Summer Fun!

For the past month + I've been meaning to update our blog, but the only excuse I have is laziness (hey, at least I'm honest). So, I'm pretty sure this entry will be a bit long so hang in there.
The beginning of July we went to Idaho for Dan's Wood family reunion and then of course to celebrate the 4th of July! We went up to Palisades (about an hour from Jackson Hole) and there was a big lodge and little cabins for people to stay in, don't ask about the showers please). The family reunion made it nice to see and spend time with everyone. It's amazing how much we missed family and Idaho! Yes, this is me Jessica writing this. I missed Idaho. As a matter of fact, if there were good jobs there for Dan, I'd totally be willing to live there. Dan has seven brothers and one sister. This makes for lot's of cousins for Mckenzie and the girl population is growing. There's now 5 girls (not including babybaby on the way for us) and if I counted right 15 boys. Mckenzie tried to follow the other two girls that are close to her age, but they weren't quite sure what to think. Mckenzie absolutely ADORES her oldest girl cousin Torrey who happens to be the same age,9, as her Aunt Bree.

(Can you tell this picture was taken the last night of the reunion? Everyone was exhausted!)
Left to right: Torrey, Mckenzie, Mary, Ellie, and Eliza

I don't know what makes me love this picture, but I do (for those of you who don't know, this is Dan's dad, Mckenzie and Dan).

For the 4th of July, we did our traditional stakeout for the fireworks show in Idaho Falls. I've heard that this show is the 3rd largest in the nation (next to of course, New York and Washington D.C.) and largest west of the Mississippi. We have a spot that we've gone to for 5 years now and we love it. It's right in front of where they shoot the fireworks off. We have to stake it out in advance and this year we had some trouble with people moving our stuff, but nicely took care of that. To make a long story short, we stayed the day at "our spot" and in the evening some of Dan's family came to watch with us. It was a stressful day at times considering the fact that I'm pregnant and Mckenzie is one and our spot is right next to a drop off into the river. But, all in all everyone survived and it was well worth it. We were worried about how Mckenzie would react to the loud bangs, but she LOVED it! She thought the fireworks were the coolest things ever. The wind was blowing some so we had chunks of left over firework paper landing on us (we've always had fun when this happens)! The only real downside is that I didn't get to meet Mitt Romney even though he came to watch the firworks and was about 3 blocks from me. Oh well. All is all, it was a great day!


This is extremely rare for us to see Mckenzie sleeping with so many people around. She loves to entertain and be entertained. She loves to watch people and know exactly what's going on at all times. To think that she actually fell asleep for a short while is crazy, but nice.

This picture is after we had been there all day and although tired, we were able to keep a smile!
We also went to Ross Park. It's a fun waterpark in Pocatello. They have a big kids area that has a swimming jungle gym (that's the only way I can explain it), a floating river, a lap pool and a slide. Because of Mckenzie's love for swimming and the water, I knew she'd have fun! She's our little fish.

Sorry about the spots on a few of the pictures. These were taken from our film camera and when I got them developed, the stores machine messed our film up. Sad, huh!?!