family reunion.

The weekend after the fourth, we went to the Kussee Family Reunion!  Grandma and Grandpa Kussee have deemed it the "Odd Years" reunion due to the fact that we all get together during the summer of years ending in odd numbers.

This year, we all met 10 miles outside of Delta at the Power Plant.  It seemed a little strange at first to be having a reunion at a Power Plant, but it was big enough to fit us all and keep us cool during the hot summer days.  It also kept us dry from the massive rain storm that happened while we were there too!  It was pouring like cats and dogs one of the days we were there!

We got there and had a delicious dinner and then we got to work catching up with family (at least, Tyler did) and I got to work on meeting most of extended Kussee family for the first time. 

We played games galore inside and helped with food preparation and setup during the weekend.  Grandma and Grandpa kicked our trash as Skip-Bo and Wizard.  We listened to stories from aunts,  uncles, and grandparents.  We tried to keep all of the names of the littlest cousins in order while wearing jackets to keep warm during the day (the air conditioning was out of control!) and keeping an industrial-sized fan on all night to keep us cool.

Unfortunately, we ended up not taking a lot of pictures.  The fluorescent lighting didn't lend to great pictures and neither did the nasty '80's walls.  We also forgot to get it out to actually take pictures!  Whoops.  One of Tyler's cousins took a ton of pictures, including group pictures and family pictures that we'll hopefully get copies of.  

One day, I want a house with the exact same color of walls that are in this picture (insert sarcasm here).

 {J and T}

Uncle Lon is a pretty swell guy.  Definitely one of a kind and extremely likeable.  I think I could talk to him all day and listen to his stories and thoughts.  He's been through a lot and he's quickly moved up my list of favorite people in the world.

 {Morgan and Uncle Lon}

 {Airyn and Kole}

 {Papa Kris, Tyler, and Boog}

Nanner and I took four pictures just to get this picture.  He kept laughing and scrunching up his nose or sticking out his tongue to make me laugh.  This one is the closest thing we got to a "good" picture.  

Having a little brother kind of rocks.  Nanner is the best.  Even though he lets off some pretty pungent stink bombs.  

 {J and Nanner}

Mama Becky worked at this puzzle the entire weekend.  She was bound and determined to finish it before we left.  And she did!

She's one dedicated lady.  I think I would've given up after a finishing the red stop sign.  The black and white would have driven me nuts!

One word.  Dedication.

There was an entire room full of pool tables and a ping pong table.  There was usually at least one group of people playing pool at one time or another.  T rocked the ping pong table with a younger cousin (2nd cousin?) who ended up idolizing him by the end of the weekend.

{Tal and Stu}

It was a fun weekend of sleeping on our camping cots and using our sleeping bags.  

We even learned to play a little Shuffleboard while we were there.  It got a little addicting after a while! Seriously.  I never knew what all the excitement over Shuffleboard was until I tried it.  

I now want a full size game board in my house.

Tyler was happy boy with biscuits and gravy for breakfast and baked potatoes for dinner.  Papa Kris made everyone sushi for dessert one night, which turned out delicious!  After we ate the sushi, we ate some Smore's cooked in the oven.  The industrial-size kitchen came in helpful for feeding 50 people and it ended up being a fun weekend!

a jam-packed weekend.

Our life revolves around food.  Like, all the time.

This week we actually planned out meals for everyday.  That hasn't happened for a while.  And there was no Mac and Cheese this week for any dinners.  My mom would be proud.  My students would be utterly disappointed.

We tried a few different meals this week.  Two of our favorites were the following:

Spaghetti Squash Alfredo with a side of green beans with garlic (and bacon!)

Surprisingly tasty and healthy for you.  It filled me right up!  T gave it two thumbs up and rated it a 9 on our scale of tasty food.  We might be seeing this meal in our dinner plans more often in the future.

{recipe here} 

Tonight we had French Dip Sandwiches.  Oh my.  They cooked all day long and fell apart when we opened the crockpot.  The fact that we only needed to combine 2 ingredients and then let it cook together to make heavenly goodness was amazing.  This delish meal received a big 10 from T.  We both loved it!

{recipe here}

Among eating good food, T and I also had an incredibly busy (and fun!) weekend.  We had some of our favorite friends over for pizza night, games, and a movie.  

We moved the table from the kitchen into the front room (like we always have to do for company) and ate homemade pizza and chatted away. 

Daniel and Taly brought over a new BYU finger football game that got incredibly intense.  We had some pretty intense finger football skills in this game.

The game even comes with a gameboard app for your phone to keep track of the score and penalties.

Did I mention how intense this game was?  The looks on Daniel and T's faces portrays exactly how we all felt.

We had way too much fun.

Saturday morning was busy, busy, busy!  In addition to running to Home Depot to return a ceiling fan for the same model that busted last summer, we also had to get a new hose, watering can, and some weed killer for our growing meadow of dandelions in front of our duplex.

The words "meadow" and "dandelion" are never good when said in the same sentence.

 We also attended three of my students baptisms throughout the morning and ran home in between them to get the lawn mowed and get some chores around the house done.  We loved all three and we've gotten lucky this year with not many baptisms overlapping!

We celebrated a birthday at school this week and I made my favorite birthday card yet for one of my little monsters.  While the rest of my students make a card that says, "My wish for you is..." I make a card with that particular student's favorite things on it.  The cool thing about this student?  He rock climbs.  Every week.

He also made me a card for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Usually I take pictures of the cards and forget to post them on the blog for safe-keeping.  This one was too adorable to forget to post.  The days of school are quickly dwindling and before I know it, I won't see most of my little monsters for the entire summer.

It's enough to make me want to cry.  There are days when I sit in my room and can't imagine not having this year's students again.  They're like my own kids in a way.  There are times when I wish I could snatch them all up and take them home with me.  They inspire me.  They make me laugh.  They are a joy to be with.  

I love my job.   I love what I do.  I love who I am when I'm with these kids. 

Happy Saturday!  

FHE in the Kussee Household

FHE around our house can either get really exciting or very dull, very quickly, around our house on Monday nights.

It's tricky as a family of 2 to hold exciting and fun FHE without it turning into a glorified scripture study.

After a lesson, scripture, prayer, and a song (the usual) we moved onto the activity.  Now, I'll be honest.  We usually skip the activity and go straight to the treat part of FHE.  Tonight was an exception.  T pulled out some never been opened games at our house and we went to town playing Sorry! and Twister.

My husband is a genius.

Apparently Twister has a set of rules for just 2 players.  It just became a game we'll potentially play a lot more around our house.  

T won most of the games.  His long limbs and torso are meant for this game.  I won one game.

Twister is actually a killer Monday night workout.  My arms were shaking like nobody's business holding myself up.  Can anyone say, "weakling?"  I've got to start doing more exercise than running.

Thank you Twister for an awesome night of fun!

Sorry! was a contender for the top game of the night also.  I think Twister just fit in with our little kid mood at the time.  Colored dots and body parts are the ultimate game for a pair of kids grownups.

One day our children will thank us for being this cool.