The rest of summer in one post!

The last time I reported in from the US we were growing corn and doing Home School. That was about early June. So there's no way I'm going to pull a repeat of last summer and try to blog the ENTIRE summer. Instead, you're gonna get the super condensed re-cap version all in one post!!
Here we go:
Right about this time we found out about Julie being sick. Julie and Ana had a million Dr.  appointments to go to. You know what they say: "When the going gets tough, the tough go to Disney World." (Ok, so maybe that's just what I say...) so Tim and I got a campsite at Ft. Wilderness and got ready to head to Wilmington to grab Ethan and Ana's 2 girls KK and Julia. My kids had no idea where we were going, they just though they were going on a mystery road trip:

Disney with 5 kids was actually AWESOME! We loved our time with all of them and they made us laugh about a million times a day, even when they were being EPIC!

I have so many special memories of this trip. Our first day at the Studios the CM running the Toy Story fast pass machine thought our passes weren't working so she got exasperated and threw 7 little fast pass grabbers at me so we ended up with DOUBLE FASTPASS POTENTIAL all day long. Did we rock it? Ohhh yeah we did! Then at the Magic Kingdom KK and Ethan found one of the hidden paintbrushes on Tom Sawyers Island and we all got to reap the prize!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. 3 cousins having an absolute blast together! The big kids were so awesome with their little cousins.

And Tim loved it too! He totally "gets" Disney and really appreciated the amazing food. This was one of our best meals at Flying fish.

When we go back to Wilmington Tim surprised Julie with her dream car! It was such a special moment and although she didn't get to enjoy it as long as any of us hoped she would, the smile it put on her face is something we'll all remember.

Then the kids and I flew to RI to meet Jeff! We had a nice week enjoying our Bristol family, seafood and beaches!

My adorable little niece barely remembered me so we had to re-bond. We're tight again now. Until next summer when we'll have to bond all over again!

Then it was back to NC for the big 4th of July pig roast! This event warrants it's own video montage so you can see that here.

 After the pig roast Jeff whisked me away to the Grove park in for a night (10th anniversary!) and then I whisked him to Florida so we could see the final shuttle launch! He was totally surprised and even though the weather was crazy, the shuttle miraculously managed to launch as planned.

Another major tick mark on the old bucket list. Video here.

 The next day Jeff had to fly back to South Korea. We had 24 hours to turn it around and then Sasha and I went off to the Swannanoa Gathering. We had a great week of fiddling and Sasha got to be a pirate in the kid's program.

Then we went back to RI since we had only spent 6 days with our RI family when Jeff was home. We packed a lot into 2 weeks there. Got all the kids yearly Dr. visits out of the way, got to hit the American Girl store up in Boston:

And stopped in to see Team Venuti and their newest addition Porter!

 We had a blast with our cousins,

 And went out to Block Island with Tim, Bob the Diver, and some friends.

Block Island sunset from the North Light:

 Then we headed BACK to NC for one more week!

We got to spend a week at the beach with Grammy and Poppy Duck, and some friends from Germany. Since we were right near Wilmington I also got to spend a day with Julie and Ana, Aunt Donna and the kids came to the beach to see us one afternoon. It was so good to see them all one more time before leaving the east coast.

Next we were off to Oregon to visit our west-coast family! The kids wasted no time re-bonding with Nimanim and Auntie and getting back to their barn chores.

 And of course, people who do their barn chores get to ride!!

I had separated my ribs in mid-July so I couldn't go backpacking but one of Tim and Cris's friends let us use her vintage RV so we headed up into the mountains to base camp and enjoy the mountain lakes just day hiking.

The kids had a blast camping in the RV. They ALMOST managed to domesticate the chipmunk population with a combination of peanuts and this weird chipmunk call they developed. I wish this picture had audio. Hysterical!

 And of course they HATE our nightly S'mores ritual...

We had some amazing days hiking up to mountain lakes that had water as clear as a swimming pool:

And it was pretty easy to just flip up the step on the RV and drive to another trail head. I am SUCH a fan of the old RV!

On our way out we stopped to check out the snow on Mt. Bachelor (3rd week of August!!!) and my kids hiked to the top of the Pine Martin lift! We played in the snow all the way to the top and then enjoyed a free ride back down on the ski lift.

Next we were off to Valley of the Moon fiddle camp. The best camp EVER!! The best part of this week was watching the kids re-connect with friends they made last year. They had an awesome week!

Here's the kid band hard at work on a piece for the banquet dance:

 And Teddy continued to rock his ability to nap ANYWHERE! Even in a room with 30 some fiddlers!

Of course once you're in CA, you just gotta make a quick pit-stop at Disneyland because I mean c'mon... you're in the neighborhood right?

We had a quick 2.5 days at the happiest place on Earth. The kids ran the kids' races on Saturday:

And then on Sunday it was my turn! I was SO HAPPY that I got to run the Disneyland half because 3 weeks before this I still was not able to run because of my ribs. It was nice to be back on the ol' horse.

Of course no summer re-cap blog would be complete without that final Splash Mountain shot:

 So that's it in a nutshell. It was EPIC, exhausting, wonderful, sad, and fun all at the same time. We were glad to get on the plane and head back to South Korea for some relative normalcy!