More Vacation - The Dibble Side

We love visiting the Dibble Farm in Layton, Utah. It's been in the Dibble family for a very long time. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Elliot's Grandpa George Ralph Dibble was born in this very home.

Uncle Cleve and Aunt Barbara now live in this beautifully remodeled home and graciously allowed us to stay for a couple of days and accompany them to church. I loved them before, but they are even more endeared to me because I love it when people are so good to my daughter that she loves them enough to want to call them Grandma and Grandpa. Also, Uncle Cleve made us breakfast. Elliot totally jokingly asked him to and he actually did it. It was delicious. Also, Aunt Barbara is a saint.

We got to the farm pretty late after the reunion festivities in Lehi and then attended church with the Dibble's. I don't know what it is about being in other places and being comfortable enough to make comments, but Elliot and I both wouldn't shut it in our classes.

Sunday night most of the extended Dibble family members were involved in a patriotic musical performance by Davis High School. Here is Mary Ellen, Anna, Margaret, and Emma (Cleve & Barbara's daughters) singing. Elliot and I are both related to very talented people.

Emma directed the Dibble men (and others) in this little choir. Cleve asked Elliot to join them, but he was perfectly content as an observer and super happy to not wear a shirt and tie in that humidity.

Stella just learned how to blow her first bubble with gum. It's a little hard with regular gum, but she did it. My shirt was soaked with her practice spit.

Stella could not have been happier during this trip. She was constantly surrounded with cousins and great uncles and great aunts that loved on her that she was never, ever bored for a second. Absolute bliss.

I forgot to mention how much fun we had when we stayed at Aunt Ruth's house in Highland during the reunion. They completely spoiled and attended to Stella's every need and Rebecca even let Stella use her make-up and clothes to dress up in. Stella latched right on to Brett because we still quote Brett from his visit to AZ over 3 years ago (Stella hugged him goodbye and he said, in his very Brett way, "I don't know how to do this." It was very funny. You have to say it in his voice.). Stella got to play with the dogs, jump on the trampoline, watch a movie, ride the 4-wheeler with Uncle Kirk, demand everyone's attention, and laugh with us when they showed us some ridiculous YouTube videos (which Stella is still quoting). We love them!

Stella just read the Sunday comics for the first time. I had a hard time pulling her away from them. She wasn't laughing, but she did say they were funny. I'm sure she had to read them a couple of times to get it.

Stella had her own room upstairs and was quite pleased with herself for not falling out of the bed. She didn't fall out, but Elliot did find her practically standing next to the bed late one night.

Out the window you can see the beautiful art on the barn that Elliot's cousin David Dibble painted. He also did the color in the new movie "Rio." He's very talented. See, I told you we were related to very talented people. Maybe our children do stand a chance.

One more reason to love the Dibble family . . . they have ice cream every night. Enough said.

Anderson Family Reunion - Day 2 of 2

Day two of more fun, fun fun!

We got to play more water balloon volleyball. I stepped in with Elliot when Stella decided that she just wanted to fill water balloons and get people wet.

Aunt Linda's husband Allan dreamed of being the hula-hoop champion of the reunion.

Too bad Brooklyn already holds that title.

This was the awesome facility next to a church building that we got to use. It had a kitchen area, bathrooms, water fountains, shade, ceiling fans . . . it was fantastic.



We played more and more games by my amazing cousins Darla and Renae and ate more and more food by Shana and Mary! They all did such a great job! We did quite a few relays in our teams again and one of them was sitting on a balloon to pop it. It's so fun to see the little kids try to sit on a huge balloon because they can't pop it!

Stella had to blindly feed the cattle. I'm pretty sure she peeked.

Then she and some cousins cleaned up some cow pies! I've never seen anyone eat pudding as fast as Stella, so I knew she'd be good at this disgusting game.

Then they busted out the kiddie pools and we had more water fun. This is my adorable cousin's daughter Lauren. She looks just like her adorable Mommy Heather. :)

Then someone busted out this giant plastic sign (sort of like one you'd see in an outfield at a baseball game) and turned the water on it. It became one of Stella's favorite memories!

I think they were only planning on having it out for an hour, but Stella and other were on it for over 4 hours! She was exhausted and I was exhausted watching her!

