The Merkleys: The Merkley Reunion: 4th of July

We just got back from a freaking awesome, 9-day trip with Nathan's immediate family. It was a year in the making. The siblings haven't been all together in 3 years! So we planned to all get together for the fourth of July, and then Autumn and Greyson decided they might as well get married if we're all together!

Between just Amanda and I, we took around 3,000 pictures. Yup. 3,000. AND THAT'S JUST ON OUR CAMERAS. Not even on our phones. So needless to say, there are gonna be a lot of pictures of the next few days.

It's taken me 2 days just to edit the pictures from the fourth of July, so I will just have to slowly post as I get pictures done. But here are the first 2 days of our trip!

We left Friday morning and got there just after lunch. Everyone but Amanda and Brad were already there! It was so exciting to see Austin, Nathan's oldest brother, and his wife, Ewa. When Nathan and I started dating, Ewa had just moved over from Poland to be with Austin and they were all living in a house together. We hung out a lot! Even after Austin and Ewa got their own place, we spent almost every weekend with them. When Nathan left on his mission, I still saw them about once a month. They moved to Virginia when Austin graduated and we have missed them so much!

Amanda and Brad tricked everyone and showed up just a couple hours after us. They originally said they were leaving Saturday morning. It was the best surprise! They are so sneaky.

THEN WE WERE ALL TOGETHER!!!!

I wish I had more pictures of this night, but we were all just so excited to be hanging out together that no one took any. We ordered Chinese food and just talked the whole night.

These are the only pcitures we took that night. Such winners.

Fourth of July started with a big breakfast! We visited Heather, hung out, and the boys played around with Nathan's new music software.

After breakfast, we all headed to see Inside Out. Including kids, there were 19 of us. Lucky for us, there were only two other people in the whole theatre! It was pretty awesome. We spread out over two full rows, and when Sadie got restless, Nathan took her down to the front and let her crawl around. I LOVED Inside Out. I thought it was super cute, and a good lesson about how we experience emotion. Maybe I cried.

We came back for some food, some naps, and some slip-n-slide! The kids had a blast, and dad even took Sophia down while wearing his jeans. We spent most of the afternoon outside, enjoying the sun. (PS. Remember how my inlaws are still adopting the two little kids? Well, I still can't show pictures of them. So some pictures will have stickers on them, or are cropped. One day I can show off my new siblings)!

When I grow up, I want to be Austin. If you know him, you understand,

We tried a cousin photoshoot, but neither baby really wanted to smile. We tried one with just Sadie too, and she gave the camera a dirty look the whole time.

Who can resist that sparky bow?!

Both babies are staring at the dog..

We took some family pictures.

Heather enjoyed the swings, and we enjoyed watching her,

We had a huge bbq for dinner.

We did some wedding dress planning!!

The cutest patches Autumn put on her dress. The fabric is from her parents clothing

Then we had cousin bath time! They got into matching pajamas afterward. Do you even know how fun it is to have babies just a month apart?!

Then, fireworks!!! We had a bunch to set off just in the driveway, and the neighbors always put on a big show. (Maybe we started a fire in the bushes. Don't worry. Austin got the hose).

Sadie reacted differently to fireworks than I thought. She LOVES loud sounds. So I thought she would love the fireworks. The first sparkler one that we lit, she loved. But once the big, booming ones started, she got so worried. She never cried, she just wanted to be held and burrow herself into my chest. It was cute, not gonna lie. She eventually just fell asleep, haha. Her and Jonas. How do you sleep through fireworks?!