2 Weeks of Vacations!

Our vacation marathon started with a trip to Bear Lake. My dad and his brothers had this great idea to have a giant family reunion with all their kids and grandkids. It turned out to be so much fun. Here are some of the highlights.

Here's my dad (on the left) with his two brothers.

The kids loved the beach.

My fun aunt decided that one of the all time favorite kids activities is an easter egg hunt, so she decided to do one just for fun, in June! She was right, the kids loved it!

We took a trip to visit Minnetonka Cave. (Notice Emma is still in the dress phase. We finally got her to put jeans on under a dress, but there is no way we could convince her to not wear a dress... silly girl)

Here's a picture of the whole group.

Then, we packed up the car and headed over to Canada for our traditional 1st of July McInelly family reunion. We always look forward to spending time with Jared's grandfather and love the small town feel of Raymond. Jared was raised making the trip to Canada in July every year and it has such special memories for him and his siblings that the tradition has carried on. As we drove and drove to get there, we talked about all the trips we've made before having kids, with babies, and now with our larger family. We've hardly missed and as we counted we realized we've gone back 7 out of the 10 years we've been married.

It was pretty HOT the first couple days, thank goodness Jared's sister brought this fun slip and slide for all the kids.
Check out the air Hunter gets with the help of his dad and Uncle Mike! Looks like fun to me.

Here is Jared's mom and his grandpa. He is 88 and never fails to amaze us as he jumps in lakes and even goes bridge jumping with us. He is always fully dressed in a cowboy shirt, jeans and a belt. It's a crack up.

The parade on July 1st. (waiting for candy...)

Emma ate whatever she got just as quick as it landed at her feet.

The rodeo is always lots of fun. Emma and her cousin Brody went down to the grass for a closer look.
We took a fun hike in Waterton. It gave us a gorgeous view of the town and I think the most exciting part was the chipmunks that were so incredibly tame.


They would come and eat right out of your hand. That was cool enough for most of us, but Jared and his brother Mat started trying to get them to come closer and closer.

We thought no one could top this .....

.... until Mat did that.

Cameron Lake is always a favorite spot. We took Jared's inflatable raft out for a family ride. The kids had fun playing on the dock and throwing rocks in the water.

Emma spent a long time trying to figure out what was under the dock.

She especially loved throwing rocks in the water.. what toddler doesn't?

Of course Jared always gets up early to sneak away for a fishing trip or two. No trip to Canada would be complete without it. He loves the thrill of catching Pike.

One of our favorite parts about visiting Canada is the chance we get to be around horses. Sometimes we all go riding, but our kids are content just to feed and pet them.

Both of my girls are horse lovers. These miniature horses were so cute and non intimidating even for little Emma.

Grandpa Bill had some horses out back that the kids could walk out and visit anytime. Emma woke up in the middle of night once and stumbled around the room trying to find her flip flops. I asked her where she needed to go and she said, "I want to go outside." I thought she must be sleep walking and put her back to bed, but in the morning I asked her about it and she remembered everything clearly. She explained that she had wanted to go see those horses out back.

Here are my girls going for a ride.

Hunter took a turn too.

Here are the kids with their Great-Grandpa Bill.

We are so grateful for him and the wonderful memories we have going to visit him in Canada every year!

Spectacular!

Monday night we took our kids up to Snoqualmie Falls.
It was spectacular!

We hiked down about a half mile to get a closer look.

Someday we'd love to stay in that hotel right at the top of the falls. (When we're rich!)

Tonight we got to do something completely different that was just as exciting! Linsey had her first piano recital. We've had several practice recitals for family and grandparents, but this was much, much different. There were lots of nerves involved and even a few tears. Linsey prefers to do things in her own quiet way and to get up in front of a large crowd was absolutely nerve wracking for her. But, she pulled it off and you never would have known what a hurdle it was.

Here she is just moments before the recital began. There was no flash photography during the recital so I don't have THE picture, but she got up and played her piece without flaw. She swung her legs back and forth the whole time she played, but never missed a note or a beat. We were so proud of her!

Here's the whole group. Yes, we listened to all 42 songs.

Hunter sure was a trooper. We got there early for Linsey to practice so all in all, he sat for over 2 hours. Emma did okay. :)

Ice cream at the end always makes it worth it!
Way to go Linsey!

A Laundry Crisis

I have a system for laundry. Everyone puts their laundry in one hamper in the master bath. As our family has grown, I've started to wonder if I should resort to separate hampers in the kids rooms, or a larger family one. I do an occasional load here and there, but typically I save it all up for Mondays. By Monday, the hamper is so full the lid won't shut. I start the first load before I head out for my morning run and I try to finish the last load before the kids get home from school in the afternoon. I fold all the laundry except for the kids stuff. Each of them have their own pile of clothes to fold and put away which they are expected to do before dinner.

