Boren Family Reunion

 LOL

Sunday evening we were in Logandale at my parents home. Alissa brought her two kids and came. Aaron and Nicole came. David and Tereasa came (but Autumn and Jacob were at friends houses). Justin Boren is on his mission. Justin Starnes stayed home due to his job while Alissa planned to stay at Dad and Mom’s house all week.

Sunday evening we hung out and visited. 

We did not see Aaron and Nicole the rest of the week until Friday. Aaron had a big test he was studying for and then Wednesday he and Nicole drove to California where Aaron took the test. Then they drove back for our Boren Reunion.

Monday Sterling and I left the kids with grandma while we went to Vegas to meet up with my best friend Zack and his wife Marissa. I had come to Vegas in the Spring for their wedding reception. SO it’s very exciting that he is happy and married like he deserves. Very fun to meet up with him and his wife and catch up on each other’s lives. We had lunch together at Zupas. Yummy!

Ezra and Lincoln came home from Vegas with my dad on Wednesday and stayed a few days/nights with my boys while their parents were gone. That was fun.

Baby Hank did not come stay with us. I think he went on the drive to Cali with his parents.

Moroni works nights then sleep in the morning. He came and hung out with us late afternoon/evenings and had work off for Friday and Saturday and Sunday.

Nephi leaves for his mission in September and he does not have a job right now. So he was available for all the events.

David and Tereasa had plans with their friends and Tereasa’s sister Reva most of the week. But they dedicated Thursday and Friday to us.

Corinna and her family drove down Wednesday late and stayed until Friday evening. They got a hotel in Mesquite for Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Chubbz and Eliza arrived Wednesday evening. We met up with them at the Moapa area splash pad (Glendale). Ezra, Lincoln, Luke, Ty, Athena and James played in the splash pad water. Mom, Chubbz, Eliza, Alissa, Ster, myself, Nephi and Moroni played water balloon volleyball in the grass. Ezra played a bit with us too. That was fun. Dad stayed home and made hamburgers on his grill for dinner.  

During the week we got to spend a lot of time with Alissa, James and Jasmine, Ezra and Lincoln. That was fun. Getting to know them more. Lincoln is Luke’s age. Ezra loves riding my dad’s motor bike out in the dirt behind my parents house.

Jasmine is easy to make smile. She will smile at everyone. But she gets bored easily. She wants to be held facing away from the holder so she can see everyone and everything. She is happy if she is going from one activity to another not staying too long with one thing. She is teething. It was fun to spend the week with her and all the other kids. I think it helped Alissa too. To have help with the kids and be able to go running and take naps. She even got to go to a friends’ house for a game night Saturday evening while we watched her kids.

 One morning we went on a walk from the house to the reservoir. That morning was hot.

One afternoon we had a marshmallow blow gun fight. Sterling bought pvc pipe and cut it into blow shooters. I bought tons of mini marhsmallows. Dad and Moroni even played with us! We split up into two teams. Green and blue. We had three levels of house to play in. We would have one team start in the top floor and one start in the basement. We’d do a 60 second count from the time we got to our floors before beginning the fight. We had to be sneaky to move around and shoot people without being shot ourselves. The rule was if you got hit you were out and had to go to the tv room couch. When only one person remained and was victorious we would start another round. It was a lot of fun! Alissa was trying to sleep in her room with Jasmine during the game. We were not very successful and keeping quiet though.

Thursday and Friday were the big Boren Reunion fun filled days. Thursday morning we let Corinna and her family sleep in. Then we met up late morning to pack lunches and load up the cars. Mom bought sandwich ingredients and cookies and had chips and waters and sodas to choose from. We all made brown sack lunches and colored them with our names.

It took a long time to load up the cars. It is chaos in such a large group. We went in our Roundy van, Wang’s Humvee, Chubbz and Eliza’s brand new car and Alissa’s car. Sterling handed out radio’s for communication on the drive. Every car had one. And I handed out the schedule of what we were going to do in Vegas (all the attractions with their addresses) and a map of the Strip pointing out where each place is. 

We met up with David and his family at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory first. We ate our packed lunches at the cars before going in for the tour. 

Thursday was our day for free of charge Vegas attractions. First was Ethel M Chocolate Factory with a free tour. It turned out to be a self guided tour where you simply walk down a hall looking through glass windows at the chocolate being made. It was very short. It was still cool to see but did not take long. Luckily they handed out free samples of the chocolate. And we looked through their shop selling lots of cool chocolates like giant chocolate pops on a stick. 

Outside there was a cactus garden. Luckily the weather was not too hot. The weather had been scorching hot in Provo and more so in Vegas before we came. But we have been so blessed to have cooler weather everywhere we went this entire trip! 

Anyway, we took some group pictures in the cactus garden. Ezra was being disobedient and unwise playing on the sharp lava rocks off the path. Everyone told him to stay on the path but he was being defiant and slipped. He scrapped up his knee and leg real good. Poor kid. Luke had slipped and scrapped up with leg and knee the day before at the water park but it was not nearly as bad as Ezra’s.

Next we went to the Strip. We parked at the MGM and walked through the casino. Tiberias looked at all the slots and games and asked about the “arcade.” He was told it was an arcade for grown ups. We also told him it wastes your money so we don’t play it. It made me think about kid arcades. They are a waste of money too. And you are more likely to win something back gambling than you are in a kid’s arcade.

We walked up the street , not far, to the M&M World store.  We had about an hour and planned to go from there to see a free clown show at the Adventuredome Circus Circus. The last showing was at 4pm. But we spent so much time at the M&M World that we knew we would not make it to the clown show. We watched a free 3D mini movie about Red and Yellow (M&M characters) in a mini theater in the store. That was cool. They had wind to blow of you to make it a more interactive experience.

