Oldroyd Family Reunion in Branson

My parents, three siblings, and their families all met up in Branson for our Oldroyd Family Reunion a couple weeks ago. There was so much to do and every day was full of activities, but here are just some highlights from our trip.

But first, my sister stopped at our house on their way out to Branson. Here's a little of what we did while they were in town.

We went to the Joslyn Art Museum that has a great play area for kids.

At the Joslyn Art Museum

Then we went to the Kaneko Play exhibit.  Kaneko is an art studio and they had this temporary exhibit called "Play" which provided all sorts of fun and unique toys and activities for kids to do.

At Kaneko Play.  The second floor of the exhibit was closed, so we were disappointed to not get to see the supposedly "cooler" stuff up there.

Then we headed across the river to the Union Pacific Railroad Museum.

Then we stopped at the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs. 

My sister and her family were excited to walk up to the tabernacle and see the BYU box of prizes.  I knew nothing about this, but apparently BYU had hidden one box in each state.  They give out clues about its location and the first person to find it wins prizes contained in the box.  Someone else at the tabernacle found the box and claimed the prizes, but since my sister's family missed it by just seconds, they got T-shirts as runner-up prizes.  They were pretty excited! (We don't know the other runners-up on the left side of the picture. They were cheering "Go Cougs" for a video that was posted on BYU's social media.)

Then we traveled down to Branson together and met up with the rest of our family there.

All 25 of us

This is the rental house we stayed in.  It worked really well for our large family and was even wheelchair accessible.  However, what the owner didn't tell us was how STEEP the road in front of it was! This picture doesn't adequately show just how steep this hill is.  It was too steep for us to push Annie on, so we drove our van ride up next to the pathway to the door and opened Annie's ramp right onto the bridge.  But the house worked great and the Ozarks were beautiful!

We all gathered for Family Home Evening Monday night and had a good time.

Then we celebrated my mom's birthday.

The next day we went to Silver Dollar City Amusement park which had some pretty serious roller coasters and thrill rides.

Unfortunately, there was only one ride that was accessible for Annie to go on... the train ride around the park.  Our family nearly filled one whole train car!

Lexie was too small to go on some of the big roller coasters, but she was good at pretending!

They had a classic log-flume ride.  I'm glad it was my last ride of the day because I've never gotten more wet on any ride than this one. And somehow I was the only one that got soaked.

Annie had a good time checking everything out at the park and hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.

The next day we went to the Rick Thomas Magic Show.  It was absolutely incredible and blew us all away.  Our family is still talking about some of the acts and how they could have possibly been done.  Our minds are still stumped!

Later that night we all went to the SIX show.  It's an acapella group of 6 brothers (who are all Mormon). It was highly entertaining--a great show and fun music.  Even the kids were dancing in the aisles during intermission.

The kids all ready for the show to start.

The next day we went to White Water water park. I don't have many pictures because it's hard to carry around a camera at a water park.  But we had a fantastic time and went on some really great slides. 

Annie hung out in the shade with Grandma and Grandpa for most of the day, but looked adorable doing so. Annie lounged in a tube around the lazy river later in the afternoon, but she got a little cold after a while.

On our last full day in Branson, we went to College of the Ozarks to see Eward's Mill and some other sites there.

Lexie and Grandma playing checkers at Edward's Mill.

The rental house had a pool up the street that we went to several times during the week.

The kids also had a great time playing around the house together. These girls are all so adorable and had a lot of fun together.

Our ticket package at Silver Dollar City included matching T-shirts for all of us, so we had to get a picture with us all in them.

We all had to drive through Kansas City as each of us headed to our various homes across the country, so we all made one last stop together at the Liberty Jail.

Liberty Jail

We made it back home, and my sister's family stayed with us for a couple more days before continuing on their way.  We all had a great time and it was so much fun to all be together, doing some really fun activities, playing games, laughing, and having a good time. 

About a week later, just our little family headed back to Kaneko Play to see the part of the exhibit that was closed when we went there earlier.  We had high expectations since we'd heard that there was really cool stuff there.  However, most of the exhibit had closed.  There was a huge Minecraft video game simulator thingy (I'm not sure) that was closed.  They also had gotten rid of their huge kinetic sandbox which we were most looking forward to--it's beach-like sand that can be molded like play-doh, but then "melts" back into sand again.  But there were a few other things we still had fun with.

There were air rockets that we had a lot of fun with.

Lexie had to jump with all her weight to shoot the rockets.

