Junkin Family Reunion

We recently had a Junkin family reunion (Mom's side of the family) which are always a hoot and a half. It's basically a weekend of eating food, playing cards, laughing, singing, and telling stories. This reunion was a special one for me as it also included the group sitting on the front porch singing all the old songs that we used to sing while my Grandpa was alive (and since he died in 1992 it's been a while).

First stop was Bestamor's house (Dad's Mom - Bestamor is Norwegian for Grandmother). Since we don't travel to the Seattle area much anymore we usually try to at least stop by the house of the people we aren't seeing much to catch up for a few hours. Nate, Abby, and I arrived about a half hour before my parents and niece, Haylee, met up with us. They'd been crabbing on the boat all afternoon so we were treated to fresh crab meat as an appetizer. Yum-me! It's funny how gender's tend to navigate towards each other and then separate. At one point in the afternoon Dad, Uncle Steve, Uncle Mike, and Nate were all hovered around the BBQ while Bestamor, Mom, Haylee, Abby, and I were chilling at the patio table. Just like minded people getting together, I guess. :-)

The girls playing together on Bestamor's piano.

After dinner with the Akers' we headed to my Auntie Sue's house where the Junkin family reunion would take place. There was just a small group of us to begin with as most of the other family members wouldn't arrive until the morning. Still we spent the evening catching up with Grandma, Uncle Roger, and Auntie Sue, watching Haylee and Abby play together (they found out about the bunk beds and were in high heaven!), and generally just enjoying each other's company.

The next morning Uncle Bobby, Cousin Kent and his wife Shirley showed up. It was sad seeing Uncle Bobby without Aunt Nancy (who passed away last June) as I don't think I've ever seen one without the other. But even with another member of our family missing we were still able to have a really good time with each other. And since this is my story I'm telling and not theirs I'll just say that we caught up on the goings of everyone's life and there were much more ups than downs. :-) After a few hours Mom and I decided to take Haylee and Abby to the park to let them run off some steam. They'd been great playing on their own (Abby at one point grabbed a snack from upstairs, then went downstairs, climbed onto the top bunk of the bunkbeds, turned on the portable DVD player, and proceeded to watch Lady and the Tramp while eating popcorn.) but we could tell that the walls were starting to be a little small for them.

The girls with their Grandma. You can see Mom is trying to pass off her phone so she could also have a super cute picture like this one. :-)

This girl's fearlessness frightens me. It wasn't until she got to the top and couldn't figure out how to hang down from the bars that she called for help.

Climbing up the rope ladder.

And then up onto the platform.

The girls swinging together. They loved spinning faster and faster!

Later that evening we found ourselves hanging out on the front porch watching the girls play tag. Auntie Sue went inside and came out with her ukulele and sheet music and the extra super special fun began.

Auntie Sue tuning up and getting the festivities started.

The girls blowing bubbles and playing with kazoos while the rest of us sing.

One of the best parts of the evening was when the family began to sing an old favorite The Titanic which Nate had never heard before. He thought it was a little weird when we were so enthusiastically singing about the Titanic sinking but when we all went high pitch to sing about the itty bitty children who lost their lives he just lost it. And I so wish I had a video to show you but I was so into singing I forgot to tape it! So I've put in the lyrics so you can get a sense of the awesomeness of this song. :-) There's lots of Google videos if you're interested in how the tune goes.

The Titanic

Oh, they built the ship Titanic
To sail the ocean blue,
And they thought they had a ship
That the water wouldn’t go through.
But the good Lord raised his hand
Said the ship will never land,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus:
Oh, it was sad, so sad,
It was sad, too bad!
It was sad when the great ship went down
To the bottom of the sea-ea-ea-ea
(Husbands and wives, itty bitty children lost their lives)
It was sad when the great ship went down.

O they were not far from shore,
When they heard that mighty roar
And the rich refused to
Associate with the poor.
So they put them down below
Where they’d be the first to go,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

The boat was about to sink,
And the sides about to burst,
When the captain shouted,
“Women and children first!”
The captain tried to wire,
But the lines were all on fire,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

Oh, they swung the lifeboats out
O’er the deep and raging sea,
When the band struck up with,
“Nearer My God to Thee.”
Little children wept and cried,
As the waves swept o’er the side,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

Oh, the moral of this story
Is very clear to see.
Always wear a life-preserver
When you go out to sea!
So if your ship goes down,
You will never, ever drown,
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Chorus

Read more: http://bereavedandblessed.com/2012/04/titanic-part-i-it-was-sad-when-the-great-ship-went-down/#ixzz2cRwJFRVD

Auntie Sue, Mom, and Me enjoying the moment.

Abby playing the tamborines and singing along with the rest of us.

Here's one video of Abby playing the kazoo while Auntie Sue sings, to give you an idea of the "funness" of our songs.

Our group - Nate, Abby, Kent, Shirley, Uncle Bobby, Mom, Mindy, Derrick, Uncle Roger, Dad, and then swinging around for Auntie Sue, and Grandma.

The weekend was simply an amazing time of family togetherness. I know it's easy to use words like awesome, amazing, fantastic, etc but I truly mean them. The family doesn't get together as often as it used to and so each time we're together as a group I treasure our moments together because I know that all too soon we may be missing another member. So I have some great memories to cherish until our next big get-together, which hopefully won't be too long!

Abby Randomness

I'm sitting on the couch tonight trying desperately to entertain myself until my self-appointed bedtime of 9pm. I'm tired of reading Facebook, not interested in anything Pinterest has to offer, and don't have the energy to open up any of the forums I visit. So I decided that this would be the perfect time to create a blog post of all the pictures I've taken of Abby lately that I love but aren't really worthy of an entire blog post by themselves. In no particular order here are my recent favorites of my favorite girl!

Notice how all the blocks are with their matching colors? She gets slightly upset if you mix blue with pink or magenta with white. It makes my slightly OCD heart just sigh with love.

Abby was very concerned one night when Mom and Did didn't have their own pacifiers. And, yes, it did take some persuading to get Nate to take a picture without (much) protest.

Again, notice the color line-up of her Fruit Loops. We're only a few years, and a job or two, away from lining up Peanut Butter M&Ms by the bag full while working 14 hour days for months on end of a Payroll transition. (Yep, that was me in my former life.)

What's sweeter than a sleeping baby? Not much!

For Father's Day Abby and I created a "Best Dad Ever Hands Down" shirt that required us to paint Abby's hands and then place them on the shirt. After we were done with that step of the gift process I figured Abby would have fun painting with the remaining ink. I set her up and then stepped away for a few minutes to get the shirt out of harms way. When I came back she was painting her hands again, instead of painting the plates! I figured the paint was washable so let her color to her heart's content.

Talking on her phone at Open Gym. She carries on the cutest conversations with herself. 

After hearing "silence" for an extended period of time I came in to her room to investigate. She was pretending to be asleep! She was even making little snoring sounds!

And her Abby is trying to be a big girl by putting on Mom's bra and panties. Nothing to make you feel like an elephant than having your daughter be able to hike your underwear up to her armpits. :-)

Getting all pretty for church.

Another sleeping angel picture. sniff. She's getting so big!

 

Abby wanted Grandma to be in the circle of water with her.

Grandma didn't realize how wet she would get on the inside. :-) Abby loved showing Grandma how to hop back and forth over the water spouts.

Here she is helping Nate out with a backyard project. We' have a lot of crab grass in our back yard so here's Nate's first attempt at removing it. Basically taking up all the old grass and putting down new seed. Abby helped by providing more weight to the tamper as Nate made the yard level.

Finally, my little girl enjoying some quiet reading time by herself. 

Ahh, my little girl is just getting so big! I'll end with a funny from today. Abby mentioned she wanted chocolate milk for lunch and I told her that we didn't have any. She scrunched up her face into a deep think, then turned to me and said "Go car, go store, get chocolate milk!". Such a smarty-pants!!! And with a great response like that we did indeed go car, go store, and get chocolate milk. :-)

4th of July Fireworks and Visiting the Portland Zoo

We went down to Portland to enjoy the 4th of July holiday with Nate's parents and grandparents and this year we were excited to see how Abby would participate in the firework festivities. (Her first 4th had her watching the fireworks with a "what in the world is that" look on her face and last year we didn't do any fireworks as it was so dry at home.) After a yummy BBQ we decided to go outside and light up the few fireworks we purchased. Since I knew that screamers were out of the picture we got the Pop Its, a few Snakes, Sparklers, a kind that sets off little colored shoots of sparklers, and one "big" firework that lit up with different colors and types of bangs. All in the 1 "loudness" category.

