A visit with friends

We were so happy to have the M family come to stay and visit with us this month!

Steph and Mommy were roommates in college and have remained very good friends.  We were so lucky that it worked out for them to visit us this year since our families don't get to see one another nearly enough.

One night when they were in town we had some of our other favorite people, the A and M families, over for a BBQ (since all of the mommies went to college and were in their sorority together).  Somehow they have grown from a group of 4 friends to a total of 17 (soon to be 18) with husbands and children!

 The next day, after the sleepover with our friends, we took them to ... where else?...Happy Hollow!

We had to share one of our favorite places with them.

We think that they might have liked it as much as we do!!

Thank you, M family, for coming to visit.  We had such fun!

Tahoe with Friends

My girlfriends from college - I am so incredibly lucky to have each and every one of them.  We were friends then ... but we are REALLY friends now.  For those of your who are women older than 30, you know what I mean.  A good girlfriend is hard to find.  Six good girlfriends is pretty unheard of.  Now try 6 girlfriends who ALL get along.

So, these 6 grew into 12 as husbands were added.  And now, well now our group consists of 12 adults and 12 children.  We like to make crazy attempts to get ourselves together and "have fun."  Don't get me wrong, our times together are always good times ... but 12 kids is just, well, chaos.

This year we rented 2 houses in Tahoe in order to accomodate everyone.  It worked as well as we could have hoped.  I think we would all agree that we would have preferred to all be together in one house, but that is simply no longer possible without renting a mansion.

Without further ado, here are some of the photos from our fun/chaotic/family/friends reunion in Tahoe.

Our weekend started out like this:  Snow in the beginning of October(?)

Mia quickly fell in love with Baby Gavin.  I think she might have thought he was one of her dolls

Lunch for 24 at Rubicon's....

...followed by a tour at the Northstar Firehouse

Luke and Mia quickly learned that they are ipad deprived

Park play time

Hudson & Baileys' Dragon and Princess birthday party



And, what's a good party weekend without a little topless dancing at the end?

At the end of the day, how many girls can say that they have 6 good girlfriends?  I am so blessed to be able to say just that ... and having our husbands and kids form friendships, well that's just the icing on the cake :)

One last hurrah ... until October

The four families got together one last time while our friends were in town. We had a BBQ with lots of kids, lots of food, lots of fun, and some crazy bounce house jumping to round off the evening!

The kids' table


This girl LOVES to swing!

And I figure that someone has to carry on the Tri Delt hula-hooping tradition

BOUNCE!


Matching PJs as we head to bed


Thank you Darin, Steph, Ava, and Baby Gavin (who I didn't get one picture of, but is the sweetest baby and was the best house guest we've ever had - seriously, we hardly knew he was here) for coming to visit. We are so glad that our goodbye is only until we all meet in Tahoe in October (and add two more families to the mix!).

Happy Hollow with Friends

Of course, with Ava and Gavin in town we just had to take them to Happy Hollow. What fun to have Charlie, Jack, Aidan, and Bailey join us as well! To think that the mommies of this group were sorority sisters and roommates (and I swear it wasn't THAT long ago), and now we've grown into this group of families - pretty crazy!

A favorite: Danny the Dragon

Luke insisted early on in the day on riding the roller coaster again. He claims to "love" it, but when I review the photos and see the look of terror on his face, I wonder why he insists upon torturing himself. Aidan is LOVING it ... and Ava appears to be hanging onto her Daddy very tight (although she also claims that it was "fun").




Michael rode the Frog Hopper with the kids. I love the look between Michael and Ava - they've always shared a mutual adoration.

Holding-hand-girls and riding-with-Daddy-girls

Some of the boys just after lunch

SEESAW!

Carousel rides

Somehow this Mommy's least favorite attraction always seems to be the kids' most favorite ... feeding the goats.