Cousins re-unite

What a wonderful mid-summer get together for Kari, Bryce, Keira and Audra. The Williams' were traveling through central Indiana en route to a week's stay in Cincinnati. So we got to spend 24 hours with our favorite Colorado residents this past weekend.

 That's Kari at the top of the picture, swinging as high as she could go.

The girls obviously knew how to play together and enjoy one another's company. However, with Bryce almost 2 years old now, he wanted to make sure the terrific trio made room for the growing boy! The kids played in Gran and Beep Beep's back yard, went really high on the swing and got to eat Ice Pops together.

 
 Saturday morning the Grandparents volunteered to take all four squirts to the Children's Museum on their own. This was a brave task and one that apparently went off without a hitch. The kids got to see plenty of neat displays at the Museum and then were treated to a tasty lunch at Steak N Shake, Kari's favorite.

 Meanwhile, The Keckler and Williams parental units quickly took advantage of their few hours of peace by heading to Carmel for some drinks and lunch. It was a great time for us to catch up and talk about the joys of parenting. It also was a chance to visit Bub's Burgers, which was recently was featured on Travel Channel's Man vs. Food.

Of course Kevin had to give their "Big Ugly" challenge a try. This was a 22-oz pre-cooked burger. After hitting the grill, it ends up as a 1-lb burger. It was delicious, as was the Elk burger each of the other three had. After completing the challenge, Kevin got his picture taken and put on the wall inside. "Boiler Up, Big Ugly Down!" That's on my picture should you ever visit this establishment and want to see it.

When we got back to Gran and Beep Beep's, we had some time for the cousins to play and wrestle with Uncle Jason, as well as play outside again. Then it was time for a delicious grilled salmon dinner and some angel food cake (Kari's first try and she loved it!).

The Williams crew needed to head out Saturday after dinner for Cincinnati, but while the stay was short it was awesome to see them again and get some updated pictures of the four cousins together.

Halfway to 72

Check out the awesome **homemade** birthday bunting from my friend Pam.  It's double-sided to equally represent both genders in the house.  I'll probably keep it up through the month since Bryce's birthday is just around the corner.

Weekend Recap

We had a rather eventful July 4th weekend that kept both the kids and parents entertained.

 

 Sparklers Friday night

Kari fetches the paper each morning.  Saturday she took some time to sit in the garage in her camp chair and check out the local headlines.

Saturday ended up being a rather warm day, so we broke out the little plastic pool for our back yard. While this certainly isn't the Elks, it is a quick cool-off remedy for the hot summer days.

Kari and Bryce both enjoyed jumping up and falling on their bums in the nearly 8 inches of water. The evening's activities involved more outdoor water fun at the Clawsons. Along with two other couples and their kids, the Clawsons and Kecklers had a nice time in Nolan's back yard.

In fact, Kari and Taylor threw enough water outside the pool it made for a mini-mud puddle. Let's just say the water didn't look overly inviting in the kiddy pool after an hour.

Sunday was supposed to serve as a day of BBQ fun at the Grays. Allan and Kevin were planning on smoking nearly 25 pounds of different meat (from a shoulder, to baby backs to brisket). However, late Saturday evening some torrential downpours invaded the Gray compound and left their lengthy gravel driveway unusable.

Allan was able to form a different path to their house and we took advantage of it. We dined on delicious eats and had great company (the rest of Allan's family from Texas was here, along with the Dowells, Smiths and Al V.).

But perhaps the memory of this July 4th was made with the introduction to Tony Dowell's Argo. This vehicle is hard to describe accurately, but picture a 4 wheeler on steroids. It will make its way through anything, including the newly featured Lake Gray. Kevin took great pleasure in giving rides to and fro in the Argo, which actually doubles as a boat if the wheels can't grip the ground.




 This video will give you an idea of the fun we had.

On our nation's birthday, we spent a good portion of the day at the Elks with many friends. Holly's friend Pam made the trek from Indy and was a huge help with the kids. Swimming, bouncy castles, candy jar guessing, rolling down hills and plenty of fireworks were a part of our time outdoors.

This week we get to introduce Holly to what it feels like to turn 36. Saturday we'll get to spend time with the Williams family, which will be stopping in Indianapolis for a short overnight stay before heading to Cincinnati. Kari can't wait to see her cousins, while we're just hopeful Bryce will throw things and hit others for 24 hours instead of us.

Have a wonderful week!

Ready for the Holiday Weekend!

It's pretty darn difficult to get Bryce to stand still long enough to take a picture of him.  It's near impossible to get a decent picture of the two of them.  I can't remember what they were pointing at yesterday morning, but it was apparently enough to get them to stand still for five 1.5 seconds.  The t-shirt idea cam from here.  I'm still fondly remembering the picture from July 4th, 2010.  More pictures from the weekend to be posted soon!