Seattle Mariners

Monday night we spent the night with the Seattle Mariners! We ended up being able to use a season ticket holders seats and they were behind first base! We ate hot dogs and cotton candy and had a great time! Too bad they LOST!

A MN visit in Boise

After our stay in Utah last week we traveled part of the way home and stopped in Boise. My mom and brother made the loooong drive from MN to Boise. My Aunt Amy and Uncle came made the flight from Tucson and we all met at my Aunt Catherine and Uncle Andy's home in Boise to spend Father's Day weekend together! We realized that only 1/3 of our family was there with us. Crazy how many there are in the family. We missed everyone a ton!

The crew

Top Row: Stuart Beach (Rachael's youngest brother), Uncle Kim (married Amy Wortham), Rachael Clegg, Catherine Gowans (married to Andy Gowans)

Middle Row: Sophie Clegg, Amy Wortham (Ann Beach's sis) Brady Clegg, Ann Beach (Rachael's mom), Grace Clegg, Stuart Gowans (Rachael's Grandpa), Lorraine (married to Stuart Gowans), Andy Gowans (Ann Beach's bro)

Bottom Row: McKenna and Karyssa Gowans (Rachael's cousins)

THIS is the real reason for the trip from MN. My Grandpa Stuart gave this '49 Chevy to my Uncle and he gave it to my brother, Stuart. He is going to do some major fixing and rebuilding and it is going to be soooo cool when he is done! It is still pretty cool all old and rusty! It took some major work to get it loaded on the trailer.


Grace was in LOVE with their chickens. If you didn't know where she was, all you had to do was check the chicken coop. We almost lost a few chickens though...Bitty (our dog for the next year) got into the coop when we first arrived and it was not a pretty site. When my brother finally got a hold of her she had a full mouth of feathers and one chicken has a huge bald spot on it's butt. It's sort of funny now, but boy was it traumatizing then.

The kids loved having Uncle Stu around. He played teatherball, jumped on the tramp with them, and gave them tons of pop to drink. Brady for one loved that. He is going through "diet coke" withdrawals now that we are home.

We had a bonfire on Saturday night and roasted HUGE marshmallows. It was s'mores perfection!


Here is the patriarch of the Gowans family...Stuart Gowans. And next to him is the other reason for the family gathering...Lorraine...his new bride! She is wonderful!




My Aunt bought these balloons at the dollar store. They were hilarious. You would blow them up and let them go and they would whirl around in the sky making funny noises. We had a blast with them. As you can tell by the pictures they were quite hard to blow up...but we finally got the hang of it once my Uncle pulled out the air compressor!!



Here we are lettting them all go at once. It was super funny!


And my Uncle Andy is just like my husband...You can't have a party without FIREWORKS! The kids did sparklers and so did Grandma!




We had a great time and loved every minute of it...well maybe not the minute that Bitty snuck inside the chicken coop...but all the other ones! Thanks Gowans' for being such great hosts and we're coming back for some more ribs Uncle Andy!

A Surprise trip to Utah

So about two weeks ago we had to make plans for a quick trip to SLC. Garrett's Aunt Christine passed about sort of unexpectedly after a long time of complications with diabetes. And Grandma Annie (Garrett's mom) made the trip from Spain to be at the funeral and spend a few extra days with all of us. We left on a Friday and drove all night to get there. It was a loooonggg drive, but we made it and were so very glad that we did!

Here are all the Clegg kids and mom. It was sad that Rick couldn't have come home. You were missed for sure! But only a year left! We can't wait!

We spend the entire weekend at the cabin. We spent most of the time riding bikes! The kids LOVED that. We also ate some great food, stayed up way too late playing games and laughed and laughed! It is so fun to have 10 of 12 grandkids (Ally's two boys and husband couldn't make the trip up from Dallas) running around and playing together.

Brady and Cam heading out for a bike ride.
All the kids getting ready for our Sunday morning bike riding session.





Matt brought his slack line. He tied it between two trees and pulled it as tight as he could. The challenge is to try and balance all the way across. It moves up and down and sideways. It was soooo hard. The dads and Zach were out there for a couple of hours messing around on it.

Our "Tough Guys" posing for the camera.
Whenever we head to the cabin Garrett ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS has to stop in Evanston and buy fireworks. We did some on Sunday night in the daylight though. We have so many young kids and the summer days are long, so we improvised. The kids didn't care at all. We had them watch from the back of the truck.
Gorgeous setting!



Sophie and Annie Kate. These two are so.dang.cute together!

We spent the rest of the week in Utah slowly saying good bye to family members...one on Monday, two on Tuesday and Grandma on Wednesday. The kids ran through the sprinklers, ate otterpops and I even took them all to get a hair cut.

We had a fabulous time. Thanks for hosting us Hillary and Rob and thanks for coming to the US Grandma Annie!