Family Reunion

About a week and a half ago, we had a big Haroldsen Reunion here in Idaho Falls. We were celebrating not only Father's Day on the 15th, but my Grandpa's 80th birthday, my parents' anniversary, and my brother's anniversary. We haven't had a Haroldsen reunion in a long time, so it was great to have one. My Grandpa has 7 kids (plus their spouses), 44 grandkids, and 18 great grandkids (4 more on the way) on just his side of the family (his wife, Elaine, has an even bigger family!). Most of us were able to be there (some in and out at various times), and we all had lots of fun out at Grandpa's house.

During the reunion, we had a big birthday party for Grandpa, a big cookout one night, a big potluck another night, crafts and games, and a trip to the nuclear sight where Grandpa helped make history. We also had a Talent Show for Grandpa and I was amazed by how much talent my family had!! We got some of the grandkids to go up and sing the ABC Song, and then Parker decided he wanted to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" too. It was very cute and I was surprised by how bold Parker was. He usually shys away from crowds, but I guess he wanted to do it because he saw everyone else doing it. In the picture is Emily (Jen's almost 4-yr-old), Sydney (Jess' 4-yr-old), Parker, Mikey (Jen's 4-yr-old), Riley (Lisa's 4-yr-old), Lisa, and Austin (her 1-yr-old).


It was so great to have the reunion because all of my immediate family came out for it. All of us sisters were able to be together last summer with our kids, but none of our husbands and Joe and Mary weren't there. So Mom and Dad got to have all 5 of their kids, all the spouses, and all 9 grandkids (two more coming soon) together. One of the nights of the reunion, we were able to have everyone over for dinner to celebrate some birthdays. Even though we have a three bedroom apartment, it was quite the scene to fit 12 adults and 9 kids all into our house for dinner. But the kids had a lot of fun playing together, and it was great. We also went and got a family picture of all of us, which was quite adventuresome as well. The 4 four-year-olds (Sydney, Riley, Mikey, & Emily) and Madisyn did quite well, but the 2 two-year-olds (Parker and Natalie, especially Parker!) and the 2 one-year-olds (Austin & Lincoln) were quite the challenge. The pictures haven't come back yet, but I have a snap shot or two that Dad took while we were there.

After the pictures were taken, we let all of the kids (besides Madisyn) have suckers. Everyone is there except Lincoln (13mo). In the picture: Austin (14 mo), Madisyn (8mo), Parker (26mo), Natalie (25mo), Michael (4), Sydney (4), Emily (almost 4), & Riley (4)

Sydney, Parker, & Riley waiting for the professional pictures to be taken

Richie, my sister Lisa, Riley, and Austin outside the photo studio

I was really glad that although Jen and her family and Lisa & her family couldn't stay very long, Mom & Dad and Jess and her family got to stay for a whole week after the reunion. Jess, Renn, Syd, & Lincoln even got to stay at our house for a few of the days. So the kids got to play a lot, and Syd and Parker especially had a lot of fun together.

Sydney in her ballerina outfit dancing


Madisyn and Lincoln playing together


Uncle Joe and Madisyn

BYUI Visit

We've been here for two weeks now, so we thought it was about time to go visit the old college town, Rexburg. We went up on Saturday and walked around campus with the kids, and went to the new temple there as well. Then we visited Mill Hollow for old time's sake (a frozen yogurt shop we used to go to all the time), and headed home. For all us alumni of Ricks/BYUI, I'll tell you we were amazed by how much has changed and is changing! The last time we were there at school was 4 years ago. They had had the Hinckley building for about a year, and the rebuilt Spori building for about a year as well. Now they have a whole new addition to the Snow building, beautiful landscaping all around the Spori, a new children's center (for Children's Ed classes) by the Clark, new computer lab where the Testing Center used to be, and the New Thomas E. Ricks building. Then they are adding an addition onto the Manwaring Center, and building something huge where the old practice fields used to be. It was crazy how much construction work there was!

Our family outside the Spori

Maddie and Parker in the gardens

Parker, Ben, and Maddie in the gardens

In the gardens, Hinckley building in the back

The new Rexburg Temple

Hmm, what does printer ink taste like?

After church last week, we got home, I got Maddie's dress off, and had Ben watch Madisyn while I got Parker some lunch. Course he was trying to fix our printer so maybe I shouldn't have asked him to watch her. Well, she got a hold of a picture that we had printed, and went to town with it. When I came in after fixing lunch, she had blue printer ink all over her face, tongue, hands, onesie (thank heavens I had already taken off her pretty dress!), and tights. I thought for sure she would be stained for days, but it surprisingly came right off. I don't know if you can see the blue very well in the pictures, but here's a few.

Our new home

We've finally gotten settled in (for the most part) with almost everything unpacked. I took pictures of our house, but left out our room. We've tackled all the other rooms first, so ours still has some boxes in it (but hopefully not for long!).