At first we had Abby standing on the ground and throwing the Pop Its but they wouldn't pop for her. Grandpa got the great idea to hold her and see if gravity would help make them pop. Sure enough Abby was soon popping her own fireworks!

We kept trying to get her to thrown them in front of her, but she preferred to toss them over her shoulder.

She's so proud of herself!

Then we moved on to sparklers. Notice how she's as far away from the sparkler as possible while still holding on to it. She wasn't so sure about these.

Next were the snakes. And what a dud they were. They were supposed to either light up or blow off different colors of smoke but instead all we got was a black mess that ended up looking like a pile of poo. Oh, well, at least they were cheap. Abby did enjoy watching the snakes twist and turn as they burned up.

Second to last were the ones that set of colored sparks. It was kind of cute, even though I did feel bad for her. Abby started to walk over to where Nate was lighting the fireworks when the first one went off and started shooting off sparks. Abby jumped in the air, squealed, and ran back to Grandpa. I don't think she liked these. Not pictured is the big fire work we got because as soon as we set that sucker off Abby ran to me, demanded to be picked up, then kept asking to go inside. :-)

Later on that weekend it was decided that it was finally time for Abby to visit the Portland Zoo. After a quick family discussion it was decided that Abby, Dave (Nate's Dad), and I would go. We road the Metro into the Zoo instead of driving and, while it probably took a little bit longer, Abby had a blast riding the "train".

Abby on the "train". I'd have gotten further away to take a better picture but sitting across the aisle from us was a gentleman who I don't believe was fully in his right mind. So I was perfectly content taking a too-close picture.

I was pretty amazed when we literally were dropped off at the entrance to the zoo. A quick elevator ride up to the outside level and a walk across the street and there we were. We even got a discount on our tickets for taking the Metro instead of driving. I knew we didn't have a lot of time before we needed to head out again so I found the best path to get to the elephants (Abby's favorite) and we began our journey.

Checking out the bears. Since the bear was sleeping I don't think she really knew why we thought it was so cool to be watching a bear.

She much preferred checking out the turtle who was swimming around in his tank.

And here she is having a blast playing in the dirt. Aren't kids silly? All these exotic animals to look at, but the second we walked across a dirt path she wanted to sit down and play. Five minutes later she was still playing. I "encouraged" her to keep moving on to the next exhibit.

We finally got to the elephants! Abby was mesmerized by one elephant that was walking in circles. Abby kept pointing and saying "spin, spin".

We were also fortunate that the baby elephant decided it wanted to be playful that day.

Here s/he is wresting with Mom. It was too cute to watch!

After the elephants Abby found some steps and kept telling Grandpa and I to sit down next to her. I think she must have climbed up and down these steps a half-dozen times before we were able to move on.

We ended our journey with a visit to the lions. Abby watched them pretty well for a minute or to but as soon as she saw these statues she had zero interest in the real thing.

Having a ball climbing!

After we saw the lions it was definitely time to head home and have lunch. Abby had been doing a good job on being happy with a handful of M&Ms and some animal cookies but I knew that good behavior wouldn't last. We did make one final stop at the gift shop where Grandpa kindly bought Abby a stuffed wolf (why she beelined for the wolf when we never saw one I have no idea) and a stuffed snake (which she proceeded to wrap around her body to keep it safe). She still loves to play with the snake by bringing it towards you and saying "ssssss" just like the snakes do! We were five minutes from home when her little eyes fluttered shut and she passed out. It's hard work visiting the zoo!

I'm looking forward to the next time we go. This time I definitely want to make sure we are able to ride the little train that goes around a portion of the zoo. I think she'd get a real kick out of that since she's so into watching trains right now.