The BIG weekend ~ Celebrating Grandma's 90th Birthday in IL!

Well, we did it - after months of planning and keeping secrets (good thing that Grandma doesn't have a computer and do email) we managed to all come back to Champaign, IL to surprise Grandma for a wonderful celebration of her life. All of us includes Grandma's kids, grandkids & great-grandkids (65 of us in all were there). It was the best weekend!  Seeing family all together like this for the first time since I was little, just an awesome time. We have seen each other, but not all together at the same time like this.

First, most of us headed to the little Water Park in town on Saturday. We had to stay "hidden" until the big party later that night. It was a perfect day, great weather, and lots of fun in the sun!

Saturday Night was the big party where we surprised Grandma for the 90th Birthday Celebration! The party was held at Grandma's church, it was huge and unbelievable. There was a "playground" area for the kids and lots of space for us. She was so excited and could not believe that we were all there together. It was so awesome and such an amazing time. We are so blessed to have such an awesome Grandmother and family that she has raised up!

Click on the arrow below to watch the video of Grandma being surprised:

On Sunday, we went to church all wearing our shirts. It was so cool to see the sea of blue & orange in the congregation. We are all so proud to be part of the Georgia Hill family!  After church, we went to Grandma's for a bbq and just time to hang out and enjoy each other!

Monday night is the weekly dinner at Culver's. Whoever is in town and available goes to Culver's every Monday night. Well, this week, they had a HUGE turnout. We took over half of the place. It was so much fun though. Different people took over the cameras, and ended up with a lot of really fun shots. This slide show is a little long, but so fun to see all the funny faces!

Well, that's our awesome trip to IL. Thanks everyone for an amazing weekend - we love you all!! And, sorry for so many pictures, I did start out with over 1000 and narrowed it down to this for the blog. Hope you enjoy seeing them all :)

Havasu Springs ~ River Baby!

Father's Day weekend, we headed up to Havasu Springs, near Parker Dam, with some good friends. We had so much fun relaxing and enjoying our first weekend out of school. This trip almost did not happen, since we left the morning after Kylee's horse riding accident. But, it ended up being really good for her to go and enjoy time with friends and being in the water (even though she could not ride the jet skis and only easy boat rides across the river).

On Father's Day, we had a great dinner at the restaurant on site. We were all super stuffed. Then Monday morning before heading out, we took a swim and had the whole pool to ourselves. It was perfect just before heading back home.

Kylee rides Dandy ~ one time only

Grooming Dandy

Walking Dandy

Riding Dandy

Kylee decided today that she was ready to try riding a bigger horse and wanted to ride Dandy. She had a really good lesson with her, until the very last round.

Kylee was trotting when Dandy got spooked and took off running. As Dandy turned the corner, Kylee fell off right into the metal arena fence. It was so scary...mom ran to her and Kylee's face was instantly swollen and bruising right under her eye. We had to take her to the ER where they did a CT scan - luckily everything came out negative and she had no broken bones! She was pretty beaten up though and had a lot of trauma to her face. The eye continued to bruise and change colors over the next few days and they white of her eye turned red (the whole outside half).

Kylee did so well during the entire incident - mom & dad are extremely proud of her! The other important thing is that she does want to continue riding. She just loves it too much, she is such a trooper and an amazing little girl!!

Immediately after the fall - still at the stables

In the ER (the swelling looked worse in person,

and this is before all the darker bruising and eye turning red)

Taking a ride on the CT Scan

(she still has her boots on!)

Kylee's Spring Concert

Kylee played cello in her Spring Concert with the school.  She had fun playing all year.

Kylee with her friends Kaitlyn & Leslie

Kylee, Mattie, KendraLee & Shane

Kylee & Shane with Mimi (Scott's mom) and Grandpa (Jen's dad)

Pioneer Days ~

Kylee's school has Pioneer Days every year for the 4th graders.  It is a pretty amazing day for them.

They get to "trade" candles for necklaces with the Indians (2nd graders).  Then, they travel through the neighborhoods and end up in a park.  Here they go through the park toys as obstacles, over the sand "desert", working together as a family the entire time.  They get attacked by plastic snakes (by parents hiding in backyards in the neighborhood), walk through a river (pools of water), and end up back at the school for a campfire time.  Then, they trade flour for some oranges, beef jerky & water.  As they start traveling again, they get "attacked" with water balloons by the Indians.  This is on their way to another close by park, where they are greeted by the Rancho's (3rd graders) who perform Mexican dances for them, and have a feast after the performance.

Last, they get to pan for gold.  It is a very cool experience, and one they will probably never forget!

School Days in June

These are a couple of different school events towards the end of the school year.

Muffins with Mom

Kylee with her teacher, Mrs. Dondero - Citizenship Honor Roll

Shane also got Citizenship Honor Roll!

Donuts with Dad