Sister Trip - July 2011

One week after my sister and her family left, Cynthia and I flew to Utah for my Sister Trip.  I have five sisters and one sister-in-law, and we get together with our mom every year (or every other year, depending on the schedule) for a weekend of relaxing, talking, eating, shopping, etc.

We flew into Salt Lake City, and then I got a ride with one of my sisters down to my parents’ house in Orem.  Even though it was late, Cynthia got right to work finding fun places to explore.

This year was definitely the year of the babies!  We always leave all the older kids at home with our husbands, and just bring nursing babies (or kids under two who can still fly free), and usually this works out to mean that a few of us have kids there, a few of us don’t, and some of us are pregnant.  This year two of my sisters are pregnant, and all six of us brought a baby, plus our sister-in-law had her first baby the week before, so there were seven babies there!

Here is my sister-in-law Lindy with the newest little cousin, Wayne.  I think he is only 5 days old here. 

The very first thing we do every year is our sister gift exchange.  We all buy or make something special to give, and then bring one for everyone.  Usually we take a picture of each of us with the gift we gave – somehow we forgot this year.  Everyone gave fun presents. 

After that we tried to organize a photo shoot out in the front yard with the seven babies.  Ha!

Here I am trying to entertain five of them while we try to find the other two (that scarf I am holding was my mom’s gift – she brought us all scarves from her recent trip to China):

Here they are in age order.  Lindy was so nice and brave to let us include little tiny Wayne in the picture.  She placed him down right at the last second, in hopes of avoiding the most abuse from the other kids.  He’s lucky he wasn’t next to Cindy, or it might have been his nose she was trying to pull off, instead of the next youngest cousin’s (sorry, Victor!)

This one kind of worked:

With all those babies there were lots of highchairs set up all over.  Cute little eaters.

The next morning we all went walking together.  My parents moved to this house when I was in 9th grade, so I lived there from age 14 until I went to college.  I love this house, this yard, and this neighborhood – Daniel’s family used to live right across the street, so our families were in the same ward and that’s how we met.   It was fun walking around the neighborhood and seeing how much is still the same. 

Later that morning our friend Trish (in the middle, front row) came out to my mom’s house to give everyone haircuts.  Those of us who don’t live in Utah anymore love to schedule appointments with her whenever we’re in town, so we decided it would be easier (especially because of all the babies) if she could just come over to the house, instead of each of us driving down to Provo at separate times.  It was a fun morning.

Cynthia loved having other kids her size to play with:

She had to borrow some pajamas from one of the boy cousins, and she ended up being twinners with another of the boy cousins.  They decided not to sit still and pose together for the camera. 

On one of the afternoons we went over to my aunt’s house nearby to go swimming.  I think this was my favorite thing we did.  We went swimming all the time when we were growing up, but I don’t remember the last time we were all together at a pool.  Even my mom got in on the fun, teaching us how to do fancy tricks off the diving board, and going down the slide face first, etc.  

Dinner.  I love cooking and eating with these girls.

Bathtime (wildness!):

Pedicures!  One of my sisters introduced us to Sally Hansen “Salon Effects” nail polish strips.  They are great. 

The best part is it stays on for a really long time – perfect for me (I never do my nails because it seems like such a hassle).  My feet are the ones attached to the tan pants:

On Sunday we surprised my dad by visiting the BYU student ward where he serves as the bishop.  I think when we all came walking in with our babies the whole ward was surprised, not just my dad.  That was for sure the noisiest sacrament meeting those students have been in for awhile.  Here we all are with my mom and dad in the middle.  Our youngest brother, David, is on the end.

After church we took more pictures in the front yard.  Cynthia was so tired;  she kept trying to fall asleep during the picture taking.

My mom with her six girls and the babies:

Me and my sisters, in age order:

The babies entertaining themselves with all our purses while we took pictures:

Me and Cindy:

Tired girl:

Making dinner.  My sister let me borrow her fancy sling/wrap contraption, and Cindy loved it.

After dinner Daniel’s mom came over for a visit (she doesn’t live across the street anymore, but still within 10 minutes).  I was so glad she was able to come over and see Cindy – I miss living in Utah where the kids got to see their grandparents at least every week.

We also got another picture with our brothers.  Alex just got married last year, and David is 16, and the only kid still living at home.  This is 8 of the 9 kids:  we have one more brother (Victor) on a mission in Argentina.

The last day we drove up to South Weber to see my youngest sister’s new house.  We managed to fit in a shopping trip at the Down East outlet store on our way up.  We ate lunch and toured the house, and then those of us who were leaving that afternoon went to the airport from there. 

My sister Marian and I had flights leaving at similar times, so we hung out together.  Her little boy Victor and Cynthia were airport buddies:

Now that it’s been a few months and I’m looking at all these pictures, I want to do another Sister Trip right away.

Thanks to my mom and sisters for being so great. 

And thanks to all the husbands for watching the rest of the kids and making it possible for us to get together.