I so would have been out there on the slide if I wasn't incubating. Robin is such a good Mommy. Stella took Rebecca down a few times as well.

Uncle Kim was the only "older" family member willing to bust up his knees to give us a good picture. He actually went down several times. I wonder how he felt the next day.

Then things got a little crazy with the human train. Those kids are nuts! I guess it was inevitable with the nutty cousins they came from!

Brooklyn was in her suit for a long time waiting for the water slide and then wouldn't go on it! Crazy kiddo!

We had another devotional and Uncle Kim read a short letter that Grandpa Anderson wrote shortly before his 90th birthday (just months before he passed away). We finished the night singing our traditional family songs, "One Brick At A Time," the orchestra song, hymns, and random ones that more than a few of us knew. My cousins have beautiful voices. I got a little emotional listening to everyone sing "Love At Home."

There's a lot of crazy in our family, but there is also certainly a lot of LOVE! Until 2013 . . .!

Anderson Family Reunion - Day 1 of 2

I can't believe it's been 2 years since our last reunion! My family was so excited to see everyone again and we weren't disappointed! Well, I guess I was disappointed that not everyone could make it, but it was still such a fun time!

The Clanton family was in charge of the reunion this year (my Aunt Linda) and I'm grateful that our family doesn't have to do be in charge until 2015. They did such a seriously fantastic job! We were VERY well fed and thoroughly entertained! I did forget to take out my camera on several occasions, or I was too comfortable to get out of my chair to get it.

Stella tried to get all of her injuries out of the way at the beginning so she could enjoy her cousins the rest of the time. Elliot may have rolled over her when they rolled down the hill.

Stella sort of latches onto the nearest teenage boy cousin that is around and won't leave them alone . . . at the reunion it was Joey LeDoux, at Elliot's Aunt Ruth's house (that's where we slept) it was Brett. She loves them.

Stella was a HUGE fan of the water balloons, both filling them and squirting them on everyone. She was, however, not a big fan of people squirting her back.

We played the newspaper game where we split into 4 teams and are given a pile of rolled newspapers to protect while we still try to run around and steal everyone else's newspapers. The last time we played this at the reunion, it got a little violent with my cousin Jeff twisting my arm and in turn he got caned by Grandma Lula.

They made some non-violent rules this year. I stole one newspaper from my unsuspecting Mother's team and Stella stole a few from our team (maybe I helped her) and was so happy. She had a few in her hands and wouldn't listen to my many prompts to just run back to her team . . . she wanted to get ALL of them! My cousin's husband Marty somehow stole ALL of another team's newspapers and while we all thought the game was over, he handed them all to me along with the rest of our teams papers. I thought that surely no one would attack a pregnant lady. Apparently that wasn't one of the rules because I was accosted by several young cousins coming to retrieve their stolen papers.



Stella had a great time playing water balloon volleyball with Daddy and actually did a great job! She participated in almost all of the games and ran around like a crazy lady which made it so much easier to put her to bed that night (even though it was very, very late).

I'm not a nag, but I may have yelled at Elliot for running on his bum flipper. He's not supposed to. You can yell at him too.

So Stella ran for him the rest of the time during the game Pip, Squeak, and Wilbur. She's pretty fast.

This is the only evidence that I was even at the reunion. I'm always behind the camera. Stella and the other little kids got to go on an Easter Egg hunt. Stella's heart rate didn't quite reach the same level that it did this year on Easter, but she simply cannot understand why we keep telling her to let the other kids get some of the eggs. She's really good at sharing them, but she absolutely has to be the one to find them first.

Hello Cutie-Patootie! Holy moly, this little Rebecca (Robin's daughter) was so incredibly cute! She just smiled like this the ENTIRE time! I love her! She was chewing on a water balloon and it busted on her and Elliot's chair and she just giggled. Seriously, so cute!

Stella ate the whole donut. I think Elliot had several himself. Also, a very detailed conversation about cake donuts vs. other donuts ensued amongst the family.