Living room

Office & dining room

Kitchen

Parker's room (all you can see is half of it)

Madisyn's room (again, half of it)

Like I said before, the kids are adjusted and loving it here. Although we miss our family back in Portland, we are really glad we have some family here too. In our unpacking, we found our old ukelele that we got in Hawaii on our honeymoon. Parker picked it up right away and started trying to make music. So Ben got out his guitar, and they started "jammin" together. It was cute. Here's some picture and video of it.

Parker with the ukelele

Ben and Parker playing together

Just a cute picture of the kids playing together.

Our moving experience

Well, the move went good and we're finally mostly settled. We got here last Saturday and unloaded the truck, and we've been unpacking since. Thank heavens our new place has a garage. We have so much stuff out there that I don't know what we'd do without having it! The kids have adjusted well. However, about 2 days after we got here, we were in the apartment doing stuff and Parker said, "I wanna go home. Let's go home Mommy." I told him that this is our new home and he said, "Oh. Okay." So I think he understands now. But he still asks to go to his cousin Porter's house every once in a while. We just got the Internet hooked up, so I'm putting some pictures of the moving truck and stuff.

Parker inside the truck before we started loading.

Heather, Maddie, Parker, & Grandma Lewis

Ben, Maddie, Parker, & I in the back of our truck after it was loaded.


Parker helping Daddy "drive" the truck.

Cousin Cole holding Maddie before we left.

Last Sunday in Oregon

Our last Sunday here was great. The weather was gorgious (unlike the last few days which had been sweltering hot!), and we had a good time with the family one last time before we move. We spent most of the day outside with the kids, just relaxing and having fun. We have LOVED it here in Oregon. It is so pretty here (just like Pennsylvania!), the weather is usually mild all year round which is nice, and we have so much family here. Parker and Porter are such good buds (Parker asks for Porter at least twice a day), and I've been so blessed to get to know Ben's side of the family. I would never have gotten to know them so well if we hadn't moved here. But at last we must move on, and Idaho is a good place to move on to. It's at least comforting to know that we will still have some family there. We got a few pictures of the family, so here they are.

Cousin Clara (7), Madisyn (7 mo), cousin Taya (4 1/2), Aunt Camille, and cousin Porter (2)

Maddie and Daddy

Chillin on the hammock: Maddie, Daddy, and Park-boo

They looked so relaxed that I decided to join them too!

Cousin Hailey (6 1/2 mo) and Madisyn (7 mo)

Madisyn the future baseball player

We are close to being completely packed, and all of our stuff is crammed into the front room just waiting for the moving truck. We still have tomorrow which we'll do last minute things, then we load the truck up on Thursday, we drive all day Friday, get there really late Friday night, and move all our stuff in on Saturday. Wish us luck!

Since Ben's been home

So I haven't put a post on since Ben got home on April 30th, after being gone to Idaho for just over three weeks. I know, I'm horrible. Things have been very busy since he's been back, and we've finally gotten things all set up in Idaho for our move. Even though he was there for a while, we've still had to set up some things long distance which has been a challenge. Thank heavens for helpful family members, the Internet, scanners, and fax machines!! We'll be living in a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment that has a garage attached (nice!) which we will probably end up using to store all of our stuff. We have both of our bikes, a bike for Parker, a double bike trailer, a double jogging stroller, and a single jogging stroller which will go in there amoungt many boxes of storage stuff too. So we were glad to find a place with a garage that we can enter in to right from our apartment. We're moving not this weekend, but the next (yikes!).

I'll give a brief summary of some of the things that have been going on since I last posted. The weekend right after Ben got home, we traveled up to Bellingham, WA to visit Ben's oldest sister, Julie, and her family. They have a gorgious house that they built last summer, and Parker had tons of fun playing with his cousins, running all over their house, playing with lots of "new" toys, and playing outside where they have lots of property.

Here's a picture of cousin Chloe (3 1/2), Madisyn (6 1/2 mo), and cousin Gavin (5).

Madisyn has finally gotten to eat a few other things besides baby food, and this is one of them. I put some sliced up pear in one of those mesh eating bags, and she loved sucking away at it.

For Mother's Day, all of the family members here in Portland came over to Grandpa & Grandma's house. Paul grilled on the Evo grill, which we love using since we feed lots of people (we had 15 adults and 11 grandkids over).

Grandma and Madisyn on Mother's day

Parker & cousin Porter playing together. The two of them love playing together, although they fight like typical two year olds too.

Just today we went and got Parker's hair cut professionally for the first time (he's had a million haircuts, but just by me). We took him to a place that does just kids hair, and they have different kinds of "chairs" for the kids to sit in. Parker picked the jet. So here he is getting his hair cut!

Doesn't he look like he really wants to be there?

Here's what Parker's hair looks like after the cut. Doesn't he look like such a big boy?!

And here's just a cute picture of Maddie.