july 4th, here: the motherland...

we made it.

to Idaho.
the Motherland.

Yes, the above picture makes it look like Rowan was INVOLVED
with the lighting of the fireworks, but after it started -
he ran as fast as his little legs could carry him
to the safety of the house and a view from an upstairs window.

It's been a jam packed week!
our first stop: Salt Lake City
To reunite with all the Dunning's!
(James & Abbie & kids, Mark's brother's family
& Sharon, Mark's sister & 5 of her 6 kiddies)
it had been about 2 and a half years since we'd seen all of them...
i got very emotional seeing my nieces and nephews all grown up!
i took tons and tons of pictures and will post them soon (so stay tuned, Geoff & Suzie...there were lots of moments captured for you to enjoy!)
It was such a fun and much needed reunion! I'd missed them all so much.
I LOVED seeing all the cousins interact together:

some highlights:
Eliza telling Rowan, "it's because I'm a little bit taller
and a little bit older, Rowan" (we don't know what Rowan said
to her, but he knew his place after that!)

Emily quoting her favorite YouTube video of the
Vietnamese nail girl selling you the "works" word for word
"honnn-aaay, you want gel? you have boyfriend? ohhh, honn-aay"

seeing this cool kid get baptized!
we love you, Jamie and are SO proud of you!


and, these cute girlies at 7 Peaks.
Between all the Dunning's, there are SIX little girls ages 5 to 1.
They are just DARLING together.
Too bad Rowan fits right in the middle of all of them
and happens to be the only boy in that age group, but
don't worry, he can hold his own when it comes
to playing dress-up, make-up, and house.
;)

the wave pool was a favorite, and thanks to Mark booking
us a cabana the night before (SMART thinkin' for 4th of July weekend)
which was smack in between the wave pool and the toddler pool
which had some pretty amazing slides (that even scared me a little, and hurt my bum going down! - of course, it didn't help that I had Sarah AND Rowan in between my legs and holding both of them all the way down as to not drown in the 3 feet of water below! - sorry no pictures to display of this as the photographer {me} wasn't about to get the camera wet and the big boys were going down the scary stuff and weren't available for the paparazzi-ing)

I will definitely post more later...
It was such a joy to see Mark's family after all these years and we are so happy that James has moved to Salt Lake as we will be seeing much more of them in the future {yay!}

we love you all and had the BEST time with you.
loves.