R&R Wrap up

What can I say? R&R was quite full this year! We really had an amazing road trip. I suppose that I’d best quit with this saga though, before I run into next year’s allotted space. Besides, I haven’t touched on the most important bit yet. This vacation wasn’t merely for fun on the road, the primary goal was visiting family, and we were able to do plenty of that too.

We visited most (not all, sorry :(  !) of Brad’s extended family as we made our way through Oregon and down the California coast, but after Monterey, we headed inland to visit the kids’ grandparents, and more family, for several days, after which we flew to Oklahoma to visit my sister and her family too. For the most part, hang around and visit is all that we did, and it was simply wonderful to see everyone again.

I have a ton of photos and I’m not going to share them all because unless you know me, you’re not going to recognize anyone anyway! I will share some of my favorites though.

Brad and two of my nieces demonstrating the ‘sit around and visit’ niceness of this vacation. Hi Rachel and Annalyn, we miss you!

Anna, Honor, and someone’s foot. Honor and Anna have always hit it off well, and we often see them like this, heads together and chatting.

All of the kids spent a ton of time swimming. I love this photo of Brian. I didn’t take it, so it must have been the work of my assistant photographer Sveta!

I also like this photo of Brian and his Uncle John. Brian loves to spend time with his uncles, and it’s no doubt because they are so willing to devote time to him. My kids are lucky to have such good family!

We had a wonderful time with Grandpa and Grandma too. Honor and Anna share a game of Rummikube with Grandma.

Honor missed our kittens, very much(!), and was thrilled to have Grandma’s cat, and her cousins’ kitten to love on.

Here’s my assistant photographer! Miss Sveta asked if she could take some photos for me, so I handed her my camera and asked her to please make sure I had a lot of good pictures of everyone. She did a wonderful job. Thank you Sveta!!

My sweetie and his brother. I am so happy that we got to spend so much time with Jeremy this trip, and even had time to get to know his girlfriend better.

As a matter of fact, we were able to get all four brothers together at the same time this trip… it’s always a blessing when that happens!

Speaking of getting everyone together, here’s a shot of Brian and Honor with all of their California cousins!

(To all my wonderful nieces and nephews – I’m sorry if I did not have an individual photo for you. I had to pick a handful… but if you ever want to share a story or photo as a guest writer on my blog, I will publish you because I love you and am very proud of you! Love you all, Aunt Connie)

After hanging out with the California cousins, the kids got to go torture their ‘big’ cousins in Oklahoma.

“Hurry Brian! I got him!”

Whoops! This is not going to plan!

Nick was very patient and they all had fun. It was actually tough to take clear photos as they were goofing off so much and moving too fast! I had a ‘matching scowl’ photo of Nick and Honor that would have been wonderful.. except for all the blur… sigh..

We went out to dinner several times with my sister and her family. Nick and Kira and to work, but we saw them when we could. We also spent some time conducting some classic expat business – school supply shopping, clothes shopping, replacing phones, etc. We also had our annual eye exam… we’re all doing pretty good, thank goodness, but we had to get two new sets of glasses for Brian. That kid is tough on frames! He takes care of them, but sometimes forgets to, say, not catch the soccer ball with his head.. that sort of treatment is hard on glasses!

Photos of the Oklahoma cousins:

They have so much fun together!

Nick and Kira – love you two also, and miss you very much!