I had my whine-fest yesterday, but really, there have been some awesome things happening. My half-sister’s sixteenth birthday was on the 10th, and (possibly related) my brother arrived from DC for a week-long vacation. That meant my second-youngest sister drove into town with her three boys, including the newest, Kyler. Kyler is six weeks old, teeny-tiny, and this was my first time meeting him. He was adorable!!

We had a little mini family reunion for a couple hours before my family had to get back to the house to finish prepping Morrigan for his trip to the Appalachian Trail. I’m not sure if I said here before, but he joined the Mormon church back in early June. Jason’s family is Mormon and Jason grew up in that church, so Morrigan has always had an on-again-off-again relationship with it that finally became on-enough for baptism. Anyway, the young men’s groups of the whole church Stake put together this trip to the AT: eight days, including six of camping and four of hiking (about 38 miles altogether – 13 on the first day and the rest divided over three days). It’s a great opportunity, but I’m afraid Morrigan is woefully unprepared physically and mentally for this particular challenge. He was also a little upset by the amount of money he had to spend on supplies, but that’s part of growing to adulthood – sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and you just have to deal with it. I just hope the trip goes well for him, because I really worry about all the ways it could go badly wrong – and I’m sure I’m just a nervous mother, and he’ll be happy and excited and all that jazz. Fingers crossed!!

Then there was my sister’s birthday party. As I said above, she turned sixteen last week. We had a pool party and dinner on Saturday. Lots of fun, including the two-year-old doing his “ninja dance” for us several times, and also both him and his older brother putting their hands on people’s shoulders and saying, “Hey,” in their deepest voices. Ha!! (For anyone who might be confused, watch this clip from Into the Spiderverse) Two of my aunts also came over for the party, so it was an even bigger reunion than before!

We have a few more days before my siblings and nephews leave town again, so I imagine I’ll get to see everyone at least once more. I’m looking forward to more awesome times, and will leave this post with a gratuitous adorable photo of sleeping baby Kyler: