4th of July in Hermiston

For the second year in a row we spent the fourth of July in Hermiston at Emily's house. We arrived Thursday night and spent the rest of the weekend relaxing- we sat around, ate delicious food, and talked. It was heaven. Oh and there was a small inflatable pool in the backyard so the kids had a great time too. When you've lived in an apartment as long as we have, having a yard for a weekend is a luxury. Mark also came up with some of his kids from Boise. They are always fun to be around too.

 All the cousins! In a backyard! With an inflatable pool! My kids were in heaven!

 Also, a piano! It's so fun to hear Ben play and Teddy was loving it as well.

Friday we lounged around and went no where and did nothing but chat and eat. I read magazines and Ben got to read a book he'd been wanting to read since we went to the Virgin Islands (we both packed books on that trip that we didn't even get to crack open because we were constantly trying to keep our kids from falling into the ocean). 

Saturday (the 4th) we celebrated in good ol' Stanfield, Oregon. It's a small, small town by Hermiston that does a Fireman's breakfast and parade. I love small town holiday celebrations. Everything is simple and you don't have to battle the crowds.

Fireman's breakfast! Mark and Darren had done a 5K run that morning.

The parade is the best. Everyone who has a tractor, truck, four-wheeler or horse can be in it and everyone throws candy. Nayeli was loving it!

Ben teaching Nayeli how to charm the people into throwing you candy.

 Wearing the hat our neighbor Anita (Nana) gave her for the parade.

 Teddy in Ben's hat

With my siblings! I love them! Emily is 28 weeks pregnant with her fifth and she hosted us amazingly.

My sweet boy striking a pose worthy of a boy band photo shoot

 Emily and family

Emily and Gabe

Nayell with Derek, Emma and Ellie

 Get the candy!

Our nice shady spot- and no, the Playboy truck is not ours :)

We love the 4th of July!

Teddy was so dirty by the end after eating a mixture of dirt and tootsie rolls 

(I couldn't tell which brown was from which).

 

After all the candy she ate, I'm pretty sure this is the face Nayeli made all day.

After the parade, we headed home and relaxed some more. Emily had let all her kids pick a treat on Pinterest that they wanted to make. She made some delicious pretzels that she asked Ben to do some product photography on.

My name is Nayeli, and I endorse these tri-colored fourth of July jellos.

In the afternoon we did more pool time, with Ben and I getting in on the action.

Such fun cousins

We stayed Sunday to go to church, then drove home after lunch. We really had the best time! Thank you Emily and Darren for hosting us and feeding us like kings! It was wonderful!

Hermiston for July 4th

The greatest thing that has happened to us since we moved to Oregon is that my sister Emily and her family moved to Hermiston, only 3.5 hours away. Why is this so great? Because I love having family nearby. And it also means that since two of us live in Oregon, so many more are bound to come and visit.

Case in point: for the Fourth of July we met my sister Laura's family at Emily's house. Laura drove her 12 passenger van with 7 kids so we could all celebrate together. Because the place to be for the Fourth of July is Hermiston, Oregon, didn't you know?

Nayeli was dressed up so cute

Teddy (2 months), Nayeli (2 yrs), Gabe (2 yrs)

With my sweeties

That morning we went to a parade in a small town nearby. I love small town parades because they throw candy and everyone gets to be in it. My kind of environment.

Emily had bought all kinds of fun accessories for the kids to wear. Nayeli wore her sunglasses upside down the whole time, even after Emily tried to correct how she was wearing them. Don't get in the way of this girl's style, I tell ya.

Can't you see what a rousing parade this was? Ha ha.

We then went to a small carnival in the park. Nayeli and Ben made this flower pot at a Home Depot booth.

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. This is my sister Emily in a booth trying to catch money. Can you see her face? She was in heaven with money swirling around her :) She later told me she could have gotten more but she felt bad for the old man running the booth. Apparently they were losing too much money and had to close it down soon after Emily finished.

Laura's family arrived later that day and we went to a different carnival. Then we went back to Emily's to relax.

Precious (and mischevious) Gabe :)

Doesn't this picture epitomize a carefree childhood? Love it.

Nayeli with Adaline and Eleanor. We lit off fireworks before we watched them be shot off.

Saturday was so fun to hang out all together. We went and picked blueberries first.

We then went to swim in the Columbia River a little bit.

Ben's river selfie

Nayeli crawled into bed with me. I have so many memories of crawling into bed with my mom that this picture makes me happy. Even though I got kicked all night :)

The rest of the day was spent enjoying time with Emily and Laura's families. It'd been so long since we had been with so much family... we loved it.

Sunday we went to church with Emily and Darren then packed up and headed home. We found our new favorite stop on the way- the Bonneville Dam. It's along the Columbia and has a fish hatchery, salmon ladders, and large Sturgeon swimming in tanks. It was awesome.

See Nayeli? All smiles. We had a great time and had Emily and Laura's families both follow us into Portland for some fun at our house for a few days.

Random Summer Happenings

This summer has been so fun... and I have all sorts of random pictures of what we've done. So here they are, all meshed together.

This summer I quit my job in the ER at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. This was the picture one of nurses took of me saying goodbye. It's been bittersweet- I miss the people and adult work environment a lot. However I don't miss the night shifts or the drunks and psychotic patients. I think I'd had enough of those.

When Ben's brother Sammy came home from his mission we hiked with the Petersens up above Snowbasin. It was really beautiful.

However Nayeli got really hot and we ended up having to strip her down to her diaper.

This wasn't technically summer but I'll include it in here. We went to plant flowers in my Nana's yard for Mother's Day. She is 95 years old and still lives independent. She's one of my heroes.

A first for Nayeli- we took her swimming in her great-grandparents' pool.

She actually really seemed to like it. Maybe we have a little swimmer on our hands.

The fourth of July

When people see Nayeli there are two things they comment on: her big eyes and her big cheeks. This picture makes it obvious why those are the first two things they notice.