Dessert and a Pool Party (ish)

Exciting occurrences on Saturday included lots of dessert and a snake.

We missed Gabe!!!!! It always sounds so ridiculous when we say the house is quiet(er) whenever one of us is gone, but truly, it doesn't seem to matter who is missing, it does get quieter. Gabe is constantly humming, whistling, or singing. And if he is not...something is seriously wrong.

Chloe got into the kitchen and made a HUGE mess and we all got super upset because she wouldn't clean it up and did some amazing baking! First out of the oven were some of the best biscuits ever! Then she made some not very healthy, but oh so yummy, peanut butter peanut butter chip cookies. (It is a tiny bit confusing, just think about it for a second.)

While we stuffed our faces with those enjoyed those treats with butter and honey (on the biscuits, not the cookies), Dad and Mom and the little girls hauled out the ice cream maker that we had never used and made peanut butter ice cream! IT ONLY TOOK 30 MINUTES TO MAKE IT!!!!! And yeah, there wasn't a whole lot left over 15 minutes after it finished... Ok, we really miss Blue Bell ice cream and this helped some so...yeah, we were excited. All of us.

Now as for the snake... Our cat found it. It was venomous. The cat died. Something is wrong with the typist right now, please excuse her mistake. What really happened was that Mom found the cat with the snake. It was venomous. The cat almost died. My goodness. OKAY! The cat found the snake. Mom found the cat. The snake was NOT venomous. Grandfather was the hero and killed it. Everyone lived to tell about it... Well, not the snake. (Your blonde typist apologizes.) There was no screaming involved because I was not present.

We arrived at church all matching again.

Sunday, Happy Father's Day! Our family loaded up in the truck about 10:00am, give or take 15 to 20 minutes. Most likely give... We were the first ones to Gramma's house though!

In the car Mom read aloud to Dad because she can not watch when anyone is driving. Ava and Mia and Christian all greatly enjoyed the thrill of hearing about healthy food stuff sat quietly as they have been taught. Chloe and I stuck in headphones and worked...on the play...okay, sort of...we watched all the videos Chloe took during our practice...to help us know what to work on next time. We mostly did a lot of silent laughing though.

Sadly, the wet ingredients for our pancakes sort of kind of spilled and got all over everything in the cooler... Oops. On the positive side, nothing else was ruined by that and I have the recipe memorized so it was relatively easy to remedy the situation.

Dad's family has three children. He is the oldest, then Uncle Dan, and then Aunt Sherry. Uncle Dan married Aunt Candice and they have sweet little Brennen. Aunt Sherry married Uncle James and they have Peyton, Cameron, and Blake. Both Gramma and Grandpa are so proud of their family. With all of us that totals to roughly exactly 18 people.

We all very much enjoy spending time with our family. Topics of conversation included mail theft, things people just should not say, houses, funny stories about all their children, hail damage, movies, nights spent in hotels with young kids, etc.

Brunch was delicious! The spread contained, fruit, yogurt, pancakes, egg casseroles, sausage, and bagels from Panera Bread. Most everyone had seconds, if not thirds.

Gabe joined us mid-afternoon and Mia especially could not wait to finally see him! She really, really, really missed him. That girl has soooooo much love for everyone she meets, but especially her family members.

While about half the kids went swimming, the adults not supervising outside settled down for naps to visit in the living room on the couch that screams take a nap. Aunt Candice graciously offered to help Chloe and I with our laptops and the three of us spent several hours attempting to be "techy" and fix all the issues we've been having. As I am currently blogging, those of you who are a lot smarter than me probably figured out that we got mine fixed. For those of you like me, I got it fixed. Somewhere in there ice cream was served. No Linn family gathering is complete without ice cream and a family picture. Silly picture included.

And yes, that is Christian giving me a big wet kiss. 

Later in the afternoon those of us who could read, write, and desired to participate, played an "I Spy" game. Basically we all were given a pen and spreadsheet with the letters of the alphabet going down and numbers 1-5 across the top. Seated in one spot for 14 minutes, EXACTLY 14 minutes, we were to write down as many nouns that we could see. After the 14 minutes passed (Remember, 14 minutes, no more, no less. Not 15 minutes. And not 13 minutes, unless of course you processed to 14 minutes directly after reaching 13 minutes. It's very precise.) we went around reading off our words completing a letter before moving on. If anyone else had the same word, everyone who had also written said word down had to cross it off. So the goal is to come up with unique words, but sometimes the most basic things like "wall" are skipped by everyone, so you can occasionally get easy points by being extremely boring.

This was a shocker, I won! I almost never beat Mom at a game, much less Aunt Sherry! Everyone protested my word "hashtag" because I thought one of the toys on the ground looked like a hashtag, but it actually wasn't that shape at all. With or without that word, I still won by 5 points. (Mom did get second.)

After the game we ordered pizza and post the long and endless job of cleaning up after roughly 18 people once many hands had made short work cleaning up, we said our goodbyes and headed home.

The Herd: Quoted

"What'd you do with the spatula?" -Dad 

"I licked it." -Mom

"We don't even need blue bell!" -Mom (that is a little bit of an exaggeration, but it was good.)

"Who needs Babe's!?" -Dad about the biscuits and I agree on that one. 

"And Lydia looks away because she is smiling. And the fact that she just choked means I was right. And now she is laughing so I definitely was right." -Christian 

"The lighting is just bad and your face needs to be fixed." -Chloe during a night time photoshoot with me. 

"She isn't that old, I mean she's younger than us." -Dad

*Mom grimaces obviously hating the fact that she is a little bit older, but not old*

"Uncle Phil let me ride in the front! I've done it lots of times before...okay a few times...actually just once." -Gabe 

"I saw a naked turtle." -Gabe telling about his weekend.

"I'm going to kiss Gabe two times!" -Mia