Clemson, SC to see Uncle Brandon's Family

After waking up at 4 am and then waiting in the airport for 8 hours to catch a flight, we finally made it to Atlanta (via Memphis). It was 9 pm and all we had to do was pick up our reserved rental car and drive the 2 hours to Clemson. Problem is, the rental company wanted to see our return itinerary, which we didn't have since we fly stand-by. Thankfully, Lee had just gotten off work in SLC and drove to his sister Ruth's house to get us listed for a returned flight. Since they had to actually see the listing, Lee took a picture of the confirmation on the computer screen with his phone and sent it to me. I showed the picture on my phone to the lady and thankfully she felt bad for us (it had been 1 1/2 hours of trying to figure something out by this point), so she let us have the car. We arrived at Brandon's house in Clemson, South Carolina at 2 am.

After letting us sleep in until 10 am, we woke up and began our two days at Uncle Brandon's house. One of the things we did was go to the Botanical Gardens on the Clemson campus. Things were just barely starting to bloom, but it was still beautiful and lots of fun. If you asked the kids, they'd probably say the funnest part of the gardens was the ride to/from in Brandon's cruiser. In the first picture below you can see Annie and Brynne riding in the back.

(Note: While in Clemson, Michelle (Brandon's wife) and I discussed how it's hard to know how many pictures to include in blog posts sometimes. I've erred on the side of caution and included plenty!) :)

 Morgan, Zane, and Brandon in the front of Brandon's cruiser.

Zane and Morgan walking along one of the paths.

 All the older kids watching the fish and turtles (see picture below) in the pond.

 Melissa and Soren were great sports and enjoyed their ride in the Bob.

This little turtle kept bugging the bigger turtle. Assuming they are a mom and a baby turtle, I figure their interaction was pretty indicative of human life. :)

Just before heading home, we let the kids play for a bit on a train car. As you can see in the following pictures, they had a lot of fun together.

 

 

 Brynne, Annie, and Zane swinging on a bench at the gardens.

Melissa LOVES being outside. She heard Uncle Brandon was going out to check the mail and decided she wanted to join him. I love this picture as she hurried to catch up with Brandon and Soren.

 Before bed, we had an impromptu story time in Brandon and Michelle's bedroom. Various kids and adults read various other kids stories, and then we had scripture thought time. Melissa and Brynne took advantage of the opportunity to snuggle with Aunt Michelle.

This picture got out of place, but don't you love it?! Melissa loved Soren and enjoyed any chance she had to be by him. :)

 Some pictures are basically too cute for words...

 

One afternoon, Michelle held down the fort while I went to check out Clemson University and the building where Brandon works. I even got to see him in action talking to his teaching assistant trying to iron out details on what happened with a research experiment. I was duly impressed and will admit it still blows my mind sometimes to think of my little brother as a college engineering professor. :)

 Brynne decided to catch up on sleep during the drive back to Atlanta from Clemson.

My favorite part of the visit was watching all our kids play. First Brynne and Zane played while Morgan and Annie played, then next thing we knew it was Morgan and Zane playing and Brynne and Annie playing. It was that way throughout our visit. Every now and then all four kids could even be found playing together. There was so little fighting and tons of fun. Even though everyone was excited to go see Aunt Lindsey, we were all a little sad to leave Uncle Brandon's house. Our time there was definitely worth the trouble getting there! Thanks, Brandon and Michelle!

Cousin Elise

My sister Ashley moved 3/4 of a mile away from us at the end of January. Hooray!! We have great dreams of our kids growing up as best friends, especially our cute little girls - Melissa and Elise. Elise is 10 months older than Melissa. They have their "sibling-type" moments, but they also have times when they get along well and have a great time. Here are some pics from when they spent 15 minutes together playing in Melissa's pack-n-play:

 



Okay, time out for a little quiz. In the next two pictures Melissa's eyes are closed. Is it because:

a) Melissa knows you're supposed to be "asleep" in the pack-n-play, or

b) Hilary has great timing for taking pictures

(I actually wanted to include these pictures because Melissa is so stinking cute even with her eyes closed!! And I also think Elise looks super cute in this next pic.) 

 

We caught this next picture a different day. Everything was great until the hug got a little tight and the girls managed to fall over... :)

 

Lest you think Melissa is the only one getting to enjoy sweet Elise, think again!

 

We are really excited to have Ashley and her family so close! And so is Melissa - she LOVES Ashely's 3-month-old, Joel. That will be another post for another day...

BYU vs. Virginia Tech Basketball

While we were together with my family just after Christmas, a group of us went to watch a BYU basketball game. The first half was really exciting as Tyler Haws scored 29 points. (He went on to score 42 total.) The second half put most of us to sleep, but it was some fun, quality family time! And those of us who are BYU fans were glad to see BYU win. :)

Adam, Isaac and Brynne (in a later picture) thought the game was a cover up for getting some Lindsey-time! She flew home from Maryland and was greeted by some very adoring nieces and nephews.

Lee, Brynne, and me at the game. Brynne really enjoyed watching the first half. She also really enjoyed the yummy goodies our nice extended family kept providing - popcorn, ice cream, pizza. Score!

I took a couple of pictures of the next crew: my dad, Zane, Brandon, and Alyson. This was my favorite picture of everyone except that my dad wasn't looking at the camera. I said, "Dad, you were watching the game!" He replied with, "Well what do you think I came here to do?" Quite funny. :)

Adam laid (is that the right word?) on Lindsey's lap the whole second half of the game. Then in the van on the way home, Isaac snuggled up to Lindsey for the whole drive. Brynne was happy to get one side of Lindsey's two sides any chance she could.