Linsey doesn't seem phased by this task, she can fold her laundry and put it away in minutes. Even little Emma folds things in her own creative way and shoves them in drawers. Hunter however, really hates doing his laundry and in turn detests Mondays. If he ever sees me doing a load of laundry during the week, he'll ask in a panicky voice if it's Monday and the relief is obvious when I say it's any other day.

This past week, we were gone on Monday. It was Memorial Day and we were visiting the cousins. Not only that, but because of the weekend trip, we brought home a stuffed laundry bag of dirty clothes. There are almost 2 weeks of dirty clothes for 5 people stacked up in our poor laundry hamper.

Hunter walked in and carefully balanced his pajamas on top of the laundry pile this morning. He asked me, "What day is it mom?" I answered that it was Saturday. He responded, "It really needs to be Monday because the laundry is overflowing our house!"

This is true. The laundry IS overflowing the house.... HELP!
We may not make it til Monday.

Memorial Weekend

We love to take advantage of any long weekend by making a trip to visit the cousins in Coeur d'Alene. Memorial Day was the perfect opportunity to do just that. We loaded up the car early Saturday morning and arrived just in time to meet the cousins and get to Silverwood shortly after it opened.

Our kids have been pretty cautious about rides, but Linsey and Hunter followed their cousins lead and jumped right into those kiddie rides, loving every minute!

Emma was hesitant and didn't go on a ride until we found one that I could sit with her on. At first she wasn't so sure.....

but she ended up loving it and couldn't wait to try more. Phew.

Here was another favorite ride of Emma's. Linsey was kind to take her on it over and over.

Here is Hunter and his cousin Zach. They must have been having a whole lot of fun because they gave the thumbs up sign in almost every picture I took.

Here it is again!

That's my brother Chris and Gavin. The little guy must be a pretty crazy driver.

On Monday, we had a BBQ in the backyard. Why go to a park when they've got it all in their nice fenced in, private yard. It was perfect! The blow up water slide looks so small in this picture, but it was really quite spectacular.

Here Linsey is trying it out!

Hunter loves sand.

Emma could swing all day, I can't wait til she learns to pump herself!

These two are so fun to watch. They are such good buddies and play together so well. It's amazing that they never fight over toys or kick or hit, they just play and play and play.

This was my favorite picture of them.

We had a great time and love those long weekends with the cousins.

A Beautiful Day!

Saturday was the first real taste of summer. It was warm, sunny, and nearly perfect!

Isn't this the most gorgeous tree? I love it!

Havin' some fun in the sun!

So close to joining the 2 wheels club.

Jared hung a sheet on the back of our house and set up his projector in the backyard to create our own personal movie theater, drive in style. It was SO COOL! These pictures don't show it very well, but it looked great and the kids had a lot of fun!

Let's hope for a summer full of beautiful days just like this one!

No More Diapers!

I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I sometimes wonder if the skeptic in me and my somewhat realistic approach to life come across as pessimistic. I'm a planner and I find that I often hope for the best, but also plan for the worst (just in case). My mother always taught me, "if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is". I think she intended that more towards all those marketing scams, but I find that I've applied that to much more.

You can see how someone like me would have a hard time announcing that after almost 8 years, we are diaper free. It's only been 8 days, but really... knock on wood.... I think we did it! The first few days started out slow, but Emma has surprised us with her independence and even takes herself potty now.



Emma is so proud of herself and seems to walk with an extra skip to her step. It may just be that much more comfortable wearing underwear. Anyone who stops to ask her about it will get a proud show of those too.

Way to go Emma!

I keep waiting for a set back, and it may still come, but for now I am loving that I haven't changed a diaper since last Friday! Yahoo!

After a weekend putting up the playset...

Disclaimer: This is NOT my yard. However, I thought his was so funny that I had to share. Looks like it's a little more dangerous living in Alaska than I thought.

New Playset in Alaska

Gone Fishin'

Every year Jared likes to take the kids fishing at the Mill Pond lake just down the street from where we live. Many of you know that Jared has a passion for fishing, it's fun to watch as the excitement is passed on to our children.

There's nothing like the excitement of watching that bobber dip below the surface.

Start em' young!

Got one!

Linsey is our most daring when it comes to handling fish. I still remember the time she went on a preschool field trip and every kid got to catch a fish. Jared had taken her long before so she was well prepared, many of the other girls cried at the sight of their fish. She lifted her pole out of the water and the fish fell off the hook. There it was flapping around on the dock while all the other kids screamed and squealed. Linsey wasted no time and tackled that fish, catching it with her bare hands before it could flap back into the water. What a girl!

Emma feels a little different about touching fish.

Hunter has been timid in the past years, but this year he decided it wasn't so bad.

We look forward to this outing every year. It's fun to see the kids make progress towards being the expert fishermen and fisherwomen their dad dreams the will want to be!