Bases Loaded with One on Deck

Over some rivers........

And through 12 different states, to my sister's house we went. 

We left on November 14th, and got back last Tuesday, November 27th.  Three days up, three days down, and 10 days in a house with 18 people; 4 of those were adults the rest ranged in age from 3 months to 17 years.  This may seem crazy to some of you, but I honestly can't think of a better way to have spent our Thanksgiving holiday. 

Pictures were very hard to take, for one nobody was ever in the same place at the same time, we even ate dinner in shifts, and I spent A LOT of time holding my beautiful little niece, Isabella.  But I did manage to grab the camera on a certain snowy day:

Kent, James & Willy

Michael & a snowball

The two Johns

Tony & Matthew

After the snow melted, they raided the snowboarding equipment in the attic and joined the rebel forces:

Joseph and Matthew

Lightsaberless John

My sister lives in an area where they don't have a sewer system so they have a septic tank.  The water use of 18 people is a lot for a septic to handle so Kent gave up shaving for two weeks.  Below you will see a rare picture of my bearded husband and his 4 year old son.

James actully had the pleasure of turning 4 on the road.  This seems to be a tradition of ours.  Last year Michael turned 11 and the year before I turned 33.  Each birthday took place on the way home from New Hampshire.

And last but not least my sister also happens to live in an area where you don't get any type of television reception unless you have a dish, which she does not have, so I must personally take the time to thank Burke, a co-worker of my mom who happens to also be an Aggie, for graciously e-mailing me to make sure I knew that the day after Thanksgiving the Aggies gigged the Longhorns in the 114th annual football game between the two rival schools.  To say the least, we were not too happy with the news, but I guess the Aggies were due, after all Texas has won 75 of the match ups, the Aggies have now won 36 and 5 have been ties.  As far as national championships go, Texas has 4 the Aggies have 1.

Bonnaroo and a Wedding Too!

Last week the Bases Loaded crew, along with a few of the in-laws and other extended family headed off to Memphis, TN to witness the wedding of Kent's cousin Cory. 

All of Kent's family lives out west, so we were thrilled to hear that Cory was getting married a mere 7 driving hours away, because that meant we could actually attend a family gathering.  It gave us a chance to see family that we haven't seen since I was pregnant with John, 7 years ago. 

It was a lovely wedding and Cory sure found himself a beautiful bride. 

Most of the pictures didn't come out.  We don't have much experience with taking photographs where most of the light comes from candles (very beautiful for a wedding, not so much for us amateur photographers) but here are a few that came out of us at the reception.

Here we have the boogie woogie baseball boys (Michael not included, as he will be the first to tell you, "I don't dance!")

   

They were there as soon as the music started and didn't leave until it was time to throw rose petals at the newlyweds!

It just so happens that I was asked to dance by the most handsome man at the party and I very happily accepted his rare offer.

Unfortunately our children are even more lacking in their photography skills, so they only got half of Kent's face.  Could be worse though, if James took every picture they'd all look like this :

It's the carpet right next to the corner of the dance floor that Kent and I were on.  With aim like that, I think I'll keep him away from the BB Guns for a few more years!

We enjoyed our time in Tennessee.  It was great catching up with family and we got to take in a few of the sites as well, but I must admit the most amazing thing we saw came well before we hit Memphis, just south of Nashville.  Apparently Manchester, TN is host to Bonnaroo every year.  I have never actually heard of this before, but Kent filled us in and explained that it is a 4 day music fest in which people flock from all over these Eastern United States (and some other states too, I'm sure) to come camp out and see.  This year's headlining act, The Police!  We happened to drive through the day some people were arriving.  The police (the government employed ones that aren't a part of a famous reunited rock band) had the concert goers line up in their cars along the shoulder of the interstate as they waited to get in.  We passed about 7 miles of southbound and 11 miles of northbound cars, trucks, rented RVs and also some that were surely borrowed from Mom and Pop or Grandma and Grandpa, full of people waiting to get into this thing.  They were sitting on top of their vehicles playing guitars, passing footballs from the back of one truck to the other, hiking back to their cars after a potty break in the shrubs, waving their hands out of sunroofs, clearly enjoying every moment of it.  (Somehow I have a feeling that people were not so gleeful trying to leave the concert venue as they were trying to get into it). 

As we were about to drive under an overpass that was also packed with traffic trying to get in, we spotted a few smart young men who seemed to have the right idea about how to get in and out of this place; they were backpacking it!

I can only imagine what Sunday's mass exodus looked like, but we'll never know, because we wisely chose to go back home through Alabama.  The in-laws had a plane to catch, and I really didn't want to have to sit in traffic for hours trying to explain to my kids what certain finger gestures and four letter words meant!

Hopefully in the near future we will get to go back to Salt Lake City for a longer family visit, or maybe we'll even make it to family reunion one day.  One thing's for sure though, seven years is way too long!