Time with Cousins

 Covid 19 really messed with family time in the spring time.  It was such a debate about whether to see family and whether we should still be getting together.  Every family had to weigh their risks and decide what was best for them.  For my parents and sisters we stayed pretty socially distant for the first few months, but eventually we decided the risk was worth it to us and we started getting everyone together again.  Currently my family's dynamics are pretty crazy.  All 4 of us girls are married and having lots of babies.  There will soon be 18 grandkids all under the age of 9.  It is a busy busy stage of life for all of us and so family activities look fairly chaotic.  It is SO much fun to be having babies with my sisters BUT when we get together things get pretty wild.  We often just do playdates at each others houses and occasionally we go to the park.  We also make sure that we do group date nights or girls nights so that we can bond without the craziness.    

One tradition/ fun thing we like to do is have a summer party in Corinne's backyard.  They have a great hill in their backyard that is perfect for slip-in-sliding.  We pull out the sprinklers and kiddie pool and the kids have a ball running up and down the hill.  It was so fun to have Larissa, Rusty, and their kids join us this year since they now live close by.  What a fun night it was and I am already missing those long summer nights.  

This year we had a major wind storm roll through northern Utah (on top of all the Covid drama and the earthquake earlier this year).  It created such a mess for families all over and many houses and trees were damaged.  Thankfully ours was fine and we didn't even loose power.  A few days later, my sister Larissa had the great idea to all get together and help clean up a park in the area.  It was the worldwide day of service and Cleaning up branches seemed like a great service activity for young kids.  It was actually a lot of fun running around grabbing branches.  Cousins made the work even more exciting and they were all so well behaved.  Thanks Larissa for being our motivation.