Elliss Family Gathering - Branson, Missouri #2

Elliss Family 2014

Jared and his sweet nieces 

"I hope when people meet me, they think, "That is a person with whom I want to play board games."" - Jordan

Lucy " 'nuggling" with her Aunt Joci 

Johnny, Lily & Michelle

CJ & Lexi with their great Aunt's Colleen & Darlene. 

Kimberly took charge of dessert one night - something at which she excels. 

One afternoon all us moms (Jill, AJ, Seph & myself)  went shopping at a fabulous outlet mall. It was dangerous, very dangerous. This picture shows some of the bounty. Seph treated herself to gold earrings, chocolate and perfume (she joked that she took herself on a date), and well, I found way too many "good deals" to pass up. All in all, a very fun, successful day!

Each condo had a jet tub! Lily and Lucy called it the "swimming pool at home" - and it made bath time much easier. Just FYI, yes Jordan is wearing his swim shorts in this picture. 

Kaitlyn, Katrina & Kimberly

Spunky little Kelly

Monkeys

GQ Cover - Grandparents edition.

We finally were able to meet JJ - she is such a doll! I hope we never go so long without seeing any of Jordan's family.

Chief Trouble Maker and his Assistant. 

We all took turns (more or less) hosting dinner each night. We mostly ate pizza and hot dogs. My favorite night was when Joe and Jill hosted (and of course they had delicious ham and potatoes) and we all went around telling childhood stories. 

Elliss Family Reunion 2014 - Branson, Missouri - part 1

The first of what will soon be many Elliss family reunions. We are officially too big for us all to fit in Joe & Jill's house - so all of Jordan's brothers and sisters all came out to Branson, Missouri. We rented little condos, each of us had our own place, but they were all close together. It was perfect, we were close to each other, but had our own private residences to retreat to when needed. 

We were the lucky family and had the least distance to travel, only a 9 hour drive. We left August 30th, which happened to also be my birthday - Jordan was sweet and was planning on stopping at a Red Robin along the way, but we were short on time and were hopping to get there in time for a show that evening. 

We got there just in time to drop our luggage off and nurse Lexi before we left for the show. Joci, her daughters and Sam all came with us - my phone died, Jordan didn't have his, and Joci has T-mobile (which, in reality, means her phone is worthless). We had no idea how to get to the theater and no time to spare. We knew we were 30 minutes away but didn't even know what direction to head. Oh, and it was raining and there was heavy traffic. We drove around aimlessly for 15 minutes hoping Joci's phone would suddenly decide to start working, when we about called it quits. Instead, Joci asked her daughters to say a prayer, and as soon as the prayer was over, Joci's phone had suddenly decided to pick up on a hair of service (our location hadn't changed), and started directing us to the theater. We were 10 minutes late for the Hughes Brothers show, but we still had a wonderful time. 

Felicity, Lucy, Lily, Michelle, JJ, Kelly, Hannah - Justin and AnnaJune are awesome and rented a 12 person van so that they could take Joci and her kids to Missouri, and take them back when Joci had to fly back to Utah to work at her new job as an orchestra teacher. They drove home with 2 adults to 9 children under the age of 14! 

Josh at Hannah's House of Mirrors. 

Mini Golf

The pool at the resort was pretty awesome and we went there almost every day. 

Hannah and Kelly

Jill and CJ hanging out at the pool.

The whole clan, minus Joci (back at Utah), and me, Lexi and Lucy (Lucy had a fever) went to the amusement park called Silver Dollar City. 

We rented a boat for 2 days to out on a gorgeous lake - this and Silver Dollar City were the highlights for Lily and Lucy.

The cutest little flag girl

Pre-getting thrown off the boat

Post - Jordan breaking his promise not to throw her off the boat. In his defense he said, "She needs to get thrown off a boat every now and then". :)