Missouri Vacation - Fourth of July

This is our 2nd trip on the Fourth of July to Missouri to visit Aunt Betty and Uncle Sonny on their farm. Family from all over join their, I guess like a reunion. It is lots of fun and each year we meet more of Jeff's family that we have not yet met. Here is Brent with his cousin Samuel. They are about 6 weeks apart. Aren't they precious? Samuel had just gotten his curls cut off the night before by Aunt Franny. Oh yeah, I uploaded my pictures backwards again! Oops!

Here is Grandma Zita with her two youngest grand babies, Samuel and Brent. Here he looks blond!

We celebrate DeeDee's 12th birthday (Jeff's youngest sister) on the 5th and Uncle's Sonny's birthday on the 4th. People started getting together for U. Sonny's birthday and the 4th and now it's become a nice tradition/reunion! You can see Aunt Betty and Uncle Sonny on the right side of the picture. Betty is in the red shirt. To her left is her daughter Mary and to her left is Aunt Paula Aunt Betty's youngest sister. This year all of Aunt Betty's sisters were there. Aunt Betty is really Jeff's great aunt.

Caitlyn (& Brent) played hard and slept hard. There were tons of kids, even though you can't see them all in this picture and tons of beds and campers. People were sleeping everywhere. We had a nice camper to sleep in with a/c, in fact I had to get an extra blanket b/c Jeff froze me out.

Each year we are there new calves are born and this year was not exception. This was the newest one. Isn't she a cutie. She was so wobbly on her feet. It is very neat because the whole herd protects her not just her momma, in fact this isn't even her momma in the picture!

Here's some excitement - a black snake. But not to worry Uncle Sonny and Uncle Chuck wrestled it into a bucket and took it up the road and released it. He said it was not poisonous and I suppose it is good to keep the mice eater around. On the way back he met up with a group coming back from the store so he got Aunt Franny out of the van and made sure to get her soaking wet going through the creek on the 4-wheeler, even if it did take 2 times.

Jeff and I went back to that same creek later and he taught me how to skip rocks and I was actually able to. We had a blast riding the 4-wheelers. Caitlyn loves to ride them to. We only saw 2 deer but it was so much fun to be out in nature.

See the small, tiny dogs and the big 'ol cows. Well the tiny little dogs will go down there and start barking at the cows and then the cows come over and start playing with the dogs. They go back and forth, it is the funniest thing ever!

Here's Aunt Betty siting down. She only set down for 5 minutes - put it in the history books! She cooked gourmet meals for us and treated us all like prince and princesses and took care of our babies and insisted that we just sit and enjoy ourselves. But we still helped of course! She is great! She is a fabulous hostess!

Here is Uncle Sonny and his grandson Michael. There are 3 dogs in his lap! He sat down for about 15 minutes and I think that was his limit! He was also a fabulous host and we love coming to the farm! If you sit close to the grill you can early portions of the briscit as he is slicing it!!!

Brent had a ball! He stayed behind with his aunts while Jeff, Caitlyn and I went to the lake on Saturday. We went out on the boat and went tubing. Caitlyn loved being on the boat and told Uncle Sonny to go faster! When we got back Brent was sitting up playing on the blanket and slowly sunk over crashed for a very long time! Isn't he precious! Apparently he was showing off for everyone by standing on his head and when everyone would laugh, he would laugh harder!

Here we are watching the fireworks from the back porch. Caitlyn loved it and was not a bit scared. They put on a big 'ol fireworks show right there in their backyard. I'm talking huge, better than any city show, in my opinion!

This is DeeDee. She is doing very well for just falling out of a tree last week. She is walking with a slight limp but overall she is doing great. She fell about 20 feet down and landed on very hard dirt and was blue and unconscious when her mom found her. She had to be flown to Denver Children's Hospital because of a brain bleed but now she is doing excellent. PTL!

Here is Caitlyn with her first sparklers. She loved it, although we had to jump out of the way when she would direct them in our direction - ouch! She keeps us on our toes!

This is Keith, Zita's oldest grandson at 17. He is such a nice young man and he drove is grandma all the way home.

Here we are preparing for the fireworks show on the back porch. Samuel loved the show in his grandma's lap!

Aunt Franny, Uncle Chuck, and the fan belongs to Aunt Debbie.

The weather was awesome. We were able to serve food, eat, and congregate outside.

So I have no idea why Caitlyn had on her jacket or how in the world she snuck the jacket in the vehicle for that matter!

Samuel with all his curls before his 1 year old haircut. Isn't he a cutie, especially when he smiles, you'll have to imagine that part!