Robert had to go on a two week trip.  Ugh.  Nobody likes it when Daddy leaves.  Nobody.

I told him that we'd all sit around and mope until he came home.  I told him we'd take a daily moment of silence to think about how awesome he is and then we'd go around in a circle and express to each other  all the cool things we thought about him.  I told him that we would count the minutes until his return.

And I did intend to do all those things.  Really, I did.  But then, I got busy.  Really, really busy.  First we got a visit from Lori & Garrett and their 5 kids.  Four girls and one boy.  Ooooh boy, Laina was in girl heaven.  The boys were pretty impressed with themselves as well.  I haven't seen them show off this much for a long time.  Garrett was in town to do the 'Tough Mudder' run which entails running though vats of ice water and a section of live wires for electric shock therapy.  The rest of the run has crazy obstacles and lots of mud.  After watching various youtube montages, I realized that I never, ever, ever want to do that race.  But Garrett did, and that was great for the rest of us because it meant that Lori and the kids could come with him and hang out with me for a few days.  Whahoo!

For some reason my camera was taking really lame pictures and I was really lame at taking pictures at all.  Not a good combo, if you ask me.  But here are a few shots I did get.  (Lori...send me more please!)

We did take one afternoon and go over to the Bellagio to check out the summer garden room.  Garrett was with us, although, I didn't get a picture of him.  Look at all those girls!  Charlie, Ashely, Angelina (back row)  Andi and Addison (front two sweeties)  Sorry the picture is such poor quality.  It doesn't do those beauties justice.

We mostly spent our time catching up and eating.  My two favorite things to do.  I hate to even say it out loud, but Lori and I have been friends for over 26 years now.  Wow.  That is a really long time to like somebody.  :)  Good thing she is still just as awesome as the spunky 13 year old I met all those years ago.

Here we are looking all pretty.

And just look at what we have on the couch...nine children between the two of us.  Lori's oldest is nearly the same age we were when we met.  That's just weird.  Not a bad looking crew though, if I must say so myself.  And I must.

 

 Although...that's more like it.

The visit was fun and was way too short for my liking.  After the last Whiting kid hopped back into their car and Garrett dragged his poor, beat up body up front (he did succeed!   A little ice and shock therapy won't hold that fella back!)  Lori and I said our sad goodbyes and I walked back into the house to sit down.  

The kids and I decided to take the time to mope around and think about Rob -- and do all the things I promised we'd do in his absence.  

That lasted two hours, until Lora and her little cuties walked in the door.  

Lora's husband's boss had cornered him the Friday before and informed him that he needed to join him on a week trip to Paris, staying at the most ritzy hotels, and eating at the most posh restaurants to wine and dine a new client.  Oh the horrors!  Can you imagine what a trial that would be?  Loser.  (I'm still just green with envy!)  That left Lora and the kids by themselves for a week, and since I'd still be by myself for a week, we decided to join forces.  

The kids played so well together and Ethan took a special interest in Porter.  He taught him how to play two-square and they read books together.  Porter was basically Ethan's fan club and Ethan, who has never had a fan club, was the ever indulgent celebrity.  What a guy.  

Here is a pic of Ethan reading to Porter.  He had a whole stack of books that he went through.  It was very sweet.  

When the big kids went to school, we took the little ones to the park.

Here's Lora getting a taste of an extra baby on the lap.

On our down time we dolled up Naomi any way we could.

She was a willing model...see her twirling here to give us the full view of her fanciness?   Hair done?  Check.  Fingernails/toenails painted?  Check.  Millions of hair accessories attached to the head?  Check.  Sassy 'check-me-out' attitude?  Double check.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any busier, guess who stopped by?  Twice?  

Jim and Steph took a very short trip on Thursday to California to visit her Dad in the hospital.  They stayed the night and left in the morning, but not before winning the hearts of all the kids.  (They came back on Sat. night after Rob got home which made everyone happy.  Rob was happy he got to see them and Jimmy was glad he got pancakes on Sunday morning.)  

Going back to Friday, by the morning, Jim and Steph had left for Cali and by the afternoon we said our farewells to the Spencer crew.  That would leave me a whole 24 hours to cry over Rob's long trip before he came back on Saturday. 

However.

The boys had cub scout Day Camp.  

AND, I got a call from an old missionary friend of mine from France, Trever Johnson.  The last time I'd seen him was at Lora's 16th birthday party, about 1 year after I got married.  That is way too long to go without seeing such a great guy.

Apparently Trever is now a BBQ enthusiast (I've been informed that I should really make my way back to Facebook.)  and, as a hobby, competes in cook-offs all over.  This year he had made it to the semi-nationals (Not sure what it's really called, but it is the competition before the national competition.) which is held...you guessed it, right here in Vegas.  

