The first weekend in June we went to Missouri (the Land of the Rolling Highways) for Nate's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. I had been working with Tia for weeks on save the dates, invitations, napkins, and other graphic design decor. Here's some of what I did.
We left Thursday morning at 5 am. The kids did surprisingly well on our trip. They each had a little bag of toys and books and notepads. We brought food with us and stopped for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We let the kids get out and play for a while each time we stopped. That made the trip take a little longer, but everyone was much happier because of it.
We stopped to eat lunch with Abraham Lincoln.
Jude wanted a picture taken, but he also wanted to stay with Dad.
Happy kids in the car.
We slept overnight at Lenna and Scott's house in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Heather and her kids arrived about 3 hours after we did. The next morning all of us got up and headed off to Kirksville, Missouri (the Trailer Park State), which was about 5 hours away. Nate and I drove all the littlest kids, and Kaylee.
The treasure that await at the Kirksville Walmart! No trip to Kirksville is complete without a visit to the Walmart.
Our entire family (all 27 of us!) stayed at the Lost Branch Lodge, which was the nicest accommodations that the Kirksville area had to offer. It didn't look like much, but it was very functional and worked out great. The outside looked like a sheet metal garage. There were 8 bedrooms, each with it's own bathroom/shower. There was a ping pong table, big living room with the worst couches ever, big kitchen, grassy field, and a gross pond.
Granny holding Baby Jocelyn and Jude.
We couldn't keep the kids out of the water. Most of them jumped in in their clothes that first afternoon. I thought the water was gross, but the kids were in heaven.
Some of the uncles were kind enough to take the little ones out in the canoe.
I was mean and didn't let Jude in the water. Good thing he didn't care.
Trying to line up all the children that were out there.
Addi chose to run rather than jump.
The next day was Saturday, and we did some funtivities with the cousins and second cousins. In the morning before the others arrived we did the crafts that Hannah brought.
Building mosaic pictures with foam pieces.
Addi didn't want to smile for the camera. I had to get creative.
The little boys picked some wildflowers for Granny.
Jude looked at pictures with Papa. He loves his Papa.
Tia's sister Gina wanted to have some fun games for everyone to play together. I was asked to be in charge of it. I planned around 20 games, then whittled it down to 15, because that's how many gold, silver and bronze medals I had made. When the time came for to play Family Olympics, it all kind of fell apart. DeAnna and I tried our best, but with no other adults to help us, and 20 kids to corral, it just didn't work out. A group of adults from another family stood by and watched. Most of the Silvey adults were watching a stupid soccer game. (I'm still a little mad about it all, if you can't tell.) We blew up dozens of balloons for a couple of games, but they began popping as soon as we went outside. (Dang ol' grass.) This scared some of the little ones, and really upset the other little ones.
After a few more events to try and placate some of the little ones who wanted medals, we just gave up. DeAnna and I were discouraged. We let the kids go back to the pond and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Many other parents left for a couple hours, leaving DeAnna and I in charge of the bazillion kids. I did not have the best attitude by the end of the day. I can't accurately describe how disappointing the whole thing was.
Nate, Hannah, and Scott played MUFF. I enjoyed taking pictures of them. This is the short version. I had like 50 pictures of this stuff.
This one of Scott is my favorite.
Addi loves to dance. All she needs is a little music and she goes to town.
Gina's family was in charge of one game, and it actually worked out pretty well. Human Foosball. We learned for next time that the rows need to be a little closer together, and there needs to be walls of some sort going around the perimeter. We played for a little while with everyone, then kicked out the trouble makers (Nate, Hannah, Brad, Scott) and let the little kids have a turn just them.
Saturday night we got a little silly after the kids went to bed. Tia's brother Robert had come by earlier in the day and set up the equipment for the "band." I use the term band loosely here. I'm sure it was excellent by Missouri (the Redneck State) standards. We (mostly Brad) messed around with the guitars and microphones. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the keyboard working (we didn't want to mess with the amps too much), so I didn't join the band. Dang.
I don't remember what this picture is about.
Sunday was the day of the party. We went to church in Kirksville so Sam could show off his beautiful family. Sam and Tia are converts, and they joined the church when they lived in Kirksville. I think Brad was a baby when they moved to Springfield, but they still knew several of the members there. As we drove to the church, we passed some nice houses. Nate said, "So this is the nice part of Kirksville. I didn't know it existed." Going to church in Missouri (the More Cows Than People State) was so familiar and yet so different. It made me laugh with how there seem to be the same types of people in each ward. I enjoyed the testimony meeting, despite my children's best efforts to keep me from paying attention. It was really special to have Sam get up and bear his testimony in front of all of his grandchildren. Colin even got up and bore his testimony for the first time! We had to tell him afterwards that even though we were proud of him, we weren't going to give him any monetary compensation for bearing his testimony. That kid!
Gray and Jude both had a rough night Saturday night. They started barking like seals during the night. Gray ended up in bed with me and Nate, but then when Jude had trouble there wasn't room for all of us, so I took the baby out to the awful couch where we stayed for the last 3 hours or so.
This was Tia's idea (thanks Pinterest!) and I put it together for her. I love how it turned out. These are pictures of Bob and Jean (Great Granny and Papa Charles) through the years.
No one got frames for the prints I made, so we taped them to the walls.
We also took some family pictures when everyone arrived. I only have a few on my phone. The rest were taken by Caleb and a few old rednecks I don't know. It was so windy, and so far I don't like the way any of these turned out. Ugh. My hair was a disaster.
I took these of Brad and DeAnna. I love the series of Brad being a creeper.
I kind of felt like we were back in Mexico, with Brad jumping in our pictures. Too bad it was just Missouri (the Big Muddy State).
Taking some selfies with my babies. I still hate that word, by the way. Selfies, not babies.
All the great grand children!
Heather made the banner. It turned out great!
Great Granny and Papa enjoying the entertainment performed by their children and grandchildren. Great Granny was so cute to watch. She kept nodding her head in time with the music, and swinging her hand and bouncing her knee. I could tell she was really into it.
The cute cake made by the wife of one of Nate's cousins.
Jillian cutting the cake. I don't know what Colin is doing.
We were planning on leaving Missouri (the Extermination State) Monday morning and driving all the way home, but then we realized that would be a 20+ hour drive, so we figured we would need to stop overnight somewhere. Rather than pay for a hotel somewhere on the road, we elected to leave Sunday after dinner and drive back to Scott and Lenna's house in Council Bluffs. Then we drove the rest of the way home on Monday. The kids were good in the car again, all except for Jude. He was still running a fever and not feeling well. He didn't want me to help or comfort him at all. He only wanted his dad. I did most of the driving because of this. Nate drove for about 3 hours in Nebraska, but he spent half of that time reaching behind him to hold Jude's hand so Jude wouldn't scream. It worked out well though. It was kind of nice to be the parent who drove and ignored the kids, rather than the parent who had to deal with everyone's needs. :) I don't have any pictures of the way home.
1 comment:
I did it! I made it all the way through. One Easter, I was like "hey family, I'm going to bring a bunch of minute to win it games for us to play after the egg hunt." And all my sibs were like "oh cool! You should totally do that and spend money and lots of time preparing this great idea." Then on the day at the appointed time, everyone was like, "Yeah yeah, we'll be out in a minute. I'm not done stuffing peeps in my mouth." So I got like a 13 year old, 2 10 year olds and a bunch o toddlers to play and they sucked at it. It's been 2 months and I'm still mad so I know how you feel.
I liked all the pictures and commentary. I most like your Missouri slogans. I've been there once and thought you captured the inelegance of the state.
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