We are Leaf Peepers

Its that time of year...the influx. I heard on the radio that there is an estimated 600,000 people that come to New England within a few weeks to be leaf peepers. This year was a little bit of a dud color wise (I think) but we still needed to see what that action is about being that we ARE New Hampshirians now.

We drove up to the North Country/White Mountains and it was a beautiful Saturday. I love day trips with our family. The kids and I made a plan while we were in the car for what we were going to do if this moose turned and charged Ryan.

And the award winning photograph by Mr. Ryan Jensen. (SOOC and I LOVE it)

Ryan and I LOVE this video. The more you watch it, the harder you'll laugh. Horrible video quality but it totally captured the reunion. Complete chaos...a million kids running around, stuff everywhere, and everyone just loving it.


"I got twenty pumps on this bad boy...what I need now is an explosion behind me!"

"Lilly, I NEED THAT GUN!"

Jay goes down...4x.

and Doug's laugh....A.w.esome.

(Thanks to Caleb for the nerf gun stash prior to leaving on his mission.)

So...

Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed. Certain moments come and I actually DO know the best way to handle a certain situation with one of the kids but I don't even know HOW to because I don't have enough arms/eyes/mouths/ears/time, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....

Great example this morning...we were on a "leaf peeping" excursion last night and kids didn't get to bed until 9:30 or so (usually 8:00) and so they wake up tired and needing some extra help with getting going/being happy for 9:00 church. Blake woke up a lot last night because he was off his normal routine so I was tired too.

The kids came upstairs and immediately Robbie flops onto the floor in utter despair because we are having hot cereal....AGAIN......for breakfast and he desperately needed eggs to survive in life.

So, I am thinking, okay, we have 40 minutes to get all kids dressed, eat, get something going for dinner, gather a few things for drawing during sacrament, load everything in the car and not get frustrated with the kids and be there 5 minutes early (cause that is our long term goal in life). And what Robbie needed me to do was pick him up off the floor and sit down on the couch with him for 20 minutes and hold him so that he could fully wake up and get some extra loves because he was a grouchy boy.

And so did Hallie.

And so did Aubrie.

and then Blake woke up and really needed to eat...

and Ryan was in the shower and unavailable.

and I am sitting there feeling a little like maybe certain parts of polygamy aren't half bad:)

No just kidding. I wouldn't go that far.

Well, the much anticipated Jensen reunion came and went. So fast. And now that it has been 1.5 months ago (as my usual time frame goes) here are some picture for posterity.

It was way too fun. And practically perfect in every way. (Is there anyway to just copy and paste someone else's post onto my blog (Amber...Laura...)

We spent the week at Lake Winnepausakee which is only about an hour from our house. It was a beautiful house with plenty of room for all the fun folks and lots of little kids. Great weather too. There were classes, book club, game night, movies, tubing, skiing, slaloming, wake-boarding, jetskis, 75 yard slides (My personal favorite), 150 foot swing out into the lake, bike rides, ride on the boat all together to get IC, great food every night, book reading, So You Think You Can Dance contest, tennis and ping pong tourneys, cousin activities everyday (archery, nature walks, crafts, etc), kids learning to ski, Girls golf outing, Boys golf outing, hottubbing, sailing, volleyball at Mitt Romney's house.....and I probably missed something else. It was a packed week but it honestly didn't feel like it. It was just F.U.N.!

I love to have family reunions--get away from life completely and focus on each other and have fun together, work together, learn from each other, etc. Some of my favorite memories growing up are family reunions and I hope that our kids will feel the same way.

Robbie loved the jet ski and being on the boats. Once he overcame his fear of the slide--he LOVED it and went on it another 25 times probably.

Aubrie loved the playing with cousins, the swing, just swimming around and archery

Hallie loved to be in the water in any form, playing with Paige and Lilly (all 3 yrs old) and the swing.

Now for the plethora of pictures (thanks to all who did an awesome job of documenting the week).













* Probably one of my favorite things we did...at midnight after all kids were in bed and most of us were headed to bed, someone suggested a nighttime super slide run. So we changed and all headed up to the slide. It was pitch black flying down the slide and out into the lake. But it was AWESOME. We slid down over and over, hid in the woods to scare each other getting out of the water/running up the hill, trying to see who could flip around the most times before straightening out to enter the water (or you'd knock your brain pan loose) and waking up every neighbor in a 2 miles radius. Loved it!!!

And this is how we all felt about the week
(fist pump...)