We just returned from the most wonderful reunion weekend with my siblings' families and my parents. Every other year one of my siblings takes a turn to plan out a 3-night reunion to get us all together. This year it was Jordan and Amanda's turn, and they found a great rental house in Lava Hot Springs for a long weekend of togetherness and cousin time.
This weekend was also our trial run checking in on how our children do sleeping outside of their own beds. The last time we stayed somewhere besides our own beds overnight was during our move about 9 months ago. The nights were so awful that we basically swore off overnight travel for the entirety of 2025, knowing we'd dip our toes back in for a checkin at this reunion. The kids mostly did really great! Jack still had a hard time falling asleep, as he always does, but for the first time ever he felt brave about having a cousin sleepover and the older 3 boys spent most of the nights camping out in the bunk room. In hindsight, there's a good chance that the only reason this worked is that Jared and I were also sleeping in the bunk room. But we'll take any progress, and Jack sleeping through the nights with cousins in his room is progress.
Alice did pretty well too, all things considered. If we had transitioned her out of sleeping in a crib by now it probably would have gone off without a hitch, but we haven't been able to do that yet. (We do give her the option to try and sleep on Jack's bottom bunk whenever she asks, and we let her know that if she can stay in bed then she can sleep there overnight, but if she leaves his room then she'll have to sleep in her crib. She never lasts longer than 3 minutes.) We fully planned to have made the transition by the reunion, but it didn't work out so she had a really hard time falling asleep in her bottom bunk and staying there. I had to share a bed with her in the end, but luckily the bunk beds were pretty big. Fortunately there was a spare crib in my parents' spacious walk-in closet, so Alice spent the last two nights in there and did great.
There was such a great balance of fun, adventure, and enjoying relaxing/playing at the rental home. We each take turns making a meal, and we ate really well.
On our first full day there we spent the day at Lava Hot Springs pool. Everyone had a blast. It was fun to be able to do the diving board and some slides with Jack. Alice had a blast too.
The rental home had a pickleball court that the kids spent a lot of time scootering around, plus a hot tub and fire pit and putting green. It's so fun to have the older kids be big enough to run around together the entire time. I barely talked to Jack all weekend. He had a blast. Love that he has two cousin friends close in age to have fun with. Alice is getting to the point where she can run off and play unsupervised a bit too. She had a blast too. They were both sad to leave. And now for a few pictures:
Another summer week in the books. We tried some new activities as a family--some went terribly (Ashton Gardens Imaginaria....wayyyy too much walking for a toddler who refuses to ride in a stroller). Some went very well (a morning at Splash Summit water park--Jack is old enough to enjoy riding the slides, so Jared and I traded off getting quality time on the slides with Jack and wading around the wave pool with a delighted Alice).
Jared and I had a wonderful date to one of our favorite towns, Woodland Hills, where we walked a few stunning Parade Homes and ran into my cousin Nate.
Summer is rolling along and we are looking forward to a family reunion at Lava Hot Springs next week. Most likely Alice will sleep terribly the whole time, but also just as likely, Jack is old enough now that he'll do just fine. We will take the improvement of *probably* one good sleeper on a family trip!
Now that we're reaching really high summer temperatures, Jared and I are boiling alive in our south-facing top-floor bedroom. The air conditioning units in our rental aren't sufficient for the size of our home, and the insulation is apparently insufficient as well. Instead of moping about it, we're grateful that this is prompting us to learn a lot about air conditioners and HVAC systems in preparation for advocating for our air conditioning needs when our next home begins construction (hopefully soon, no updates yet).
Now for some pictures from our week:
Happy Parade of Homes to all who celebrate. We have been squeezing in home tours whenever we can. With kids at home we won't be able to see all the homes in person, but it has been a fun and inspiring way to spend a few evenings when we can get away.
My health is beginning to feel more manageable day-to-day. I still need to get in to see a specialist to maybe get on some medication for POTS, but after doubling up on my electrolytes/sodium again this week, I was able to start curbing more of my fatigue in addition to the brain fog. It's a hopeful and refreshing feeling.
Jack set up and invited me to a sleepover in our basement. After several days of putting it off, I agreed. Unfortunately this happened to fall on the night Savvy ate something strange up in the mountains and spent the ENTIRE night, every hour, scratching on the basement exterior door to go outside and vomit, then scratch to come back in. I would have just left the door open, but allergies. It was worse than a night with a newborn baby. But Jack never woke until the morning when he had a huge grin plastered to his face about our sleepover "success," so . . . worth it? Worth it one time a year.
I did a decent job of capturing this week in pictures, so we will get to those now with more details in the captions:
What a week. Most of it for me was spent in preparation to host our first Roper extended family dinner. I have been looking forward to this for years. When I was growing up, we would have Sunday dinner with my mom's family members who lived nearby, including my Grandma Roper, about twice a month. These fun, casual family dinners are such a core part of my childhood memories and something we really looked forward to coming back to when we moved to Utah.
For our dinner, we decided to make bolognese, pasta, and honey thyme lemonade. Each of our guests brought sides and desserts to share. I learned a lot about hosting a big group for dinner, and we had a wonderful thyme! Er, time. My main regret is that I didn't remember to take any pictures. Next time I will have to assign Jared to take a few pictures. Jack asked if he would make a scavenger hunt for all the little cousins, which he did. He is going to gain a reputation as the Fun Uncle if he isn't careful.
I may not have taken pictures at our family dinner, but I did take pictures of many of out other happenings this week:
