Ashland and Open House

The worst thing about Dave and Liz’s wedding was that we didn’t stay longer to enjoy the beautiful southern California coast.  The day after the wedding, we loaded back up and headed back to Ashland, with a stop-off at Jake and Stacey’s for the night.  Becky and I drove most of the way together with our four boys in the back of my van – ages 5, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 and 6 weeks.  It was a bit crazy at moments to say the least, but it actually went quite well overall.  I think we both decided driving was more relaxing than being in the passenger seat, because that person had to be constantly attending to the boys’ needs!

The best thing though was that I got to spend the week at my parents’ house with Becky and Bennett and Grandma Landon.  The cousins had fun playing together, and we had fun helping Mom get things ready for the reception on Saturday.

Davis had fun lining up Grandma’s toys – the Little People cars and regular cars.

All the boys had fun playing with the marble game Grandpa Landon made, and finding frogs in the hose box.

 

And James enjoyed being taken care of by Grandma Landon.  She always came through at the crucial moments to hold him when I needed a break!

The rest of the clan showed up late Friday.  The kids were happy to have Kallie and Ethan to join them, and they enjoyed seeing all of the shells David and Liz found on the beach and brought back.  All of us enjoyed hearing Dave and Liz tell the quite hilarious story of Dave’s near-drowning experience in Cancun (you’ll have to ask him about it sometime).

Saturday was the reception in the Clason’s backyard.  It was gorgeous!  Becky and I went to set up, and while we were gone, Shane and Jake helped get the boys ready to go.  When we came back, we found Davis and Bennett like this:

And some pictures from the reception:

(That’s Ethan I’m holding in the last picture, not James, just in case you think he grew a ton since previous pictures, and Jake and Shane are playing air hockey on Jake’s new ipad to keep themselves entertained.)

After the reception, we headed back to our house for some very entertaining gift opening, the best of which was the Cracker Jacks gifts with the surprise 50 dollar bill inside that he discovered during a game of Catch the Cracker Jack in your Mouth (see picture progression below).