Labor Day Gibbons Family Reunion

So one week into school and we already had the girls miss a day. But it was for an awesome adventure. The Annual Gibbons Family Reunion over Labor Day! Tyler's parents were in charge this year so we wanted to go to support them, so we made a quick trip to Utah and back over the long weekend. The girls were very excited to see all their cousins and to go camping.

We drove a new way since we were coming from El Paso and we went through some really pretty mountainous areas of Colorado. We saw this little tunnel, but wouldn't even let the girls look because we didn't want them getting carsick. We went through the quickest, tiniest switchbacks I have ever seen, but luckily the girls slept or kept their heads down resting through all of them. Once in our camping area, outisde of Vernal, we saw and heard lots of wildlife. We got pictures of these deer right next to our eating area and we heard lots of coyote howls through the nights. Tyler was convinced he heard sniffing near our tent the first night, but he couldn't find any tracks in the morning so we hoped it was just his imagination from all the howling we heard.

 It got pretty cold and it even rained quite a bit, so Taryn spent the majority of the weekend wrapped up like this. Luckily she didn't seem to mind and she didn't even fuss with the hat that snapped under her chin. Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons had a few trailers, but we toughed it out in our tent. We stayed warm by sleeping all close together and wearing multiple pajama layers.

  Cousin Andrew brought his newest birthday present - his go-cart. He spent a lot of time driving all his cousins around the campsite. He even gave some of the adults a turn. Tyler thought it was fun too and I was able to get pictures of him with each of the girls. (I even had a turn driving while all the boys were away and it was so much fun!)

 There were other toys that grandma and grandpa brought to entertain the kids and one of them was this blow up body ball. The kids loved getting inside and trying to walk around in it. Unfortuantely the ground was too rocky and pokey so we weren't able to roll the kids around while inside. 

 The kids loved playing with all their cousins and second cousins. They didn't even need too many toys. They found a little stream all on their own and spent many hours playing here together. I found them one time so I could get some pictures.

 With all the rain that we had, we were excited to show the kids the rainbow that finally came out. It even had a faint double rainbow that you can't see in the picture. Trying to get the kids with the rainbow was kind of hard. They were so far away, so I got a closeup too, but then you couldn't see the rainbow.

 Aunt Joyce passed out adorable crocheted headbands and hats that she had made to all the little girls. They loved wearing them and they were so cute! 

Even with the rain, the cold weather, and the long drive, we were so glad we went. The girls talk about how much fun they had and we always love seeing our family.

End of Summer, Beginning of School

So before I head into our vacation weekends, I want to finish off our summer. First, to go back a couple months, we had a ward activity watching fireworks on the fourth of July. I got a friend to take a picture of our whole family. Tessa was sad because she wanted to take the picture, not be in it, but oh well, it's the whole family at least.

We spent many evenings at Chuck E. Cheese, usually when Abby was asked to play at a friend's house, and this was the activity Tessa and Aubrey chose to make up for the fact that they couldn't go play too. They had a lot of fun every time we went.

Grandma and Grandpa Black came to visit for a couple of days and they bought the girls new school clothes. Of course the girls talked them into pretty dresses, and how could we pass up coordinating ones even for the two who aren't in school?!?

Tyler's work had a family day, so we were able to spend the whole day with Dad. We went early in the morning (it was good practice for school) and hung out at his office for a couple hours. The girls got their eyes checked and then we went to a park for their festivities. There was yummy BBQ, jump houses, a water park, face painting, balloon animals, free popcorn, snow cones, and cotton candy to name a few. Basically everything you could think of for a carnival. It was so much fun!

 I think the water park may have been the girls' favorite. Abby was a little sad that her face  painting washed away, but she talked us into standing in line again to get new ones before leaving.

 Abby lost her second tooth during the summer. It was pretty funny how it came out. The girls had friends over and they were dancing to music. Abby came upstairs and said that her tooth was out and that Aubrey had punched her while they were dancing and that knocked it out. She was happy about it and very excited to leave her second tooth for the Tooth Fairy. And she was even more happy when the Tooth Fairy left her an actual dollar bill instead of four quarters this time. 

 While grocery shopping, we came across these monster pinatas. They had dozens of them out so we had to take some pictures showing their impressive size. It was crazy how huge they were. 

I took a picture on my iPad for a new wallpaper of all four girls and I really liked how this one turned out. It's become one of my favorites, especially because of Taryn's adorable smile.

 And with that, the summer ended all to quickly, and the new school year began. Abby and Tessa were both excited to start school and Tessa did awesome on her first day of Kindergarten. We'll have more thorough posts in the future about their school years, but here's at least a first day picture of my two school girls.