Our last 12 days of fun!

12 days ago we finally got out of the hot AZ heat for vacation (and none too soon since school started one week later). It was 7 days of crazy fun and long car rides.

Eva looked like this for about 6 of the 28 hours on the road.

First it was off to Great Grandma Rissers for 3 days. I could stay up all night talking to Grandma and not even realize how much time is passing by. We had so much fun. One night was spent up at Aunt Syd's eating pizza on the beach and chatting in her home till we realized that we still had an hour drive back to Grandma's! Thanks for the yummy pizza Aunt Syd! We were also able to visit Uncle Gordan and Uncle Jeff and family in their homes. It was really nice to see everyone.

Bubble fun at Grandma Great's

Stopped here on the way to Petaluma

Then it was off to Petaluma (San Francisco area) to my family reunion. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Marilyn run a Christmas tree farm as do my cousins Carole and Chris. This was my favorite place to visit as a child and it was so nice to share this with my children. They had a blast running through the trees and playing hide and seek. My cousins have a bunch of different animals that the kids loved. It was quite a feat keeping Aaron and Hannah out of their pens! We had so much fun that we hardly got any pictures! After 3 days there it was back in the car.

We drove back to Grandma's and stayed one more night. I am so glad we did. Aunt Syd drove down and we had a fun sushi dinner out with her. No kids running around made for really nice, uninterupted conversation. It was a treat to get to know more about Aunt Syd! After dinner we got to see Uncle Gordan and Uncle Jeff again due to our famous trail of breadcrumbs that we seem to leave wherever we go. In the morning it was so hard to leave but the kids were already missing the first day of school. It was time.

Thursday morning Sariah, Aaron and Hannah went back to school. Ahhhhhhh.....a quiet home. It is amazing how calm Paul is when everyone else is gone. Not even Eva bothered him! Of course there was no time to rest. Hannah's baptism was in 2 days and I still hadn't begun preparations. So that night we were off to find her new white dress. She is such a fun little bug. The lady that was helping us couldn't believe that Hannah was eight. She kept bringing me these huge dresses that Hannah could swim in and commenting every 5 minutes that she couldn't believe that Hannah was 8. She actually asked me at one point if I was sure she was 8! pretty sure I remember the day I gave birth to my own daughter!!! We left the store with her teeny size 4 dress and a beaming little Hannah.

Saturday morning Hannah was baptised. What a day. She looked beautiful but more importantly she felt the spirit and made the choice to get baptised. How proud I am of her. As hard as this child is for us she is kind, thoughtful, shows no guile, doesn't hold a grudge, is so loving and fun. We are blessed to have her sweet spirit in our family.