Gone for a month and a reunion!

David flew back into the St. George airport on July 3rd. On the 4th we went to the St. George party at the park and let the kids eat snowcones and jump on all the bounce houses. Scotty really took a shining to my parents by the 2nd week. He would go everywhere with them which is a big deal because he is in the middle of  the serious separation anxiety stage.

Then I was also there for my parents to get a phone call and then a real fed ex call to be the South Africa MTC president. It was so fun to learn all the details day by day as they learned about their mission!

 And we swam a LOT!  Lucy was going off the slide and swimming to the side without any floaties or help. We decided driving to St. George for swimming twice a day everyday is a way better to use of funds than swimming lessons!

Even Scotty by the end of it was jumping in on his own.

Then we headed to Pine Valley for the Ashton family reunion. There was a beautiful lodge up there with 8 bedrooms and a million bunk beds and the kitchen of my dreams. Shockingly enough it was barely big enough to fit our bunch of 50+ people.

It was gorgeous up there and nice and cool. At night time we had to wear jackets!

We let the kids hike like crazy around the rocks and stream, And lots of them ended up drenched and by the time we got home. Nothing better than dirt and cousins!

One day after swimming we all went down to a stream where you could catch craw dads. Between all the Asthon cousins we must have caught at least 20. It was so much fun.

The last night of the reunion we played Ashton family feud. It was hilarious and so much fun. We were just a little competitive.

One afternoon we couldn't find any of our kids inside and we caught this on the side yard. My parents had giant pixie sticks and were making the kids do sommersaults and tricks to earn sugar. It was hilarious.

Abe brought up his electronic skateboard thing that scared the daylights out of me the minute I got on. But everyone else managed to pull it off.

Here is part of the dream kitchen with enough barstools for 10 and two islands. I loved it. A lot of time was spent here eating and talking. If you look at all the adults I think we were all ripping up pancakes on the first morning.

After the reunion we had two more days in St. George so we took the kids to Menchie's our favorite FroYo place.

As always we took the kids to the St. George visitor center on a Sunday afternoon.

I love this picture.

So grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and temples!

And this one is fuzzy but this was what our car looked like as we took off from St. George to Vegas sunburned and not being able to see our the back. We took advantage of one more layover with Mandy and J for a day and a half. Then we made it from Vegas to Texas over the next two days. We hate being in the car for two days but you do what you have to do to get to see family! Plus the kids really are getting obscenely good at these car trips.