Are we having fun yet?: family reunion

E is deathly afraid of Uncle S. Maybe because he is constantly growling at him. He cries or gets nervous when he sees him coming. E was having a great time bouncing on the bed and being lifted wild, but once he knew it was Uncle S doing all the work behind him, big sad face.

T and W have been having fun making "Phooey" soup. They put all their plastic burned out glow stick balls parts in a bucket and dumped it down the stairs over and over.

T and W had some good quality Grandma time at the park playing squirrels eating pine nuts. T brought his sister W squirrel lots and lots of nuts that she threw "overboard"

E loves being outside with trees and plants. He walked a total of 1/4 mile today on our hike up the mountain.  We pointed out some red flowers and he found some more of the same and pointed them out to us. He hiked with Grandpa holding one end of portable fuzzy, E holding the other and E holding Grandma's hand. T and W made dust with their sticks down the mountain. W didn't want to go hiking initially because "hiking to me means walking in lots of sticky mud". Not here, my dear.

We put huge 70's style sunglasses on E and it looked so funny we laughed. So then he wanted to put the glasses on over and over so we would keep laughing. He likes cheering us up.

W and Grandpa drew lots of pics of the past few days.  Lots of blue sky, sun, trees and this house.

T has been into making dust. He spent about 4 hours with the broom at Grandma An's making dust, "just like a steamie". He also cleared some dirt to make maps and even made a map for E to draw "which pathway is safe and which one is a snake pathway"   When I drew my map, he told me, good job, Mom!. While we were at Grandma An's we got to sleep in a camper for the first time. They loved it, especially the little bed up above the driver's seat

When we went up to the family reunion, he spent lots of time with Grandma Kim making roads and dust with the toy cars in the back. They made parking spots, roads, a bridge, a train tunnel and shed and rocks with W, E and T initials on them. There were also parking spots for each vehicle. W and I went out later and made bridges to islands of tree stumps. One time T was driving "runaway steam roller" over the bridge and the bridge collapsed. Perfect! Run away steam rollers are supposed to flatten stuff.

A few things that have made my mom laugh, but might be a bit of "had to been there's". T likes to be modest, but he often forgets how. He went into the bathroom to change into his swimsuit, but lo and behold. He left his swimsuit half way across the house so he walked out of the bathroom ready to put on the suit and ran through the house to go get it. Mom thought that was soooo funny. Another time he went in the bathroom to change out of his suit and told Mom "grandma. Don't look at me!" but then asked grandma if she could hand him his clothes and threw the door open wide to retrieve them.

E is very attached to his portable fuzzy. All of life's problems are solved with fuzzy. Except possibly one dilemia. We were all headed out to the car and his fuzzy got caught on the staircase edge. My mom says he stopped to look back to dislodge the fuzzy, but couldn't. He had a look of panic and saw his siblings loading into the car and decided he should beeline it to the car instead, but had a look of pain of leaving his fuzzy. She says he looked so torn. But he chose family and mommy over fuzzy. Now I know E's true devotion.

We went on a power boat ride. T and W were not too impressed. When I told them to get their swimsuits on, T said to me "Doesn't grandma know that we like ferry boat rides and not noisy motor boats?" After getting off the boat, I asked them if they liked the boat ride. They both nodded yes. T probably liked it because Uncle S let him steer the boat for awhile. W said yes, but she didn't like it when Uncle S tilted the boat sideways because she thought that the boat was going to sink and it made her feel nervous.

E was also not a fan of the power boat. He HATED his life jacket. He couldn't quite reach his arms around it to suck his fingers or rub his portable fuzzy on the bridge of his nose. He was trying to stand up and walk and just fell flat on his back. He finally gave up and took a nap for the duration of that ride. Grandpa liked it! We went to Emerald Bay and checked it out from the boat. I liked being close to an island that was so far away to me as a kid when we would hike down there. I chickened out and didn't swim in the freezing beautiful water to hike to the top. Oh well. It was memorable.

I think something that might turn into a bit of a story for a few years. There we were trying to eat dinner. A wasp decided dinner was really good and was trying to sample from everyone's plate. So Uncle R tried trapping it with a glass, but barely missed. Uncle S smashed it with his bare hands instead. We all screamed. T commented that the "bee got dead". E started screaming after the fact because we all screamed and jumped back at the same time.

My mom got my kids glow stick balls. That lasted a night. But they have had so much fun with the sticks ever since. Grandpa put the ends on one of the sticks and called them flowers. W has been making them into daisies. Or spiders. And of course they used it as phooey soup. But another cute thing is that T put the "daises" in the top of a toy that he calls the coal machine and said to me " Mom! Mrs. Good Dedo gave me these flowers and put them in my coal machine so they could grow. They grew so big they KNOCKED over my coal machine!"

E sniffed the pretend glow stick flowers just after Grandpa made them and made us laugh.

E had a stinky diaper while we were eating dinner. Dad was making comments about how stinky it was while I was letting him finish. Finally he said "that fan is USELESS!" because E's stink was filling the room even with plenty of ventilation.

