My First Skeem Reunion

This happened to be my first Skeem reunion since Kyan and I have been married. I wasn't sure what to expect with the size of the family. We were super anxious and excited. 

One of the siblings took on this huge crowd and hosted the reunion at her home. I am impressed. Several of the families slept inside and several slept in motor homes that she managed to gather from friends in her area. There was a ton of work that had to happen before we all came and she managed to do it while being pregnant. I know, right!

We all arrived at different times but were all together on the official first day of the reunion. This is Samuel on our way over to the reunion. He tried on mommy's older pair of sunglasses and knew he was cool. I tried to get him to put the glasses on the right way but he insisted on wearing them upside down. 

Some people had a long way to drive while others had a long day of air travel. 

 Look at these two boys. At one glance you might think they are the same boy (beside the fact that one is younger and shorter then the other) or even siblings. They look almost identical. The funny thing is that one of these boys has a Mexican mommy and all of his sibling have darker skin and hair. It shows that those crazy Skeem genes are strong enough to even surpass full Mexican blood. 

On the first morning of the reunion, the brothers, in-laws, and some of their sons went paintballing. I always thought it would be fun to go but after seeing them come back with welts and bruises the size of small oranges, I decided its not the game for me.

Later that afternoon, we packed up our stuff and went to a lake. The weather was perfect. The kids played in the sand and went swimming. Some of the adults went swimming while others hid from the sun while enjoying the shade and company of family.

When Friday arrived, we packed up and were on the road by 7:30am. We drove an hour to where we planned to float the snake river. It was absolutely gorgeous. The weather wasn't very warm but it didn't keep anyone from getting wet or starting water fights. Samuel even requested to be dipped into the water several times and I jumped in at the end just for the fun of it. Brrrrrr.....it was cold. It reminded me of the river I swam in while growing up. 

Later that evening, the bouncy house arrived. I think this is the first time Samuel has ever been in a bouncy house before. He had a great time being bounced around. I'm not sure how much bouncing he was able to do on his own.

Here is a video of his first bounce house experience.

We also rode motorcycles on Friday. 

Samuel got to ride with Daddy on a motorcycle ride. He loved it so much he didn't want to get off.

He loved his motorcycle experience so much that he found a little motorcycle and asked to sit on it. He sat there for at least 15 to 20 minutes and even when we went to take him off he cried because he didn't want to get off the bike. 

 While Samuel sat on the little motorcycle, I learned how to drive one. It was a lot of fun. Kyan met up with me and road along my side for a little bit. It was fun to get out of my comfort zone and try something different. While being pregnant I am overly cautious so this was a nice change.

On Saturday, it rained. Yup, it rained in Idaho. It was actually sort of nice since it had been so hot for the past few weeks. A bunch of the girls got umbrellas and played cards outside. Goofy girls! :)

This is Samuel pretending to have a baby in his belly. It you look closely, you can see he had stuffed a ball up his shirt and then proceeded to come over to where I was sitting and say, "Look Mommy, baby!" I got a good laugh out of that one. I believe Kyan coaxed him along.

Oh, did I mention they had horses too? Samuel had a chance to ride on a pony Thursday morning but I didn't have my camera handy. It was so cute watching get excited to ride the pony. Unfortunately, when we tried to get him on the second time, he wouldn't have it. So, no pictures with him riding a pony. Bummer.

Overall, the Skeem reunion was a ton of fun. We loved spending time with the family and enjoying the fun activities with one another. Family is a wonderful thing whether BIG or small.

(This was Posted By Rose Skeem)

Sypher Family Reunion (Part 2)

We started out the week, going to bear lake. I don't have any pictures of bear lake because our phones were nicely tucked away while we were having a blast. We played in the sand, went swimming, and when the Sea-doos were working properly, or someone didn't get stranded in the middle of the lake with one, we drove them around and had fun.

Tuesday started out with a service project on the Millers vacation home. We made the mistake of pouring the clear sealant into plastic cups for each of us to have while working on various window seals around the house. We quickly learned that plastic and sealant are NOT friends and out came the sealant from the bottom as it poured all over Mom's flip flops and onto the sidewalk. We quickly found another alternative and managed to get one with the service we had planned on.  

After lunch, we went into town and bought us all some famous Bear Lake raspberry shakes. I would have to say they were pretty good. How could you go wrong when using fresh raspberries? 

I love how influential we can be as parents to our children. Even when is as simple and cute as this.

 I love this kid. 

After our shakes we visited the Minnetonka Caves. It was about a 90 minute tour with really neat things to see. It was mother nature at its finest. I just wish we could have been able to capture it with our cameras. Its hard to get a nice clear picture when its dark.

Wednesday arrived and so did the 4th. We went to town for the 4th of July parade and had a fun time gathering the candy being chucked at us from the cars and floats. Samuel thought it was tons of fun. 

We enjoyed a nice picnic in the shade afterward and then went home to relax and enjoy a simple afternoon. In the evening, Samuel learned what sparklers were and couldn't get enough of them. Kyan was the main man lighting off the little fireworks for the little kids to enjoy before the real firework show happened at dark. 

This is a video of the kids bouncing around when the fireworks went off. Its pretty funny. 

This was the last night of our reunion. It was full of fun memory making moments. Definitely worth doing again. See you all next year!

