The Vacation Continues

Ciarra and the kids. They had so much fun with her. What a good mom.

Loved this one of Ronan

We had a breakfast at the restaurant Eva owned by some family. If you haven't ever tried it check it out in downtown SL. The food was excellent.

All the beautiful girls cousins.

The Ratchford boys and their Ma

Saturday night we all went to the Real Game together it was loads of fun.

Another cute one of the big girls.

So the rest of the week went something like this. Wednesday we got a babysitter and took the night out and went to the Gateway and to dinner. Thursday Lagoon...all day. I mean it we were there til the park closed. Friday we had a girls trip to the outlets in Park City, then the boys went out to a movie. Saturday finish up bits and bobs then they were off. The rest of the day is when I laid around and didn't do anything for hours. How can we figure out a way to make Ireland and Layton closer? Someone work on that for me.

Arrival of the Irish

We had the best busiest two weeks with Dave's brother Stephan here with his family. It was jam packed with lots of activities and family. My houses was home base and they also visited Preston, Vegas, and Boise. It is not very often that we are all together so we saw lots of other family while they were here. We had so much fun and loved having everyone.

These pictures are a bit out of order but here is a run down of the first few days. The three brothers and family went up to Preston and stayed at the Becksteads, my sister in laws parents. It is like being on a farm with the horses and 4 wheelers the kids and big kids were in heaven. Then we came back down to our house and had a huge family reunion.


The girls in their "house" at Little Flippers. This was a perfect location for a big party like this. Especially in this heat we couldn't have made it at the park very long.

This the Ratchford brothers and sisters for those of you who here us talk about these guys all the time. Pauline, Elaine, Davy, Stephan, and Garreth. Pamela couldn't make it. Just imagine Pauline with blond hair, they are twins.

We had everyone go to the park first and take a huge family photo since we are never all together.

The boys

Here are our guests. Stephan, Ciarra, Breen, Saiosa , Mueren

All of the relatives

While in Preston we went to this really great fair for the kids. Every booth had a game with a piece of candy. You can't go wrong with that. The kids also got to ride the rodeo queens horse.

Feeding Blue the horse.

Here is Ciarra, Saoisa and her sister Sara that also came with them on the trip to America. Sara who is 15 said, "everything is better in America, the houses are better, the cars are better. etc etc" We forget how spoiled we are in America some times.

All the kids before the Preston Rodeo

I have some great quotes from the language difference.

Leah, "Are my Irish cousins coming or my regular cousins."

Eva to her friend the day after or Irish visitors left, " It is RoNAN, not Ronan."

Mueran my niece, "What do you's call crisps?"(chips in Ireland). Me, "we call them chips." Well then what do you's call chips" (french fries in Ireland). Me, "we call those fries." What do you's call beautiful?" Me, "well we say beautiful too."

Ciarra asked me do you cycle? Yes I have a bike in the garage. She laughs. What she had really said is do you recycle but with her accent I couldn't understand her.

The Hilllllls are Alive with the.....

This last weekend some of my girl friends from High School went to see Sound of Music in Logan. Our super talented friend Vanessa is the lead playing Maria. As little kids her and I were the kids in the High School production. It is still some of my best memories from being a little kid. It was so fun to see her perform as Maria. The next morning we went to breakfast at Crumb Brothers which if you are ever stopping in Logan you have to go it is an amazing bakery. I love seeing these girls and catching up and reliving the old days.

Snowbird Weekend

The best part of an awesome family vacation is when it is free. Dave's boss hooked us up with a 2 night stay at Snowbirds Cliff Lodge. It also came with activity passes and free breakfast. The hotel is so nice that we had enough space in our adjoining rooms to invite the other Ratchfords up to stay with us. We felt like we were in the Alps. It is just gorgeous up there.

The kids loved this pool and I loved the 3 hot tubs.

Bungee trampoline was a blast. We managed to get in line for this first thing in the morning and didn't have to wait in the really long line later in the day.

All the kids figured out how to do flips and thought they were hot stuff.

Kay so I thought I would try this and then was so winded after 10 minutes of jumping around. I attempted a double flip and sorta landed on my head. I am too old for this.

We bought lunch and rode to the top of the mountain on the lift. It was much colder up there and there was still a little snow in spots. And the views were breathtaking.

On the tram riding up.

The Garreth Ratchford family

Mechanical bull always a great laugh

Rock climbing all of the kids thought this was really cool to try.

All of us at the top of the mountain. I am so excited for these guys to be closer now. They just moved to were at least they can drive to see us for a weekend.

WORK. We both hate it.

These two are the cutest thing together.

Alpine Slide. The line was forever but we did go on a Saturday. I recommend a weekday if any of you are going to try doing the all day pass. By the way Costco has them 4 for 90.

We all enjoyed ourselves with only driving 45 minutes up the canyon.

The 4th & Leah's Birthday

Here are a few pictures from our fun 4th of July celebrating. I felt like the holiday when on for 4 nights with the way it fell on the weekend. I love the 4th so I hope it can be that way every year.

We went swimming and had a potluck lunch at our friends pool.

I love this picture of Eva. I had to come up with 3 days of holiday wear for each of us.

We did fireworks with our neighbors at night. Every year we try to figure out how to take pictures of our names spelled. After many tries we finally got it. This is EVA in case you can't tell.

Cool shot of the fireworks.

Ronan in Ethan's hat. I think we have the same type of photo from lasts years fireworks too. Ronan thinks that kid is "awesome."

Brave Leah with the sparkler wand.

Mine all mine

Leah had quite the day for her birthday. Her dad took her to The Last Air bender movie. Then we went swimming. After we got home I took her to Boondocks. Then we did fireworks outside with our neighbors. It was a great holiday and celebration of our Leah.

Celebrating with our friends at the pool

I am so proud of this girl. She has gotten very mature of late. She is reading chapter books, riding her bike like crazy, swimming by herself. Being so helpful and sweet to have around. This has to be my favorite ages so far. I love hanging out with her. She is greatly anticipating being able to babysit by herself, which is not for a few more years. I hope she is still excited about it when the time comes. It has really been a dream summer with much thanks to my helper. When we go run errand and the little kids are being crazy she waltzes over to me and says, "those crazy kids." I remember just a few months ago when she was the crazy one at the store. I am dying that she turned 7 and is going into 2nd grade. And whats more crazy I will have 2 kids in school in about another month.

We did presents in the morning after everyone woke up with chocolate chip pancakes and whipped cream. Leah got Kirby for her DS, Super Mario Brothers for the WII, Zhu Zhu pets and accessories, and goggles.