly blurry camera photo of all the kidlets.

And here we are, back at the ranch with Dave and Jack playing, is it called fooseball? I don't even know what it's called! They play it the most of anyone else so I'm sure glad they come and use it!

It was so much fun going to church together! Sunday was a special day, and that evening Andrea was making us an exotic dinner and Amy and Dave went to visit grandma and grandpa Hiatt, and then it was time to eat and we had dinner, then went into the back yard and sat around chatting comfortably while the kids were playing in the back yard. And then, oh my heart, Jack fell off the slide and broke his arm. Just heartsick that it happened. I glare at the swingset now....I stick my tongue out at the slide. Amy and Dave rushed him to the emergency room, and then Alta View referred them up to Primary Children's where they were up all night awaiting surgery. Bless his dear heart. At one point later in the evening, Tyler and Jessica (Ranquist) and their new baby girl and little boy dropped by to visit, and I think I served them some strawberry shortcake, but the rest of it is a blur I was so worried about Jack. Dennis wasn't home when it happened, he was en route from Springville. Boy oh boy.

The kids posed for this photo before they went to bed and they texted it over to Jack at the hospital.

I had told them I'd tell them a Bloop and Bleep story before bed but I didn't have the heart, so Andrew, bless his heart, told them one for me! And then he led them in a prayer. Thank you!

The next day, mini-mama Jane had a mini-pedicure and manicure shop and did the girl's nails.

And then Jack came home and he and Eli actually played a game of chess.

I don't know how this happened to the basement photo arrangement, but I had to take a picture of them all askew, because it was exactly how I was feeling!! (Then Amy and I straightened it out).

And to add to the unfortunate situation, Dave's extended Huish family was having THEIR fun entire family reunion the next day at Yellowstone. I'm so glad Amy and Dave decided to go anyway (I hope the Huish family will forgive us for sending them kids with a broken arm and come to find out, a wretched stomach bug!). It always touches my heart when these kids leave, because Macy breaks down and cries. It's so sweet. Bye kids! We love you all! And hope Jack's arm is healing every day. XOXOX mom