Brynne, Lindsey, and Adam walking back to the car after the game:

I must say I really enjoyed the game. Reminded me of the MWC game my dad and I went to in Las Vegas where Jimmer Ferdette scored 52 points. I so love being part of a family that loves sports!

BYU Football

This year we signed Brynne up for Cougar Club, mostly because the membership came with four free tickets to BYU football and eight free tickets to BYU basketball! Notice we didn't sign up Morgan (poor girl hates sports, with the one exception of soccer). So anyway, my sister Alyson also signed up a few of her kids and we made plans to attend a football game together. Melissa decided to get sick for the very first time the day before the game, so Lee stayed home to watch her; and Morgan was more than willing to stay home too. So in the end Brynne and I joined my sister and her kids for a great game of BYU football; although, admittedly, Aly's boys look a little less than excited in this picture. :)

 (Above: Isaac, Adam, Alyson, Brynne, Hilary)

I think the most fun part of the game for Adam might have been the walk home. Adam, Isaac, and Brynne were too tired to walk back to the car. Aly gave Isaac a piggy-back ride and I found a way to carry both Adam and Brynne:

Can I just say that I love getting together with my sisters! Alyson and I are the only BYU alum of the kids in our family. (Both my parents also graduated from BYU, but the three youngest Ross kids graduated from the University of Wyoming.) Thankfully, Aly is as big a BYU sports fan as I am - you taught us well, Dad!!

Next up: BYU basketball! :)

Fun In Riverton

Why drive straight home from Rawlins when you can detour through Riverton? We decided to go visit Ashley and her family for a few days on our way home from Rawlins. We had tons of fun, including an unexpected camping trip!

This would be one of the best pictures ever of Melissa and Elise if it weren't for the fact that it is a little blurry! Still cute, though. 

 Elise is quick to latch onto people who will hold her and play with her. Brynne stepped right up to the challenge and thoroughly enjoyed being an awesome older cousin to Elise!

 

 Ashley and Derek were willing to go through all the extra work of collecting camping gear for our family (since we hadn't traveled with any) to join them for a night of camping at Popo Agie Campground in Sinks Canyon State Park. We stopped to eat pizza and play along the way, which is when I took this picture of Melissa and Ashley.

 Brynne was a great helper when it came to helping Uncle Derek set up the tents! (It didn't take her long to get black all over her face - she plays the role of camper really well.)

 Brynne took a little break to throw rocks in the river with Cousin Marshall.

 I took this picture of Melissa because she was so dirty -- dirt on face and clothes, food in hair, etc. -- but you can't see all that in this picture for some reason. Just super cute like always! :)

The kids had a great time playing on a huge bridge that went over the river right by our camp. If you look carefully, you can see Brynne in her pink shirt standing on the bridge and the water down below and to the left a bit. I took this picture standing in the middle of our campsite.

 This cute picture of Ashley and her kids shows the bridge and the river well. I absolutely loved falling asleep to the sound of the rushing water!

It was a lot of work to set up camp for just one short night and to set up camp while simultaneously keeping kids away from water and other hazards, but I am really glad we went! It was our only camping trip this summer and my girls and I love camping! And it was Melissa's first time camping ever! I felt bad loading all the dirty stuff into Ashley and Derek's car and then leaving them to take it all home, but they were good sports. Thanks for the fun memories Waltons!

Christmas in Wyoming 2011

Knowing that Lee would have to work, I took the girls to my parents' house in Wyoming for Christmas. My sister Lindsey joined us along with our youngest sister, Ashley, and her family.

One of the first items of business was making Christmas cookies with Grandpa Ross. Grandpa has amazing patience for things like cookie cutters being put in the middle of the dough instead of in a way to maximize the number of cookies that can be cut each time, or flour getting everywhere, or some of the dough accidentally making it into a kid's mouth (actually, Grandpa has been known to feed them dough on purpose!). See that cute boy having fun with Grandpa in the picture below? Yeah, well that's my super cute and super helpful nephew Marshall!

At one point on Christmas Eve I looked over and noticed lots of people dressed in green shirts. Those people included my mom, my sister Ashley, Ashley's daughter Elise, and Melissa. I easily talked the adult figures into holding the little figures for a picture:

Ashley's husband, Derek, got to be Joseph in our Christmas Story reenactment and Brynne got to be Mary. I'm pretty sure this is exactly how it was last year, too. Since donkeys are the closest thing to horses in the Christmas Story, Morgan chose to be the donkey both years and let Mary (i.e. Brynne) ride to Bethlehem on her back. The biggest change to our family's reenactment this year was Melissa's playing the Baby Jesus.

Above is a picture of Brynne with a Santa gift on Christmas morning. Below is Melissa checking out her gifts from Santa.

 

 I was able to exchange some things to get matching shirts for Melissa and Elise. We had lots of fun taking pictures of the two of them together.

 

Morgan got curlers from Aunt Lindsey for Christmas. She and the cat, Dina, curled up on the couch to watch a movie and ended up falling asleep. :)

I was the lucky one! I got to hold both cute girls -- Elise and Melissa!

Cousin Marshall even got some snuggle time with Melissa. He is so cute with how much he loves Elise and Melissa and wanted them to be by him a lot. :)

Morgan and Brynne were very excited to get some games from Santa. Brynne decided to "pose" (i.e. pull a fat lip) for the picture. Morgan was too engrossed in her game to realize I was taking a picture. :) And for those who are wondering, the crutches weren't needed by anyone; turns out they are lots of fun to play with (at least until Grandpa finally manages to get them and hide them under the house). :)