Roadtrip!

This summer has been filled with trips. Some planned, some not.

From Austin, TX in May to
Utah and Southern Alberta, Canada, in June
Back to Utah in July
Newport Beach, CA in July and to
Whidbey Island, WA in August.

I don't know about you, but that's far more traveling than I'm used to. That's a lot of laundry and packing and keeping track of kids. I really don't think I ever unpacked.

The last trip of the summer though, brought the most anxiety.
Driving to Washington, and then the . . . Triathlon (more on that later!)

We went back and forth a lot on whether we should fly or drive to Washington. Flying would have been much more convenient and faster, but then buying 7 tickets and flying bikes up, everything added up really quickly.

The weekend before we were to leave, we decided to drive.
Drive.
Straight.
Through.
Six kids in the car for the estimated 22-23 hours sounds delightful,no?

Tuesday evening (Aug 2), after Ryan installed air bags - the leveling kit to support the bike rack loaded up with 4 bikes, and packing up the car, we started the trek up to Wyoming.



Ryan and I switched driving around 1am near the Utah border. He drove thru the corner of Utah and up to Boise, Idaho. I took on driving at 5am up to Oregon. Somewhere in Oregon we switched again and he drove us over the bridge to Washington.

Our first time in Oregon - through a bug splatted windshield

Over the bridge to Washington

Gorgeous Washington

getting closer!

We drove up thru Seattle and followed the sign to the ferry to Whidbey Island. (I have to admit I was a tad nervous driving onto the ferry with about a bazillion other cars, but of course, it went off without a hitch. Speaking of hitch though, driving off the ferry was the only time the hitch - with the bikes on them - hit the ground. Even when one of the airbags totally deflated.)

Again, thru a bug-y windshield, waiting in line for the ferry.

On the ferry passing another

The kids were fantastic. Seriously. I'm not sure what made the trip seem like it was going by so quickly, but it did not seem like 20 hours in the car. (Now, the 24 hours on the way home is a bit of a different story, but still okay.)

After 16 hours - not too shabby!

We made it to Whidbey Island!

Interestingly, once we reached Jason and Christina's I never pulled out my phone or the camera to take pictures . . .

I'm pretty sure that's a sign of a rockin good time!

Time Away

We celebrated our 11th anniversary this year. One week prior, we had the chance to be in Newport Beach together. Alone. Sans kids. The only other trip we'd been on together alone in all our married life - besides our honeymoon, of course - was back in 2007 when Ryan had some work to do in Las Vegas and I tagged along. That's it. I'm tempted to say that that's pretty pathetic, but really, when you've had children like we have, it's few and far between to 1. have the courage (yes, courage) to spend the $$ on a vacation, 2. have the guts to ask someone to watch your brood, and 3. not be pregnant or nursing.

We had a wonderful weekend attending the Demarle at Home convention and spending time with our best buds, the Clarks.

We are so grateful to Ryan's parents for still watching our crew when they offered to tend 3 grandchildren for the summer. We knew they were all in good hands and would enjoy their time together.

Time at the beach - after lunch at Ruby's at the end of the Pier.


On the ferry from the peninsula to Balboa Island.

Eleven Years!

A fabulous trip, we can't wait to do it again!

"I'm so far behind I thought I was first."

My mom has this quote in her house.

Our poor blog this year.
I'm afraid our blog book is going to be skinny minny.
I find when I'm playing catch-up, I write less.
I lose a lot of the emotion and excitement of what we've been up to.
Which is very sad.
Hopefully, I'll be able to get things turned around and
get everything up and posted.

Did you know, I even contemplated writing EVERY day?
Yes!
I could do this everyday in September.
I would definitely get caught up and capture the everyday like I should.
Yeah, then I realized it was already September 3rd.
Dang it.

I will do this.
Get caught up and regularly blog again.

Here we go.

July 22, 2010 - Enter Henry

I have a hard time believing it's been one full year since this post or this post but, then it feels like Henry has always been with our family.

Henry, you make me one proud mama! You taught me that I can do hard things - things I never knew I could do. You are the perfect little caboose for our family. You are such a sweet boy, so easy going. We love you to pieces.

Isn't he the cutest ever?

That picture has little boy written all over it.

When I figure out how to get birthday pictures on here, I will.

(his parents weren't even there...rude.)

Swim Team 2011

Another successful season with the Blue Fins - including Lucy who competed this year!
I'm amazed at how much our kids improved, not only from last year, but from the beginning of the season to the end.
They did things a little differently than last year with the youngest group, Lucy's group, the Minnows.
They actually had them swimming laps along with learning strokes.
Lucy went from swimming in the arms of the coaches, to swimming - stopping along the lane ropes, to swimming the whole length of the pool without grabbing the rope!
We are ecstatic.
Rylee, Clay, Kaycee, and Lucy really pushed themselves developing technique and competing in new categories.
Kaycee swam right along side with the older group and really held her own.
Clay has mastered the breaststroke which took him to the League Championships - he placed 7th!
Rylee rocked the butterfly in her 100 Individual Medley - beautiful form.

We love swimming and look forward to next year!

Our bed-head family (okay, just mine) at Championships

Slip Slidin' Fun in Utah

After the 4th of July, the kids and I headed over to Utah for a little family reunion.