Sterling and I bought some M&M souveniers. It was fun letting the kids get their own this time.

 

From M&M World we went to an awesome new park on Craig Road. It was a huge park! With a lake, basketball courts, community garden, skate park, playground and more. We went to the playground and sat in a pavilion. The park was so cool! There was even a giant lizard in a big sandbox spitting water out. I guess it was suppose to be like the beach…sand and water. But I don’t understand it. Why would you want kids getting wet and in sand at a park? Then you have to try and clean them off to take them home. What a mess!

Sterling, Wang and Nephi went to get dinner. They had to pick up my pictures and baby wipes from Walgreens and went for pizza from Little Ceasar’s. We ate dinner at the park. Dad stayed in Logandale that day. We missed having him there with us. Aaron and Nicole missed that day as well.

 

Corinna and Wang with their family came back to Logandale to hang out at Dad and Mom’s house. Eliza helped me finish up decorating the birthday cake for Luke, Ezra and Jacob. And Ezra suggested I put racing flags on top of the cake around Jacob’s Lamborghini. It was an awesome idea.

Friday  we loaded up all the vehicles again and took radios in each car. We drove to Vegas again but a little more separate. Sterling and I had to go earliest because we had the birthday cake. Sterling drove the van while I held the cake to keep it safe. We took the cake to Reva’s house where Tereasa and her family were staying. We kept the cake in that kitchen while we did our fun outings. 

We met up on Craid Rd and took all the kids to Burger King with a play place. We had three babysitters; Autumn, Jacob, Spencer and Autumn’s friend Jacklyn. We left all the kids there with Burger King lunches. We walked across the parking lot to Applebee’s for a grown up lunch.

Now that Nephi is 18 and going to leave on his mission this year he was in the “adult” group. Spencer is 18 as well but he is not one of my siblings, he is my nephew. And somehow he just ended up staying with the kids. It was good to have an adult there with the babysitters though.

We had a fun and yummy lunch together. Aaron, Nicole, Nephi, Alissa, David, Tereasa, Eliza, Chubbz, Ster, myself, Dad, Mom, Corinna, Wang, Moroni. It was amazing to be able to get almost the entire family together! Isaiah is finishing his training to go to Germany. His first duty station…Germany. 

After lunch we went to a rec center for a swim party. We stayed there from about 1pm to 5pm. We hoped it would be hot so we would all want to be in the water but it was actually pretty cool the first few hours. It didn’t heat up like we thought it would. Crazy how the cool weather has been following Sterling and I! 

We had a great time at the pool though. Visiting, playing, swimming. We brought the cake and put it in the Lifeguard lounge until we were ready for it.

We celebrated Jacob, Luke and Ezra’s bdays by singing to them and having cake. There were no candles this time. It was too windy anyway. 

Corinna brought gifts for all three. This year we said “Don’t worry about gifts.” But Corinna was happy to make up for the years she doesn’t get to attend the parties, birthdays, Christmas’, births etc.

She got Ezra and Luke amazing lego sets based off the Lego Movie. And Jacob got chocolates from Ethel M’s factory. Ster and I gave them each a simple gift as well…just wanted to make sure they had something to open at their party. We gave Jacob a Hot Wheels Lamborghini which was atop the cake. Ezra and Luke got water squirters for summer fun.

Corinna also brought baby gifts for Athena an Jasmine since she missed that when they were born. She is so sweet. She gave Jasmine a big fluffy soft Eeyore doll and Athena a baby doll from Madame Alexander. Athena wanted the doll right away but she had blue fondant on her fingers and face so I only let her look. 

James and Athena loved trying to catch the pigeons at the pool!

David and Tereasa were going to dinner out with Reva after that so we said our goodbyes. After that dinner they were going to take on their 20 hr drive home to Texas.

Corinna would be heading home that evening as well. But we were not ready to say goodbye yet. So we left the pool and drove to a frozen yogurt place. It was such a fun decorated place. Very cozy. We all had fun picking frozen yogurt flavors and toppings and eating them while visiting together.

We said goodbye to Corinna’s family and headed back to Logandale. Jacob actually didn’t go home with his family. He went with us back to Logandale to stay at his best friend’s house. So he actually came to see us at Dad and Mom’s house a couple more times over the next few days. 

He and his best friend joined us for Saturday’s dinner. Eliza and Chubbz made beans and meat and a delicious taco meal. Sterling had taken me out on a date for lunch that day. We went to Mesquite and ate a diner called Peggy Sue’s. The burgers were delicious but the sides were gross. The oil was bad or something.

We had a game night Saturday evening. Mom, Moroni, Chubbz, Eliza, Ster and myself played a long game of SkipBo. That’s when Alissa went to see her friend. Jasmine was with us as we played. She fell asleep and took a nap during the game.

We ate ice cream too.

Sunday church was at 11am. Right after sacrament meeting Eliza and Chubbz were going to get lunch and head home. Dad, Moroni, Sterling and I also went home. Ate lunch and said goodbye to Chubbz and Eliza. 

We had a fancy dinner as is usual in that home. I made chocolate chip cookies. Alissa said goodbye and headed to Cedar.

After we got my kids to bed that night Ster, Mom, Moroni, Nephi and I watched Paddington Bear. A way fun movie.

Monday morning we said goodbye and hit the road ourselves.  4.5 hours to Mt Pleasant to stay at the Roundy family cabin.