Trip to Kentucky

My Mom grew up in the beautiful Northeastern mountainous part of Kentucky.  I grew up spending every vacation my Dad ever got traveling to Kentucky to visit all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since I got married and moved away from all of our family, I've only been to Kentucky a couple of times. Understandably, whenever Rich and I have the chance to travel, we travel to where our parents are. The older our children get, the harder it is to go away. So, my children have grown up not knowing their extended family. My Mom has been wanting us to go back to KY with her for a long time...and we finally made it happen!! We spent 4 days visiting with extended family...and it was an AMAZING 4 days! We had such a great time! We stayed with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Jeff. (My Mom's sister. She is 13 years younger than my Mom and only 9 years older than me) She has 3 teenage daughters that are 14, 16, and 19. Mariah, Madison, and Mackenzie were incredibly with my 4 kiddos. From the time we got there until the time we left they paid so much attention to my children that all four of them did NOT want to leave! The girls played with them in the pool, taught them card games, gave them their phones so that they could play games on their phones, and so much more!

Mariah works at a yogurt shop and we had the opportunity to visit Mariah at work and enjoy some frozen yogurt. My children had never gone to a frozen yogurt shop, so this was a brand new experience for them and they could not believe the buffet of toppings that they had to choose from to put on their frozen yogurt! 

On one of the nights that we were there, Linda invited the entire extended family to come over for a cookout. My children had no idea they had so many cousins! It was such a blessing for me to see all of my cousins and get to meet their sweet children! It was so much fun to watch the huge group of cousins play cards and spend time with each other. 

The children enjoyed swimming in my aunt's pool each day. Jonathan went from not being able to swim at the beginning of the summer to becoming a very good swimmer! He swims under water, jumps in, and recently showed me that he can do 3 flips under water without coming up for air! This is the same boy that still didn't believe that arm floaties would keep him from sinking just last summer. This is the same boy that screamed like a girl when a drop of water touched his face last summer. We've come a long way.

I love how all 4 of my children are bombarding my aunt while she tries to relax on a float.

We were so excited to go spend a few hours with my great aunt and uncle. I can't remember the last time I got to see them! Going to see Aunt Ginny and Uncle Gay was one of my most favorite things to do growing up. They are still as fun as they always were and I'm so grateful that my children got to meet them. They still grow a huge garden each year and we were able to eat some fresh veggies from their garden while we were there. While we were chatting Jonathan starting melting down with tears because he was hungry. So I asked my aunt if she had a tomato. Jonathan loves tomatoes. She cut up a tomato for him and he ate every bite! She also sent him home with one. He was one happy little boy! I'm so thankful that we were able to spend those few days visiting family. My children were already asking me when we were going to come back before we even left.