(This Post was written by Rose Skeem)

Our First Sypher Family Reunion (Part 1)

This year was my families first Sypher family reunion. We stayed in Dingle Idaho at my sister's in-laws summer home. It was the perfect place to gather together for five or six days. Each day was planned with a fun activity. Saturday was the day for everyone to arrive. The kids played with squirt guns and the adults chatted.

On Sunday, we attended the Dingle Idaho LDS church and later took a tour of Matt's grandparents property (my sister Cindy's husband). It was really cool. Matt's grandpa had an old furnished cabin with running water and a blacksmith shop located behind it. He even had an outhouse just in case they ever had to move across the street from their home into the cabin. 

 After the tour of the grandparent's cabin and blacksmith shop, we went across the street to their home where we let the kids play on the swing set and slide. This slide was like a mile long. It had been made by Matt's grandpa a looooong time ago. I was waiting for that slide to collapse but it never did. Just listen to the pops and crackles as Kyan takes Samuel down the slide. No one died. We had fun.

We made our way over to the pig pen to feed the pigs some molasses beans. They were supposed to be a nice batch of pork and beans but somehow we added the wrong amount of molasses to the batch. The after taste left a really bitter taste in your mouth. It was far gone and not worth salvaging so we had fun feeding it to the pigs. 

June Wedding

Kyan's brother Marc got married this June to a beautiful woman named Stephanie in the LDS Seattle Temple. She looked GORGEOUS in her wedding dress and with her hair all done up nice. It always makes me wish I could go wedding dress shopping again just so that I can wear one of those pretty things. Of course, that would mean having to get married again and there is no way I would trade my handsome, awesome hubby just to wear another wedding dress.

  

Since we live close to the LDS Seattle Temple, we had the opportunity of having many of Kyan's siblings stay at our home. Between the tired and pregnant folk and in between wedding events, we spent our time relaxing and hanging out at our house. It was nice to spend that time visiting with each other and laughing at Darren and Craig's random sense of humor.  

I have included a video of the newly married couple exiting the Seattle Temple.

CONGRATULATIONS MARC & STEPHANIE!

Singing In It's Perfected State

I had college roommates who majored in music. They would spend endless hours in their practice rooms singing their lives away simply to perfect their voices so they could perform perfectly. I always admired their hard work and devotion. 

However, after watching this video you might come to the same conclusion that I did...we came to this earth already perfected in our singing ability. Just listen to this sweet voice sing the birthday song (I'm not referring to my own). How can you listen to this performance and say it needs any improvement. 

Its perfect!

Did Someone Say Two?

Let me introduce you to our rockin' awesome TWO year old! Some people say the 2s are terrible but for us they have been a road of excitement and new discovery. This is Samuel in a nutshell...

He is in the stage where he will copy anything and everything. Right now, he idolizes his Dad in every way. So, if there is anything that Daddy wears or likes or says or does, Samuel is right behind him doing exactly that. He saw Kyan wearing a tie on Sunday and insisted that he wear a tie too. So we changed his entire outfit so he could look like Daddy. It was cute. When he came across Kyan's sunglasses, he put them on and just knew he was the coolest thing ever. He was wearing Daddy's sunglasses!

I even got him to do some dance moves while wearing them. Check out this video. It's funny. 

Samuel turned Two June 2nd. We knew he LOVED fires so we decided to go camping for his birthday. We got together with Kyan's brother and sister-in law and their kids. We had planned on going to Whidbey Island to camp but when we looked at the forecast it showed rain, rain, and more rain. Oh, and did I mention rain? Yeah, so you get my point. We started looking elsewhere and it turned out that it wasn't suppose to rain a whole lot down at Kyan's parents place. So we ventured down that way and found a great spot down in their pasture nestled in some trees. It was perfect. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and then slept like babies in our tent. We actually slept really well in our tent. It was great!

The following day we enjoyed pancakes by the morning fire and then packed up our gear and went up to the house. This is where we celebrated Samuel's birthday. He has been practicing blowing out his imaginary candles. So, as you watch the video clip you will notice how anxious he is to blow them out.

We spent the rest of Samuel's birthday at the park with his cousins. They found the sand and spent much of there time digging around with plastic spoons that I found in the car.

Camping, a camp fire, ice cream cake, cousins, grandparents, and playing at the park was more then a two year old could ask for. He loved every minute of his birthday.

One...Two...

Before I ever got married, I had a dream about one of my babies. It was a cute little girl dressed in her pink sleeper all cuddled up in her crib. She was adorable. So, when Kyan and I got married I just knew our first baby would be a girl.

But....

To my discovery, when we went into our 20 week ultra sound we found out we were having a boy. We have fallen in love with this sweet little boy. He adds so much character to our family that we can't imagine not having him around. But, he's getting older and needs someone besides his Mom and Dad to play trains and cars with him.


So...


We decided to have another! This time around I just knew it would be a girl. The morning sickness was completely different. Doesn't that mean the gender is different too? 


Well....


Once again, to my discovery, we will be having boy number two! I guess this means we will have to at least try a third time for that little girl. Nonetheless, we are so thrilled to have another little boy in our family. We will be expecting his arrival October 23rd. We are anxiously awaiting the fourth member of our family to arrive. Yay!