The big kids were playing "phooey soup" early in the morning. Just as Uncle S started to walk up the stairs. T totally beamed him in the head with the bucket. Uncle S came up and started rough housing the closest kid, which happened to be W. She started screaming in real fear because he was being to rough and she was upset that she was in trouble even though she had told T not to drop it right then. Uncle S said that's what you get for hitting me in the head. It was pretty funny. I don't think they could have done that if they had planned it.

We went to an education center about the lake. We had a blast laughing about the voice of the fish on the games they had. Grandpa can do a perfect imitation of "I'm a...... non native preditor"

S brought a huge island style floatie. It looked the size of his sedan car he has folded in half and tied to the top of it. T and W loved to float on it and jump on the webbing. They also liked paddling it with their noodle floaties. S called it Pingu island. Except they didn't want to swim to it because the water was too cold.

There was a big wagon that the park owned and lent out to patrons to bring all their stuff from the car to the beach. T LOVED it. He wanted to be sure he was there to fetch it and to pull it loaded with stuff

We took them star gazing on the end of a dock. They liked it and came home tired and calm.

W was upset in the bathroom about something, but her bro helped her out. "I think I know what W needs. She needs company while she wipes her bottom" He was right, but it made Uncle S laugh.

I took W shopping with me and had her use T's booster. She informed me she liked her car seat better.   I asked why. She said she liked how the cool sheets of her car seat helped cheer up her fingers from the coolness and how it makes a soft noise that cheers her up. So that is why she likes to feel her sheets.

They have been pretending the bubbles in the bath are bug repellent.

T saw Grandma go float out on the lake with her inner tube. He called it her kayak. She also brought a pool noodle. T said "grandma, here is your paddle just in case your kayak runs out of gas" I guess they had been pretending that out on Pingu island.

Grandpa's favorite part was driving wild to get to Emerald Bay on the power boat with "S as the skipper. It was so exciting I had to close my eyes for most of it and hold onto my hat". Grandpa's second favorite part was everyone working together to clean the float, even E"

R's favorite parts were snorkeling in Tahoe, especially off the boat where you didn't have to wade through rocks. That and the awesome bike ride with the teepee.

S's favorite part was "floating on that big party barge". And tandum paddle boarding. Aunt K didn't like the tandum paddle boarding. Not one little bit. S says it went like this "stop it! you are going to throw us in the water" while he is laughing hysterically at her yelling this. He also did wheelies on the paddle board. Aunt K liked hanging with the niece and nephews, especially E.

T's favorite part was driving the boat. Or maybe scaring Aunt K from the behind the bathroom door. He chuckled quite a bit when telling me that story that night.And going on the "stick hike" picking the right "pathways" and making dust.

E liked playing "coal" with Grandpa every day before nap, emptying and filling a bucket with rocks.

Grandma liked "hanging out" aka feeding the troops and keeping us on schedule.

I'm not sure what W liked. Probably going shopping with just Mom. Or climbing the tree just next to the float launch. Or avoiding Uncle S. Or taking care of baby E, giving him his fuzzy when he wasn't able to avoid uncle S.

It took us half of a week to convince T that we were just borrowing the house and that it wasn't Grandma's actual house. He really wanted Grandma to pull out the red wagon for him to play with. When we finally got back to Grandma's house, he was pretty convinced someone else had been borrowing it while we were away.

entering california

entering cali

E likes balls. Grapefruits are balls

E trying to make dust like T and W

playing "make dust"

Playing gate. W had to give T an appropriate amount of "money" (rocks) to get the gate to open

It still amazes me how skills just turn on. E gets opening and closing containers and putting the ball in the container

Grandpa's favorite moment. Everyone working together to clean the island. Even E

T playing make dust, fourth hour

T pulled this himself to the beach. Wouldn't let anyone help

W in the stack of tubes

Grandpa supervising

E throwing rocks in the bucket of water. The water was too cold to actually play in

Aunt K and W ready for cast off on Pingu island

Grandma and T ready for sail

W putting T in the stack of tubes

One of the rare times E let Uncle S near him. In Aunt K's arms with fuzzy and Uncle S could touch him with fuzzy only. There is a video of this

The sunset with E and Mommy

T played roads almost every naptime as his option. It started with Grandma. We also went on a hike as T's choice of activity so he could draw lines for the "correct pathways"

Uncle S and Aunt K

E really hated his life jacket. Tried to stand on the dock with it on and fell flat on his back. Good thing his head was padded

I think we were going 45 mph about here

Maybe 60 mph here. one of Dad's favorite moments

Uncle R helping make a dock for dump to drive out on and park. T wanted the rocks just so the road to the dock was flat

T and dump

Grandma and W

How can we possibly be with Grandma and Grandpa and not have some spa time??!!

Pingu island folded in half. A perspective on how huge this thing was.

E slept through the boat ride. He was confined in the dumb life jacket and had the constant loud hum of the boat ride, so he fell asleep in my arms. E being held by Mommy while passing Emerald Island

E woke up when we stopped

Normal happy E with that dumb life jacket off

Another rare time of E with Uncle S. Mommy is holding on to him and he has fuzzy. Distracted by the steering wheel

Buggy

One of T's favorite moments of the trip. Driving the boat. The kayaker was very leery of us. We were weaving all around him. He kept paddling for dear life to get away, but no