McKee Family Fun

Us McKee's, we know how to party! Here's how 10 days of McKee family fun went down:

 

Jordan and Maddie decided to come to California to bid us farewell to New York. State fair, pioneer day, lots of fun.

 

The boys and I decided to hitch a ride back to Utah with them to say goodbye to Ash's fam. Water park, cousin baths, Kai's fall (the least awesome part of my summer!), fireworks and mostly, lots of fun.

 

Then my parents decided to make the trek to Utah so we could go to a family reunion and celebrate my dad's birthday (early, but awesomely). Chocolate covered cinnamon bears, family stories, my awesome traveler boys and lots of fun.

 

And then, alas, we all went back to our respective homes. Except for us homeless Wigginton's, we came back to my parents home! And so the party continues ;)

 

The petting zoo at the State Fair was definitely an adventure. I am not an animal person. At all. So petting zoo's are not my favorite. But in the name of raising normal, functioning and enlightened children I always enter. And those darn animals see me from a mile away. This deer in the picture above didn't realize that my skirt was not her lunch. She robbed me of all my decency (here's my panties California!) and still wouldn't let go of my skirt. Me + petting zoos = major, major anxiety!

Everett was just as afraid of the animals as I was so he bailed pretty early, but T was in animal heaven. He pet and fed everything he could see (except for the donkeys, he's a total rule-follower, that boy) including a llama a million times bigger than him! So fun.

The boys would rather not have to share everything--but holy cute picture of the California State Fair!

Handsome Uncle Jordan with little Ever.

My beautiful parents near the gardens. The gardens were nice but it was seriously a million degrees outside so we didn't stay there long. Hot!

Uncle Jordan and Aunt Mad with the boys. Sure do love those two!

The boys with superheroes. Love them.

Me and Smokey!

State Fair food is the best--slushees, corn dogs, chili fries, lemonade, yum!

The cousins had so much fun together, for the first 24 hours at least. Then, there was the fall. Poor Kai-Kai! To make a long story short T and Evie were playing pirates at the park when Kai fell after trying to put an imaginary flag on top of a flagpole. After falling 6 feet and smashing his face on his way down, he had a seizure on the ground. I called 911, Ash stayed with Kai Kai and before long he was being taken to the local hospital on a stretcher, and later transferred to Primary Children's to stay the night in the Neuro Trauma Unit. He broke his nose in a couple of places, broke his cheek, broke his lip and had a severe concussion. He came home the next day, but was on strict instructions not to play, or run, or move really. The rest of the week was really long, trying to keep four babies entertained in the house, but we saw some really tender things between cousins (Dr. Talmage was all over Kai's care and always asked, "I'm going to have popcorn, did the dr. say Kai Kai could have some?" It was adorable!) With all of the craziness there were a lot of Utah friends I was not able to see which made me so sad, but I'm super glad I was able to be in Utah to help Ash when all of this happened. It definitely couldn't have happened at a better time.

There is a house in Herriman (right around the corner from Ash) that is designed as an exact replica of the Up! house. Such a fun place to see on our walk one afternoon.

Little Avery-girl is one of my favorite people in the world. She is so sweet and I love being her aunt! Every day I would pick her up after her nap and she would fall back to sleep on my chest. It was the highlight of my everyday. I love that little lady so much.

Sweet Avers.

On Friday Kai-Kai had an appointment with the ENT doctors at Primary's so I dropped him and Ash off at the hospital and took Avery and my boys to the "This is the Place" monument. They loved running around outside, and it wasn't long before Ash called us to pick her back up. Unfortunately, they told her that Kai would need surgery the next week (this last Monday) to correct his nose. Poor kid is three-years-old and already got himself a nose job ;)

We stopped by the Salt Lake temple on our way back to Ash's house and took some too-cute cousin pictures.

And a picture of the girls!

When we got home the kids crashed. And then Avery woke up, and then she fell asleep on my chest again. Love!

Since Jord and Mad drove us to Utah, we were without a car. Good thing Ash has a station wagon. T and I were super cool riding in the back together while the 3 littles squished in the middle!

When my parents got to Utah we went to dinner at Café Rio and then visited the Oquirrh Mountain temple. It's beautiful, as all temples are, and none of us had seen it before.

We talked and laughed, the kids re-landscaped the grass (!), and we all decided who we'd want to play us were our life to be made into a movie. The results were awesome. I can't wait to see Mario Lopez,  Sandra Bullock, Blake Lively and others acting out our lives on the big screen ;)

Saturday was the Boyle Family Reunion and on our way through Provo I showed Talmage the hospital where he was born and the house where we brought him home. He didn't think it was half as sentimental as I did!

Family reunion--these are all of the people (in attendance) that came from my Great-Grandma Dorothy. I love how the organizers had us take pictures by direct descendent.

Sisters.

Ash and I saw this street sign on the way to Springville and stopped on the way back to take a picture. It's mostly funny because Talmage had started calling the two little kids "Averett" when they were fighting!

Brick Oven for Dad's birthday dinner.

And for dessert (as if any of us needed dessert) we had yummy cupcakes from the Sweet Tooth Fairy in Provo. Best cupcakes ever! Happy early birthday Dad and thanks everyone for some serious McKee family fun!