Slip Sliding Fun

Kaycee and Lucy

Sleep overs and rides in Harvey the RV

Emree, Rylee, Olivia, Berkley and Uncle Ben

Josie, Lucy, Emma and Kaycee

Feeding the ducks

See the mama duck with 7 ducklings?
The most I've seen.

The Wendy Mack 5k and Croc Walk
Remember this post?
A 5k that friends of Wendy put on to raise money for the Mack family.
600 hundred participants came!

Marcie, Me and Micki the morning of the race.

The croc walk with our orange balloons
Crocs donated 100 orange crocs - the shoes Wendy wore as an L&D nurse.


Releasing our balloons after touching tributes by her friends and sister.
Glad I was wearing my sunglasses - not a dry eye.

The Invalids
Some us party a little harder than others!
Within 2 months we had two broken elbows and two broken arms.

Sister Reecy - broken elbow - roller skating

Nephew Jace - broken elbow - night games
Mom - broken arm - rolling on an ATV - biggest partier of them all! Just kidding, Mom.
Niece Sicily - broken arm (2nd time) - monkey bars in the back yard.

June 27, 2001 - Enter Rylee

First moments

When people find out that Rylee was born three and a half weeks early, I tell them that she was prayed out.

Four Hunt brothers were married in the summer of 2000 while the youngest brother, Aaron, was on his mission. Two of the new sisters-in-law had met Aaron before he left, yet, 2 of us had not. The summer of 2001 Aaron was coming home and there was a family reunion planned for the 4th of July weekend. Rylee wasn't due until July 21st and unless she was going to come before the 4th, we weren't going to make it.

It was 2:30 the morning of the 27th when I woke up to something unusual. A contraction. I tried to go back to sleep, but continued having more contractions. At 6, we decided to start walking around the block. At 7am, we decided to go the hospital. The contractions were still coming, not too painful, but I had no idea what to expect. At the hospital, the nurse checked me and I was barely a one. She left us with "well, maybe we'll see you later on today. . ." and we were on our way.

Dang it.

It wasn't long before we got home that a lot of the pain went into my back. OUCH. Ryan drew me a hot bath, but I couldn't find any relief. My parents came over to see me crying on the couch in pain. Ryan and my dad gave me a blessing. Around 3pm we headed over to my parents house. While, again, crying on their couch, my sweet sister-in-law Mindy rubbed my feet.

The pain was awful. Mindy encouraged us to go back to the hospital. This time at the hospital, I couldn't even get out of the car. I was wheeled in bawling.

At 4pm, I was dilated to a 4, and happy to meet and anesthesiologist. Wow. In just moments I couldn't feel a thing! Not knowing how long things would take, my mom and Mindy were going to bring Ryan some food and grab our camera. (Who forgets their camera?)

Thankfully, things went well and after only 20 minutes of pushing (not too shabby for my first and not being able to feel a thing), at 7:47pm, Miss Rylee made her appearance.

I remember watching her coming out and thinking " holy cow, she's looks big." Then to hear she was a whopping 5lb 12oz. When they passed her to me all wrapped up, she was just a tiny peanut with an adorable pink bow. She was beautiful. I was a mom! We were parents. She had such a dainty, pretty little face and her tongue was too cute as she constantly stuck it out. She was so alert and her eyes full of wonder. It was a while before she fell asleep again.

We had no clue that things would have progressed that quickly. My mom came about 10 minutes after Rylee was born with our camera. I heard her knock on the door and asked if she wanted to meet her. A great surprise to my mom.

The Hunts are faith-filled people and we flew to Denver when Rylee was just 5 days old! (Note: if this had not been my first baby when I had no clue what I was doing, I'm not sure we would have done that!). It was a great reunion and so fun having ALL the Hunts together.

Ryan walking off the plane with Rylee
to meet her adoring grandparents and aunts and uncles

Rylee was such an easy baby and is still pretty easy going. She's as beautiful as ever and I often tell people that there is no way we could have 6 kids without her! She is a tremendous help.

October 2010

Happy 10th Birthday, Rylee.

We sure love you.

Remembering Grandma

This is Grandma.

One week after my last post, she passed away in the arms of my Grandpa.

She was a delightful lady. No one smelled or was as tender as Grandma. Even brushing the 'snarls' out of our hair, she was gentle. She made the best bread and rolls and eating her bottled peaches was a treat. She was soft spoken and kind, and a great example to me serving her family.

Her home always smelled good (the bread, ). Her basement was filled with toys and her laser discs and video library were hard to beat. Everyone loved to be at Grandma's.

Even as I've become an adult and it had been years since I'd been to her house, it all felt very familiar. The only thing missing was her. Grandpa sat at the table and welcomed us when we arrived late Wednesday evening. He shared with us Grandma's last moments. So tender.

Aunts, uncles and cousins came from near and far and it was such a sweet reunion. One like we know Grandma was having with her relatives. All but 2 of the 28 grandchildren were there (minus some spouses and children). It was wonderful to reminisce and learn how she and Grandpa met - I didn't know! I learned so many things spending that time together. Like how I have Grandma's feet - from high arches to weird, weird toe nails. (Sorry Grandma.) Or, how my Grandpa has a sweet tooth even stronger than mine! Glad to know it's genetic :) (He convinced us to eat strawberry pie at midnight, people!). I'm grateful that Henry was able to meet him - his name sake.

I have so many memories that I hold dear. She was so wonderful.

Grandma, we love you.

Grandpa and Grandma
June 30, 1949

A Sunday Afternoon