Meridian, Mississippi and Color Me Rad

My sister and her family live in Tyler, TX and will be moving to Iowa in a few weeks. We've wanted to meet up sometime this summer, but the 12 drive was daunting. We decided to meet up in the middle for a few days. We both have 4 girls so it was quite the girls trip with 10 of us in all! Her girls loved meeting and playing with Christine (and the other girls). My girls loved having older cousins to play with. It was a great trip and we had lots of fun together.

Sadie had a slumber party with Abigail & Elena

Chilling with Margaret

All the cousins

Riding the historic carousel in Meridian 

Abigail

Elena

Adriana

Full group shot

The Merrehope home. One of the only homes left standing after General Sherman came though during the Civil War and burned the city.

Great sisters!

We got back late Friday night and the next morning I had signed up for the Color Me Rad race. We brought the older girls and they loved all the color throwing. Here is a before shot... and then the colors went wild! It was an awesome run, held at a beautiful equestrian park where they held the Olympics back in 1996.

The girls had to give us a little more after the race... and they loved it!

4th of July in Nashville

One Hansen family tradition I loved growing up was having a 'Silly Supper.' We got to eat with crazy kitchen things that you wouldn't normal eat out of and with. The girls have loved doing this a few times. Here are Abigail & Elena eating spaghetti out of mini bread pans and using cutting boards as their plates. Adriana is holding up her big slotted spoon at the bottom of the picture. It is always quite the laughable dinner.

Getting ready for Independence Day. Creating our own Flag Alley, as the girls like to call it.

On our way to Nashville, TN

It rained almost the whole time we were there, but we still had fun listening to music, dancing in the rain, and watching the fireworks from the hotel window.

Gotta love Elvis

We ended up buying a few extra umbrellas which Abigail & Elena loved using.

Our little cowgirl!

Nashville's own Parthanon

A nice way to take a break... ice cream

June Visits and Swim Time

We had a great time in June with a fun visit from G&G Tanner and Annie & Jamie. The girls loved all the attention. We also continued to spend lots of time at the pool. Adriana did swim team this year with practice 5x a week for 6 weeks. She has made leaps and bounds since last year and loves it. (This makes mommy really happy) She can now jump in the deep end and swim the length of the pool only stopping a few times on the rope!

Grandpa filling up our little pool.

Grandpa and Christine

Christine and cousin Jamie

"More stories, please."

Cousins

Christine and grandma

I found this in the playroom and it made me laugh.

A fun backyard picnic

FAMILY!

I think I've been looking at too many food blogs. When we got things ready to make Mark some muffins for Father's Day, Adriana set everything up and insisted that we take a picture of it. No picture of the final product, but they were good.

Another loose tooth! She pulled it out herself the next day.

Christine 5 months!

These are some from her last day of swim team. They did a mini meet for the little kids. She did great!

Mid-air

Awards and all