North Carolina

Bryson and Kaitlyn went and visited G&G Garner and Uncle Riley for 2 weeks without us. When we went to pick them up Bryson said, "Can I stay for 2 more weeks?" I wasn't surprised after seeing all these fun activities they got to do - swimming, fishing, camping, Wii, game boys, sports, getting to play with Uncle Riley every day, and being spoiled by G&G!!!















Thayne, MaryAnne, Cache, and Shantel also came the weekend we were there so we could see all of them and meet Cache for the first time!

Shantel and Riley were the heroes when they took the kids out with them to play in the rain!







Thanks again mom and dad - how about next summer too!!!

Thacker Family Reunion (FYI - this is a long one, if you are not a Thacker you may want to skip this!)

Kevin's extended family has a reunion every 3 years and this year it was at Outer Banks in North Carolina. Two of Kevin's siblings were not able to make it and a couple cousins, we really missed them and hope to see them before the next reunion in 3 years.

Almost everyone was able to stay in the one big beach house. It was a family reunion dream "hotel."


We spent plenty of time swimming and at the beach. (it was too fun watching the kids swim with the Great Grandma Thacker and with the Grandpa and Grandma Mumford)








We went to the dunes one morning and tried to fly kites.




Ghost Crabs - many were doubtful but they exist! We took flashlights out to the beach and searched for ghost crabs - Bryson counted for us and we found 43.





We went to the Wright Brothers Museum


We spent lots of time playing games. Kaitlyn loved playing the bean game with grandpa

There were lots of kids our kids age. Kaitlyn was always off doing something with the girls
and Bryson loved playing the Wii or other video games - he is pretty good bowling - he gets strikes quite often.

Stanford Friends

We were very fortunate to get to see Stubbens and Prices this summer, great friends from Stanford days. We are so glad that Catie and Steve live just 7 miles from my parents so that we get to see them whenever we are in North Carolina. It was especially great to celebrate with Catie after this long year for her. She is an inspiration to us all!

It has been 3 years since we saw Prices but it felt like it was only yesterday that we were neighbors at Stanford(except they added 2 kids to their family and we added 1 since the last time we were together). Prices currently live in Texas but were visiting family in Chicago so we were able to spend the 4th of July with them. We had fun swimming and the dads and kids went canoeing and even caught a turtle.