Carpenter Reunion: Hiking

We went on several hikes while we were all together, its a great way to get out of the house. I love seeing how pretty this world really is. We took TONS of pictures, but here are some of my favorite...

Just the girls (some of us) hiked Badger Mt. in Kennewick, WA.  it was only about 45 minutes, but had a great view of the city

A view from the top of Badger Mt.

While were were camping, we went and hiked around Lake Easton, it was an adventure, and soooo nice to be in a forest!

My family doing some sweet hiking posing

Jayne walking with Grandpa

A pretty butterfly

Just walking...

Jayne, Grandpa, Constance, Grandma, Morgan

Savannah with Lake Easton in the background

Jayners taking a break

There were a lot of different wildflowers, so pretty.

Dick and Terri in the wilderness

Just hiking

Bonnie and Joe showing how huge this leaf was, I think it's dinosaur food...

Max LOVED the hike, he was in a terrific mood the whole time

At the end of the hike we played at a park for a bit, then we didn't think the kids would be very great at hiking back to camp, to we squeezed into Lisa's van, I had five little girls on my lap alone

Darick and I would have hiked back, but we thought the camp might need some adult supervision with all those children :)

Next up, Jayne's Birthday!

Carpenter Reunion: Camping

We went camping for 3 days up in the Cle Elum area, by Lake Easton.  It was so pretty there, but sorta cold.  All of us were decked out in winter gear most of the time.  (well except for davids kids who claimed it to be "hot" outside)  The weather fluctuated between 49 and 61 degrees during the day.  We set up camp on Wednesday afternoon, there were five tents, but we were in the large group area, so our tents were all spaced pretty far apart. 

We all smelled like campfire, and looked pretty dirty by the last night.  We joked about who got to take a shower first.  Joe called dibs, but I said if we got home first, I wasn't going to wait for him.  Then Dick chimed in that whoever owned the house (him) got to go first. That actually made sense, but after him, it was first come first serve thing.  Then we started joking about leaving earlier and earlier.  Pretty soon we were going to head back at 4:30am (jokingly).  So we all went to bed the last night.  In our tent we had 3 sleeping bags.  Max and I shared one, and Jayne and Darick had their own.  Well, about 12:30am, Max puked in my sleeping bag, all over me and all over him (did I mention it was one of those mummy sleeping bags?) gross.  Anyway, it was a lot of throw up.  We got everything and everyone cleaned up and put Max in Darick's sleeping bag with him and I climbed in with Jayne.  About 10 minutes later, Max puked again in Darick's mummy bag.  So now we were down 2 sleeping bags in this 40 degree weather. Our extra blankets were in our sleeping bags, and were gross.  So we packed up our camp and left by 1:30am for the Tricities.  We got there about 3:30 am, crashed for the night, woke up in the morning and took LONG showers.  It was pretty funny when everyone else showed up at the house Friday afternoon, cause we did leave in the middle of the night!

Joe and Anna provided this awesome hammock, it brought lots of entertainment for the kids.  Pretty much the best camping gear ever. 

 Max loved camping, but I was nervous to let him crawl around with the fire going.  This child has no sense of fear, and loves to explore.

 We had some pretty terrific fires.

 Here's Dick and Terri, Darick's parents.  I just love this picture of them.

Here's Bonnie roasting her marshmallows on her 4 pronged bad a** roasting stick (her name for it, but I did agree, hahah)

 A look at the chaos

 Coconut marshmallows are amazing.

Jayne and Morgan enjoying the hammock

Next up Hiking!

Carpenter Reunion: Seattle fun

After the wedding, we decided to go see the troll under the bridge. It took us a while to regroup, and we almost decided to skip it. I'm glad we went though, it was fun to see, and I love me a good troll. I especially love the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, and the troll that lived under that bridge. This troll had some fun Guerilla Art going on too

 After the troll, we went to Pikes Place Market.  I love going there and could look around all day.  Darick doesn't like to shop though, and wanted to leave.  So we wandered around the market place for about 45 minutes and decided to head out.  But first I wanted to get a ring that I saw...

Here's how the purchase hashed out. 

Me: Do you have this ring in a larger size? (The ring I liked was smaller than the finger I wanted it for- my ring finger on my right hand)

  He replied in choppy English, heavily accented.

Man: Ring for pinkie finger only, not meant for other fingers.  Only smallest finger.

Me: I don't want it for my little finger, I want it for this finger  (points to ring finger)

Man: Let me see, let me see (grabs my hand) oh yes, I can make bigger, very small fingers, very tiny, petite, I can make ring bigger.  let me see (still holding my hand) you 5 and quarter.  I can do

Me: Well, how long is it going to take?  I'm only visiting, and I was just leaving

Man: I do right now, very fast

(He started to hammer away at the ring- ting ting ting)

Man: Ok, let me see (takes my hand, and slides ring on) Perfect, perfect fit. Very happy

Me: Can you make it a little loser?