Trever told me how intimidated he was since there were so many big named BBQ people in the competition.  (I guess a bunch of them have been on various reality TV shows...it has been years since we've had cable, so I miss all the good stuff. :)   Since it was held in the Sam's Club parking lot, Trever treated us to pizza.  He told Alaina he'd get her any kind she wanted...pepperoni, meat-lovers, sausage...whatever.  Alaina, little pill that she is, quickly requested her favorite.  Vegetarian.  Not the right thing to say to a BBQ competitor.  I think Trever actually guffawed.  "You can't come here and order vegetables!  Forget it.  You're getting pepperoni!"  Laina is a good sport, so it didn't take long to talk her into a meaty pizza.  It was so fun catching up.  Next time we have to meet his gorgeous family (I saw pictures...they really are all very gorgeous.)

Thankfully, the actual competition was the next day, and so Rob was able to come with us to cheer him on during the awards.  This is the first time that Trever and Robert have ever met...unbelievable as that sounds to me.

Trever was so worried because he wasn't satisfied with his ribs which is his specialty.  Despite his worries he managed to place 7th!  The top ten go on to the National competition in Arkansas.  The prize for that is 150 grand.  Not too shabby for a bunch of meat.  :)   Here's our winner!

And to make things even better?  Trever sent us home with a huge pan of award winning meat.  We ate nothing but delicious BBQ for a week straight.  Yum.

Back to Rob's Homecoming.  (My timeline keeps getting muddled up...)

When Robert finally came home from his two week trip, we all surrounded him and told him how much we missed him (we did!)  and how we thought about him, well, almost every minute.   Except for those minutes we didn't.  :)

So, after that long, hard trip of his, when he finally unpacked and pried the big kids off his body, he laid down to relax with his sweet boy.  

Frankly, he wasn't the only one who needed a rest!

And then we made it to the Grand Canyon.  It was big.  Very big.  Really, unbelievably massive.  It was amazing.  It was gorgeous.  It was awe-inspiring.  It was, well, for lack of better words...really something.

In fact, it was so completely, enormously, 'grand' that it created a little problem for us.  It brought out the trigger happy fool in each one of us, trying to capture the absolute coolness of each little lookout we stopped at.  And then, don't even get me started with the number of photos we managed to snap on our walk around the rim.  It was foolish, be we couldn't stop ourselves.  To make ourselves feel better for filling up our memory cards with a million different shots of the same, big, hole in the ground, we started adding ourselves into the frame.  All of us.  Even the dog.  Over and over again.  

Look...here we all are at stop #22.  And again, the whole family at stop #45.  You won't believe it, but we got all of us Jones' gathered together at stop #119.  It was complete, unbridled lunacy, but there was no stopping us.  In 24 hours, we managed to record ourselves from nearly every angle possible.  Granted, the backdrop was amazing, but seriously.  What silliness.  

Now, Sara informed me that there was no number of photos that I could put up on this blog that would induce sudden Jones family overkill.  To this, I say, "Challenge accepted."  

Behold.  A minute by minute photo melee of our every waking moment on our short excursion to the Grand Canyon.  Let me know how far you get through the repetitveness before your body revolts in grand mal seizures while trying to make the madness end.  

Good luck, friends.  

The most handsome red-head I know.  (His hair blends into the red rock behind him.)

Fly, Lainy-girl!

The kiddies.

 

5 monkeys hanging from a tree.

The three amigos.

Bird watching tours led by Ethan Jones.

Aww.   Sweet baby hug.  Take that moment and freeze it forever.

See Robert and the kids enjoying the view and taking pictures?  Wait.  If he has the camera, who took this picture?  Good thing we had a spare, otherwise we would have only taken half the pictures we ended up snapping.  That that would have been TRAGIC!

Rico.  Suave.

Check out Austin's hair.  You can't dream up a 'do this awesome.

We've got another flyer.  

Yeah, we like to live on the edge

(But not close enough to the edge that I'd get a heart attack.   For instance, this picture was taken with Ethan jumping on to the pathway, although it looks pretty close to the edge, it wasn't.  I was shocked to see just how close to the edge so many people went....just for a picture.  The Ranger told me that they lose, on average, 6 people over the edge every year.  That is one death every other month.  Crazy.  The majority of those who fell were males in their 20-40's.  Not saying that women are smarter, but, women are smarter.  :)  

I love this picture.  We were waiting for Robert to set up the camera.  I'm not usually one for the candid shot, since I usually am found with my mouth open and some weird look on my face.  Someone must have said something funny, though, because we all seem to be happy in this picture.  (Little did Alaina know that she was being bit by at least 6 misquotes while we hung out in that tree.  Poor thing has sweet blood.) 

Second Junior Ranger badge of the trip.  If you look close you can tell what different opinions each kid has of his badge. 

Ethan:  "I'm so cool, now that I have two of these badges.

Alaina:  This badge represents all the wonderful things I learned about nature and how to preserve its beauty.

Austin:  Is that it?

Yeah.  That's it.