Ever since I can remember my parents have hosted the Neider Family Reunion at their house almost every year. It is usually around the 4th of July, but this year it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. When my mom told me the date, I knew we wouldn't be able to sacrifice any school absences to attend. On Friday morning of Labor Day weekend, Rob woke up and said, "Why don't we just make a quick trip to Utah for the weekend?". My first response was, "You're nuts! A 10 1/2 hour drive each way for a weekend trip???" After first questioning the sanity of his suggestion, I quickly agreed that it would be fun and I was on board. We hadn't surprised our kids with a trip to Utah for a while since they have gotten smarter. I knew it would take me a couple hours to get ready, so I sent the kids off to school with them not knowing we were going anywhere. (I was also hoping if I checked them out at noon, we would only get a half day absence instead of a full day:) The girls knew our friends were going to Lake Powell for the weekend, and since our girls have never been there, we told them we were going to Lake Powell and that it was on the way to Utah. It worked beautifully until about Fillmore (about 2 hours away from my parents) when Alyssa asked me if she could play with my iphone. As she was playing, my sister sent me a text message asking when we were going to be arriving. All you iphone users know that when you get a message from someone, above the new message is all of the past messages that you have exchanged with the sender. Alyssa read off all of the messages to Brooklyn...including the one that I wrote to my sister saying, "My kids have no idea we are coming to Utah...they think we are going to Lake Powell." Luckily Ashley was asleep so we could still have one surprise. We also hadn't told my parents or grandparents that we would be in town for the reunion. We stayed at my sisters house that night when we got in town and Ashley was so funny because after we had been there about 15 minutes, we started talking about surprising my parents at their house in the morning. Ashley piped into the conversation and said, "We're going to Utah tomorrow???" My sister only lives about 15 minutes from my parent's house, so apparently Ash isn't as quick as I though she was:) I guess that makes for great surprises:) When we got up to my parent's house Saturday morning, my parents were both gone. We all hid down in the backyard and surprised my mom when she went into the backyard frantically looking for my niece that she thought was lost (thanks for the trick Natalie:) I will say that my mom screamed like a little girl when she saw all of us! My dad's cousin, Cory, has an awesome band that played for us Saturday night.
My niece, Amber, is quite the dancer! She had to ditch the Princess Belle dress so that she could show us all of her SEXY moves:)
The lead singer of the band decided she needed to teach us all how to dance...Some of us Clarks are extreme introverts!!! I always think my dad is, until we do something like this. He was just like the other Neiders out there on the dance floor:)
Ashley is another grandchild that knows how to dance:)
The kids doing their own routine
Brooklyn decided she would look better sitting on the chair most of the time:)
Kinzie teaching Hunter how to dance
Rob and my brother Ryan took Cooper and Hunter out on Ryan's rhino one morning. Hunter had so much fun just being a boy...That isn't always easy in our house:(
These boys thought they were so cool with their helmets on:)
Buddies
Cooper is all boy throwing the stick in the lake.
Rob and Hunter...Both are dreaming of owning their own rhino:)
I'm glad Hunter can raise his arms in a rhino, because he would NEVER do this on a roller coaster:)
A couple of weeks before we arrived, my sister-in-law Stephanie had their 3rd baby. His name is Colton and he is so beautiful and so sweet! Yes Ryan, I called your son beautiful:)
Ashley was star student this month.
Hunter's new favorite toy is my iphone. He loves to play games on it...I'm not quite sure why he likes to play it sitting under the bar stool, but here he is:)
Hunter staring over the fence into the park behind us. I don't know if he was watching all of the cool boys playing football, or maybe he was checking out the girls??? He is getting better at entertaining himself since all three girls are in school all day.