Justin also found a toy he had some fun with.

Summer Yard Projects

We've been busy this summer working to give our yard a bit of a face-lift. Here are some "before" and "after" pictures.

BEFORE: Our shrubs in the front yard grew too big for their space despite our best efforts to keep them trimmed back. So we pulled up the spirea bushes with the pink flowers and transplanted them to a new bed we made behind our garage.

BEFORE: These bushes under the tree are more spirea bushes.  We ripped these out as well and transplanted them behind the garage.

AFTER: This is from a different angle, but it's the same bed as in the very first picture.  We added edging to help prevent grass from creeping into the beds, and planted day-lilies and other perennials.

AFTER: Under the tree, we planted some flowering ground cover and three hosta plants that we split from existing hosta that had gotten too big.

AFTER: This is the side of our house where we've always had hosta, but they had gotten too big, so we split them, and put some in the front yard, and then added the edging.

BEFORE: Here you can see our major grass problem.  We haven't had much luck with annuals under this tree, so we're trying perennials that match the other bed.

AFTER: We added the edging to clean up the border and planted the same perennials that we put in the other bed.

 

BEFORE: This is the wall behind our garage.  The grass has never grown well under the A/C unit and the cantilever, plus it's hard to mow and trim up under there.

So I decided to dig up some grass to create a bed that will be lower maintenance.

AFTER: We transplanted the pink flower spirea plants from the front yard back here where they can grow bigger and not encroach on other shrubs like they were in the front yard. We did put edging along this bed too, but that was after I took this picture.

Utah Trip Highlights

We spent nearly two weeks in Utah visiting family. First we visited Jodi's family in Bountiful for a few days. Then we attended the Tolman Family reunion with Justin's family at their cabin in Oakley and then their home in Draper. It was a great trip and I realized again how much I miss the mountains and the dry air! Here are just a few highlights of our trip.

We had to check out the new playground at the Bountiful City Park.

This was an interesting feature that spun around.

I think the adults had more fun than the kids!

We swam a lot, and even Annie enjoyed the pool with the temperatures above 100 degrees while we were there.

We visited Temple Square.

We toured the Conference Center.  I thought the kids would like to see where conference is held, since they've only ever seen it on TV.

For the Tolman reunion, we went to the Oakley Rodeo which is always fun.

Tolman cousins enjoying the outdoors near the Oakley cabin.

Back in Draper we had fun making giant bubbles!

We went to Thanksgiving Point and couldn't get the girls off the horses there!  They had to have a turn riding nearly each one.

Justin had fun at the Museum of Curiosity building a "shower" in the water exploration place.  Several kids ran over to stand under it!

The Tolman Family

Spring Happenings

Molly is in the High-Ability Learner program at school and each year they choose a topic to research and present on.  Molly chose Aicardi Sydrome and the brain.  This is the poster and brain model she made all by herself.

Molly was also a winner in the city's Arbor Day poster contest.

Molly's Arbor Day poster

Annie was happy staying up late with Dad after a church activity.

We've seen a lot of double rainbows from our back deck lately.  So beautiful!

There's been a lot happening in Lexie's mouth lately.

My kids always seem to think they have to leave notes for the tooth fairy along with their teeth.

Justin and Molly ready for the Daddy-Daughter dance at church.

Annie has been so happy and healthy lately!  Yay!

Girls Camp

Justin was determined to take Annie to our church's girls camp this year.  She was old enough to go last year, but the camp just wasn't accessible enough for her to go.  This year the girls were staying in cabins near a lodge, so it worked out great for Justin to take Annie and be able to stay in a room in the lodge with her.  She ended up having a great time and even made some new friends.

Since it was just Annie and Justin going to camp, Annie got to ride up front in her wheelchair.

Annie's friends were so nice to help do Annie's hair cute, since that's not really a strength for Justin.

Justin went to pick up Annie from an activity at the lodge, only to find her missing! He soon discovered that this group of girls had taken Annie in the kitchen with them so she could help them make cookies.  What's even more kind and touching, is that none of these girls are from Annie's church congregation.  I don't know who they are, but they were SO kind to include Annie.  And yes, that tub is full of cookie dough!

Meanwhile, back at home, I had a lot of fun with Molly and Lexie for 4 days.  But first, we had to clean out Dad's car before I could stand to drive it around.

We went miniature golfing and the girls were excited to see this Gateway Arch since they rode to the top of it a few years ago.