My Aunt Sylvia has been extremely sick over the last year and has been quite prominent in our family prayers. I was so happy to see her at the reunion this year and I think she looked wonderful! When my Grandma Rose Anderson passed away back in August 2000, Aunt Sylvia found all of these squares that Grandma had been keeping for so many years. I thought they were made by Grandma's friends, but apparently they were my Great-Grandma Amy Frank's friends that made them. How cute is that? They'd get together and stitch and trade squares with each other. Each square has a stitched name on it. Grandma Rose made this square.

Aunt Sylvia said that when she was done with her chemotherapy, she needed something to do and . . . voila! Here is this beautiful quilt full of history and healing. Aunt Sylvia calls it her healing quilt. It was actually really emotional as she was expressing her feelings for this project and I'm so, so grateful that she was able to finish this beautiful project.

These ladies crack me up! From the left is my Aunt Linda, Aunt Sylvia, and Aunt Loretta (Uncle Wally is next to them). One activity that I absolutely LOVED was when my Dad and uncles and aunts sat in a row in order of birth in front of all of us. My cousin Darla (who was in charge of all of the awesome activities . . . I'm sure she was exhausted), would give this panel a prompt from a story in their history. For example, "this person broke a sibling's arm." Then the panel would proceed to claim the story for themselves with a completely impromptu LIE . . . usually only one person was telling the truth and they would stand after all of the LIES were told.

Occasionally more than one sibling would stand up, like when the prompt was "this person slept under the table." I thought for sure it was just my Dad, but the 4 oldest stood up. My Dad's stories are so outrageous sometimes and Uncle Ned's stories were so detailed and my aunts are so tiny and innocent . . . I never knew who was telling the truth! My poor grandparents! (although Aunt Linda said that all of her stories were somewhat true . . . she just couldn't tell a lie)

We had such a fun day and Stella couldn't believe that we still had another whole day with them to go!

Teener's Bridal Shower

My cousin Christine "Teener" just got married last weekend to Ted Yeager in the Portland Temple. I'm so happy I got to go because I'm totally at my cut-off date of being able to travel. My Mom, sister Lindsay and I threw her a family bridal shower and had so much fun!

We had a beautiful spread of food (which I didn't get a picture of) and these cute mini cupcakes with wedding rings! Lindsay and Teener did a contest to see how many they could shove in their mouth at the same time. It was a poor showing with each getting a measly 2 cakes.

We took a break from eating for the moment (I say break because we made everyone eat again) to play Wedding Night Olympics. Get your mind in the gutter, because that's where we were headed.

We started out with Wedding Night Calisthenics. Put an orange in one leg of nylons. Tie the other leg of the nylons around your waist. Put another orange on the floor and thrust your nyloned orange into the other orange until you reach your desired destination. There was quite a bit of thrusting.

Lindsay stuffed her belly with a pillow so even things up against a totally pregnant woman.

Mom and Aunt Sandra both had 7+ children. They should have been pros at this game.

We moved on to Wedding Night Midnight Maneuver. Put an Oreo on your forehead. Without using your hands, somehow get that Oreo into your mouth. Hilarious. Also, harder than you think.

Savanna almost had it.

I did terrible.

I think Aunt Lora may have hurt herself.

Mom is funny.

Lindsay is the only one who got it in.

We went into the last round of Wedding Night Olympics with an eye's closed Pin the Kiss on Ted. Teener was pretty close and I promise I've never kissed Ted, but somehow I got him right on the smacker.

We finished up with Teener opening her scandalous and not so scandalous gifts and teaching her what a NOONER was. She'll appreciate that one.

Summer Sushi & Swim

I signed Stella up for my friend's kids art class this summer. She was so excited to go every time and even focused on her projects! She painted, made a clay fruit basket, learned how to draw a cute doggy, and made sushi out of Rice Krispy treats, Swedish Fish, gummy worms, and Fruit by the Foot. It was delicious. Probably the only sushi you'll ever get me to eat!

(my friend Liz is an amazing Fantasy artist and she's on my links: Lizzy D Fantasy & Fairy Art)

Stella also started swim lessons again and got her first pair of goggles. She didn't quite pass the class because she hasn't managed to do some sort of swim roll turn something or other on her left side. She'll probably master it in the first class when she starts next week and just have to keep practicing all of the other moves she already knows for the rest of the class. She's getting pretty fast at her forward crawl and is becoming quite the little fishy! And her swim buns are the cutest.