Farnsworth Family Reunion

My family reunion this year was up in Washington. It was a long drive in a crowded car to get there. For the drive from Provo to My Aunt's house in Washington we fit two car seats for Tucker and Hunter, Bryant, myself, my Sister Michelle, her son Ian, and two of my other sisters Aleisa and Emilee. It was a crowded and long journey! We were glad to get to my Aunt Pam's house and run free in all of her grass! It was also wonderful to share in the fabulous Father's Day meal she had made. Thank you Aunt Pam and Uncle Rob. Oh and did I mention that in addition to all of us my mom, sister Natalie, brother Jared, Brother Isaac and his wife Juli were at the house? My poor cousin Leilani went to a friend's house to sleep for the night because there was no room at the inn.

It felt good stretch our legs :)

Hunter decided to be clingy right before this vacation so he usually cried when left with anyone but Bryant or me.

For the 4 hour drive from my Aunt Pam's to the reunion the minivan held Isaac and Juli instead of Emilee and Aleisa (and I think that Ian went with my mom but I can't remember). Juli was not too excited about being stuck eithout leg room for the long journey either, especially since she is taller than most of us :( AlsoTucker was done driving by the time we made it to Taco Time only 45 minutes away.


We did survive and made it to camp Brinkley! Hooray!!


When we first arrived at the family reunion there was a lot of cleaning to be done in our cabin to get out the dirt. Here is Isaac, Juli, and Bryant whacking the dirt out of our main room carpet/rug. They originally wanted to bang it out inside the cabin figuring it wouldn't be too bad to sweep up the mess :) I'm glad they went outside to take care of it!


At the reunion there was a lake. Tucker did not want to get in the boat at first but was happy to be in it once we were out on the lake and wanted to stay out there forever! Hunter loved the moving water and it was all I could do to keep in him the boat and not topple of the side trying to get closer to the water :)


Here is my brother Isaac pushing Hunter down to the lake. The only time Hunter was not crying when with someone else was when he was being b\pushed in the stroller. This worked to our advantage one day because Juli was able to take him for a walk until he fell asleep while Bryant, Tucker and I took a nap in the cabin.

Here is me, Tucker, and Bryant making our way to the lake!

Bryant paddle from the back and was quite the "task master" :) poor Juli tried hard to follow every command but I think it was more funny than anything.


Here are the boys sitting on the dock watching everyone else jump in. They thought they wanted in until we actually let them get in with Isaac :)


Isaac and Juli at the one and only breakfast they ever made it too :)

Hunter and Tucker eating one of the many delicious meals that my dad made :)


Tucker playing in our cabin

Every reunion there is a "fish pond" for all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that are 8 and younger.

Hunter Fishing

Hunter caught a fish!!


Tucker Fishing :)


Tucker caught a fish!

The boys were good about sharing their toys with each other. Tucker got the fire truck and a bubble gun. Hunter got the ball spinner and a minivan :) All of these toys are still loved and played with on a daily basis :)



We had a fire place in our cabin and so we built a fire a couple of the nights we were there. Isaac and Juli went to the log pile and chopped up the wood for our fires.

Here is Juli with the wagon

Isaac showing off his Lumber Jack skills. He would make NAU proud :P

Even Ian had a turn at it :)


Bryant took on the task of building our fires.

He can make a mean tepee :)

Hunter really liked to wet the wood with his mouth before Bryant put it in the fireplace...

Then Hunter did not want to stay away while Bryant tried to light it. Camp Brinkley had tons of rain right before our reunion started. The wood in the shed was supposed to be dry. As it turned out it was a bit damp and full of sap so it made an interesting fire to light. Once lit it shot off little embers like fireworks. It was fun to watch and listen too but we had to make sure nothing got on Isaac and Juli's air mattress :)


A success!


Tucker and Hunter had lots of fun playing outside. Hunter was not walking at this point, so he rarely wore shoes, so his pants and socks were always filthy bu the end of the day (or even just half way through the day :P)


It was a lot of fun. Hunter was either really sad to be leaving or not looking forward to our 16 hour car ride home in a cramped van cause he cried at the top of his lungs once he was in his car seat until we started driving off :'(

June Pictures

So we requested a screen for our apartment sliding door in June sometime (I'm not exactly sure when I actually got the request turned in but it was at the beginning of the month I'm pretty sure and could have been the end of May). Our apartment A/C does not work worth anything and so we needed to cool our house down by opening doors and windows. Last summer we did not have a garden and so Tucker was constantly in and out of the sliding door. This year however, he loved to pick all the "flowers" and so he could not be on the balcony without supervision.

We first tried to block off the sliding door by putting only the kids' chair in front of it. That did not work at all. Both of them knew they could just move it out of the way. So we tried to wedge the chair with another chair. They eventually figured out a way to get past this set up as well.

Then we took a piece of Styrofoam and held it in place with the two chairs. The boys could not move the Styrofoam with the chairs in the way and could not get both chairs out of the way (at least for a few weeks :P). We ultimately could not have the door open during awake time and then could not have it open much at night because we would get a ton of bugs. The result was that the house was always cooler in the bedrooms than the front of the house and the house was dreadfully HOT whenever we made dinner. I think overall (through July and August) the apartment made it to at least 86 degrees and was constantly 84 degrees by dinner time.


We eventually had someone come out to our place and fixed the problem with the A/C switching the breaker and then another guy come out and tell us that the A/C was working fine. We tried running for two day but the house was still just as hot. I don't know why but the thing was just not able to maintain a temperature of 76 or 78 degrees. It still got up to 84 degrees by dinner time. Then when we received our electric bill for the month it was $10 more than it had previously been. We were glad we decided the A/C had not been working well after two days because an additional $5/day for a month would have made our bill $150 more than usual. Since it was almost the end of July we figured we had survived the worst and that there was no need to ever run the A/C!!

It turns out that Hunter enjoys being inside of boxes as much as Tucker. They both loved to be in the box and have it closed up on them so they could pop out like a jack-in-the-box

I came home from work and found them blissfully sleeping this way :)

And Bryant was having fun with the camera so I thought I would share his handsome picture!

The Close Call!!

We had dinner on June 3, 2010 like any other night. The only exception is that I was having issued undoing the snaps on Hunter's high chair. Generally this would not seem to be an issue. However, this evening, as soon as I bent over to put Hunter on the ground, our kitchen light swung down from the ceiling. There was a spark and a loud pop and then our braker flipped.

I don't know why but for one reason or another it was not anchored to the ceiling and was merely screwed directly into the dry wall!! Needless to say that there could have been a great lawsuit against the apartments if Hunter or I had been hit and injured. Fortunately, we were both fine and missed being whacked by the light by a mere second or two!



The only thing holding the light to the ceiling until the next day when it was fixed were the wires

Our Grow Box

My dad brought us up some wood and gave us a drill so we could have a garden this year. Bryant did the manual labor of screwing the box together. Tucker thought it was the coolest thing!

Tucker played for countless hours out in the grow box until we actually put plants in it :)

Here is the beginning stages of our garden...Tucker was so proud :)

It took us a little while to go and get the plants to put in the box but eventually we got them and it stopped freezing at night so we planeted our plants.

We have since discovered that we may of gone way over board for our little box. we initially planted 4 strawberri plants, 2 bell pepper plants, 1 chili plant, 10 tomato plants, and seeds for basil, oregano, and cilantro. Oh and we were given 4 pansy plants as a mother's day gift when we bought our other plants so they started in the box but were eventually moved to another bucket. The basil, oregano, and cilatro started to grow but were soon blocked out by all the other plants. We eventually pulled out the strawberry plants because they were taking over the entire box and were not producing like we would have hoped (Of course, TUcker thought it was fun to pull the flowers that blossomed on the strawberry plants because they looked so pretty and he did not understand that they were going to become strawberries). Also, it was not until we got some new neighbors that we learned the importance of plant food, especially for box gardens. Oh well. Getting rid of the strawberry plants enabled us to move our pepper plants out from under the shadows of the tomato plants enabling them to get the sun they need to provide us with a few peppers. I think we will be better prepared to be selective with our plant choices next year and reap the benefits of our garden a little better.

Now that it is October we are actually getting some red tomatoes out of our garden. Our garden is in the shade most of the day now again, the people with plants on the otherside of the building get a lot more sun and appear to have had a bit more success getting things to grow fully earlier in the summer. Oh well we enjoy it and the boys have loved watching the vegetables grow.