July Fun, Family, and Adventures

Over the 4th of July week, we were supposed to be in Portland, Oregon for Trevor's fencing nationals, but he had to withdraw due to his injury, so we used some of the time I had already taken off of work to visit the Cronk family in Texas.   We got a day with the whole crew - the Ratliffs, the brian Cronk crew, Steve's Aunt Jean and cousin Kelly and their family.  We had a few days with Alicia and Savannah too, and met the neighbors for a 4th of July party.

Austin and Sarah got lots of little cousin time. Trevor relaxed with the doggies. Unfortunately, Sarah got a 24 hour stomach bug the last day we were there, when the whole family came over, but she recovered in time to fly home without incident. 

Upon returning home, we prepared for the Brintnall family reunion in Nisswa at Grandview Lodge.

Sarah made a birthday cake for Keng - dulce de leche. (Yes, it was as good as it looks!)

I found a fun Minnesota Puzzle Twist jigsaw puzzle in the house to do while the kids were on the boat with Grandpa. (The picture and the puzzle are different in many fun ways!)

We enjoyed dinner out at Bar Harbor Supper Club.

And fun family games

We had to leave a bit early to get Sarah home on Sunday night, because she flew out on Monday morning to head to Guatemala for a service trip through school.  She had to be at the airport at 3:45am!

The chaperones sent us a few photos each day, so I have some photos. Sarah has many more. If she send me some, I'll add a few more to chronicle her adventure.

They built houses and did some sightseeing. They learned about making chocolate, salsa dancing, and toured mountains and volcanos.  Sarah, as usual, was great with the little kids at the work site.

Playing pato pato ganso (duck duck goose in Guatemala) - sadly, our Minnesotans did not introduced them to "Duck Duck Gray Duck".

Sarah got food poisoning the day before coming home, so she missed the volcano hike and the closing celebration the last day of the trip.  She was feeling better by the next day, but their trip home was total mess...

They almost missed their first flight out of Guatemala in the morning, because a taxi driver strike was blocking roads and they were delayed in arriving at the airport.  They made it onto their flight, arrived in Miami and had a layover until their evening flight around 9pm. They got on the plane, got ready to take off, then there was an announcement that they had some technical problems and had to wait for a mechanic to come take a look.  They ended up staying on the plane for about 2 hours before they let them off at the gate. The plane was unusable and they had to wait for another plane. The original flight was supposed to arrive in Minnesota around midnight. Then it kept getting pushed back to 1 am, 3am, 4 am, then not leaving until 5am, arriving around 7:30am, then moved back to 9am takeoff.  The kids couldn't leave the airport and everything was closed, so they just slept a few hours on the floor of the airport, tried to find vending machines to eat something, and then got back on the plane the next morning.  However, it was delayed again due to one of the kids fainting on the plane, being evaluated by medics, and then allowed to get back on the plane.  Eventually (about 13 or so hours late), the plane finally took off and brought our Sarah home to us!  She got home about 2:30pm on Tuesday, when she should have been home around midnight!  All this after having been sick the day before leaving.  Poor kiddo! We are happy to have her home safely and she recounted tales of a great trip with a great group of people. 

Later, we enjoyed a fun family gathering locally for "Wicked" the musical at the Orpheum.

Next up is Trevor's best day ever - the North Star Air Show!