Knutti Reunion and Austin Trip Sandwich 2014

The further I've gotten behind on the blog, the harder it is to go back and write down details of what happened. So please don't hate me for not remembering what happened when in the course of this trip - it's all a bit of a blur now. Also, this will probably be my last detailed post from 2014 and then I'll sum up that whole fall in just a couple of posts that hit the major holidays or something.

Toward the end of July, the Wall family invaded the Sevey family home in Texas and much chaos ensued. It was fun chaos though so I think we were all pretty happy with it. There was much oooing and ahhhing over the adorable new babies and lots of adorable cousin moments.

After some time of eating good food, planning and packing, and games, we threw various children and bags of clothing and food into a rented RV and took off eastward.

For the sake of saying we'd visited states that some of us had never visited before, we drove to Tennessee on the southerly route and returned on the northerly route.

Louisiana

Mississippi

Alabama

Apparently I missed the Tennessee sign - I don't know why though since it would've been in the morning. Oh well.

Arkansas (on the way back)

The trip there was pretty uneventful, which was GOOD. We drove a really long time, slowly got more and more lax with where the children could be and got really good at using the toilet in a moving vehicle.

The babies slept FOREVER in the RV. This was great on the one hand, and kinda crappy on the "hey, we're supposed to be nursing you an hour ago" hand. But we dealt and eventually got them to wake up and all was well. 

The other highlight from the trip out was watching the baby wrestling match in the pack-n-play. Both little babies were (are still?) very active sleepers and didn't seem to appreciate having someone else in their space. Oh the things that are funny at 3am. :-)

And when you're almost there and the kids almost can't take it anymore....break out Frozen. Hey, you do what you gotta do.

Getting up the hill at the reunion site was....exhilarating. But with a little careful maneuvering and some prayer, we made it up just fine. It was fun to see everyone who made it and sad to miss those who didn't. The babies were, of course, the instant celebrities though Katie gave them a run for their money in the cuteness department.

Oh the cheesiness

Family Home Evening, led by Glen

One morning, we ventured out for a nice hike the Tennessee wilderness. Well, it was almost a wilderness except for all the cars. But the hike was really nice and the babies did pretty well. I was sad to miss out on the fun group shot at the waterfall but considering I was in the middle of nursing Thor at the time, I figured it was for the best. I was amused that of the six members of my immediate family, all but one of us was exposed somehow at the top of the trailing. The one who actually didn't flash some part of the forest or tourists? Hazel. Go figure. 

Speed is SO big!

Umm....Alex, did you forget someone?

Gathering at the trailhead

Photographing the photographers

The Seveys

Hazel was in LOVE with that little flower

The Walls (partially)

Gathering for the group shot (which I don't have a copy of - who wants to send me one?)

Ladies and gentlemen, my husband. 

Snack time.

Speed is blocking the trail?

Noah is sad.

Psych.

Another day we headed to Ober Gaitlinburg. It was a fun little amusement park/mall area. The kids liked the rides, especially since they could go on most of them. It was also nice that it was warm enough that the water rides were fun instead of annoying. I was having enough fun that I stayed later with the older two kids and Jacob went back to the cabin with the younger two. What was really unfortunate was that I told Jacob give Thor a bottle if he got cranky since I figured we'd be a while (he was almost exclusively breastfeeding at this point) BUT he couldn't find/I didn't tell him where the formula was (depends on who you ask). Whatever the reason, I returned to a sad baby and frustrated husband. Other than that, it was a really fun day.

At the fountain right inside (Maya, Eva, Zizah, Alyssa, Noah's head, Speed)

Grumpy baby = grumpy mommy 

Riding the train

Ammon

I love so many things about this picture.

Katie

Someplace that actually still has a ball pit!!

Checking out the scenic chair lift to get to the top of the Alpine Slide

Alex and Noah on the chairlift

Jacob and Hazel coming down the Alpine Slide 

(I rode down it with Speed and had to fight him the whole time because he wanted to make it go "AS FAST AS IT CAN" - he's nuts)

Speed LOVED this ride and loved his Uncle Chad for taking him on it again.

Hazel with Maya

Glen

Alex and Noah

Meeting the Ober Gatlinburg Bear (name unknown)

I've visited several amusement park-type places with Nicole and she always makes this face but secretly, she LOVES it. Maybe.

Another day we went to these old town shops that were pretty fun. We got the kids some different kinds of candy and some fun spice rubs for meat for us. The apricot one was a little iffy in the end but new stuff is fun regardless. After the shops, we hit up this little train museum that ended up being a big hit. There were train cars outside for us to look at and climb on a bit. We thought there was also this fun dirt hill for the kids to climb on but it turned out that was an upcoming model train site (I think?) so the kids weren't supposed to be on it. Oops. Speed still has the little train we let him buy here and just last week asked if we can go back there so he can get a friend for his train. 

Zizah just fell in love with her cousin Jared

Hazel checking out the trains with Uncle Logan

Speed on top of the NOT for playing dirt hill

Nobody said the kids couldn't play in this pile of gravel so I never stopped them.

We also had lots of good food and good conversation and a talent show, which I have no pictures of and therefore very little memory of. I think Jared played a Coldplay song on the guitar and sang it too? Eva presented Thor with his very own Mjolnir and red cape/blanket that she sewed for him. She's such a sweetheart. 

Also, there was some conspiring to get Mom to start telling some of her childhood and teenaged stories. 

It was sad to say good-bye to everyone and we had a great time. The drive back to Texas was pretty uneventful, save for two things:

First, we stopped for gas in Memphis, TN. The gas station was...well-protected. At the urging of some of the other patrons (who we assumed were locals), Jacob paid for the gas quickly and we got out of Memphis quickly. Apparently we had picked a bad part of town to get gas in - ah the joys of traveling.

Second, we were partway through Texas and decided that it was late enough and we were all tired enough that we wanted to stop for the night, sleep for a few hours, and then make the rest of the drive in the morning. However, the GPS betrayed us and there was no rest area east of Dallas where there was supposed to be. So we found ourselves on the southwest side of Dallas, still several hours from Austin, everyone exhausted and no rest areas in site. So we did what any logical person would do: pull off the highway and stopped behind a semi on the off ramp should who had the same idea and hit the hay. I think the abandoned lot in Alaska still wins for weird places I've slept but this was a close second. We made it back to Austin in fine time in the morning and got lots of time to relax.

On Sunday, we were very lucky to get to be there for Violet's blessing. She's such a cutie pie.

 We had a couple of more days of relaxation and GAMES before we headed back to Phoenix. It was a crazy long but crazy fun trip.