Man: Oh yes, you want 5 and a half, very good can do, just one minute (tink tink tink)

Me: Thank you! (I pay)

Man: Very good

After the market place we drove the 3 1/2 hours back to the Tricities

Carpenter reunion: Nice day for a white wedding

Darick and I drove to the Tricities on Friday, the 10th.    We arrived to his parents house, and it was completely empty because everyone had already left for Seattle for his sister Lisa's wedding.  We unloaded most of the car, relaxed, played with the animals (a cow, chickens, dogs, cats, fish...)  Then we went to bed early, because we had to drive to Seattle in the morning.  We woke up at 5am, left at 6am, and arrived at our destination with 15 minutes to spare.  The wedding was suppose to be at 10am (the invite actually said 11am, but we didn't have it with us- so we were wondering what was going on) , but didn't actually start until11:30ish?  The wedding was held at a park, it was a super pretty setting, however I think they were flirting with disaster planning an outdoor wedding in Seattle.

 Here are the Kids coming in.  There are 3 boys and 3 girls so that worked out perfectly.

(Justin, Sarah, Emily, Jacob)

Then came the Bride, Lisa

(Dante, Constance)

 Here they are getting married

(David, Lisa)

 Here's the new Oberstadt family

He had 3 kids, and she had 3 kids

 The happy couple

 The siblings and Dad

 Lisa and her dad

Max and me, just to prove I was there.  Had the wedding been at 10am, as planned, I would have had perfectly behaved children.  But they waited nearly 2 extra hours to start, so Max was ready for a nap.  He was grumpy and fussy through the whole thing, so we just wandered around.  Basically we drove for 14 hours, and I missed it.  Oh well.  Next up, our adventures in Seattle.

Carpenter Family Reunion

Darick's Family had their reunion last week.  We traveled all over the State of Washington for various activities including a wedding, camping, a birthday bash, baptisms, hiking, and shopping.  This week will pretty much be spent recovering, unpacking and blogging.  First I think I should introduce everyone, then we can get into the details of the reunion tomorrow.

Here is the whole family.  We only have one person missing, a grand kid.  He was still in school.  Apparently School goes til the end of June in Seattle.

Here are the grand kids

Just the siblings with the parents

From right to left

Darick, Brandon, Dick (dad), Terri (step-mom), Lisa, Anna, Bonnie

The Boys

Darick, Dad, Brandon

The Girls

Bonnie, Dad, Anna, Lisa

Anna's Family

Terri, Dick, Anna, Djadyn, Joe, Dallin

Alex, Savannah, Kenzie, Morgan

 

Brandon's Family

Dick, Brandon, Katie Bell, Kim, Terri

Taylor, Mathias, Macy

Darick's Family

Dick, Terri, Sharon, Jayne, Darick, Max

Lisa's Family

Dick, Emily, Lisa, David

Constance, Sarah, Jacob, Dante

Dick, Bonnie, Terri

May Washington Trip

I went to Washington for a week at the end of May.  It was pretty great.  It was the longest I've ever driven by myself.  I didn't have another adult in the car that is. I had both the kids.  They were good travelers.  I went up to see Wicked with my sister Rebekah (read about it on her blog).  We went thrift store shopping, to the park, sewed a little bit and basically just hung out.  I got to see tow of my sisters and their families as well as my mom and dad.  It was a pretty great trip, here are some pictures from it.

Max with Rebekah

Shavonne with Max

My dad with Max

My mom with the kids

My dad and me

My dad and Jayne

My mom and me

My dad and Max

Kristen (Rebekah's daughter getting ready for her last soccer game)

Baili (Rebekah's oldest kicking the soccer ball)

We went to the Lilac Parade in Spokane, It's a pretty huge parade with like 250+ floats.  It doesn't start until like 8:00pm, but I love parades so it was fun for me.  I feel like a little kid sometimes, cause I love to wave at the people in the parade. 

Jayne fell asleep on Shavonne, it was cute but I'm sure Shavonne was pretty uncomfortable cause she's 5 mo. pregnant in this picture and Jayners is laying right on her tummy.

Towards the end of the parade there was an army of DeLoreans that came driving by.  It was pretty awesome.

After I spent a week with my family, I went to the Tri-cities to spend time with Darick's family.  I didn't get any pictures (grrrr!) but they were fun to see too.  When I left from their house to come home, I ended up making a wrong turn and went an 1.5 hours in the WRONG direction.  I get turned around really easy when I drive. :(  So I had to turn back around, and instead of driving 10 hours to get home, I spent 13 hours driving.  It was the worst!  I'm still not quite sure what turn I did wrong...anyway, I've just been recovering from the trip, and trying to prepare for our next one (we're leaving for Darick's family reunion on Friday!)  so that's why I've been so quiet here in blog land.  Summer's are always so busy, and this is just the beginning!