Monday, June 26, 2017

HS Graduation & Missionary Homecoming

More Kraus family adventures! During the month of May, Dustan's brother Garrett got home from serving a two year mission in Farmington, New Mexico, and his other brother Bryant graduated from high school. Luckily for us, Bryant's graduation and Garrett's homecoming talk about his mission in church were within just a few days of each other, so we took a short trip out to Castle Rock to visit :)

We got in fairly early, so of course the first thing the boys did was go mountain biking! I don't trust myself to safely mountain bike while pregnant, so I skipped out haha. We had a relaxing evening otherwise just eating good food, watching a movie, and attending Levi's orchestra concert.

On Wednesday morning, it was time for Bryant's graduation!! It was at the fancy Red Rocks Amphitheater and it was a beautiful, sunny day. (Thank goodness, because it snowed that night!) It was a little crazy with the traffic to find parking, but we were able to make it in time and even get semi decent seats. Overall, the speakers were good and the graduation was shorter than I expected with the number of graduating seniors. Afterward, we went out to lunch at Noodles and Co. and headed to the park.


At the park, most of the family again went mountain biking on the surrounding trails while I sunbathed and read a book. That evening, we did our usual eating of good food and watching a movie. But when we woke up in the morning, there was about a foot of snow! Colorado (and Utah for that matter) and crazy. So, we had a lazy, indoor day with no desire to be out in the snow. The boys went and played sports at an indoor complex and we played games as we waited for Bryson and Taylor to get in that night.

The next day was a little more fun! The highlight of the day was when we went out to dinner at Red Robin and told Garrett that both Taylor and I were pregnant! We had agreed that neither of us would tell him until we were together in person, and he hadn't found out with the rest of the family because he just got home from his mission. Once we had ordered our drinks at Red Robin, Taylor followed our waiter to ask him to bring out something special for Garrett when drinks came around. As our waiter was placing all our drinks, he casually placed two baby bottles in front of Garrett. He was SO CONFUSED, it was hilarious. We had brought two baby bottles with us to Red Robin, and Taylor and I had each taped an ultrasound picture to one of the bottles. He understood that Taylor and Bryson were having a baby girl first (their last name was on their ultrasound picture) before finally understanding that I was pregnant as well. We got the whole thing on video and still enjoy watching it, haha. It was so nice to finally have the secret out! The whole family had been working hard to keep it from Garrett since he had come home from his mission a couple weeks earlier.


At this point, we only had a couple days left on our short vacation. First thing Saturday morning, we went to Top Golf. It was a blast! Bryson and Dustan killed it, the rest of us had fun, haha. We definitely plan on going back to the one in SLC this summer!


After running a couple errands, we headed back to the park. Most of the snow had melted by this point and it was just chilly out. I wrapped up in a blanket and read my book/watched (thanks nausea) as the rest of the Krauses exercised by running trails, swinging around on the Epic Ropes Course, or playing football. That evening, we had a small BBQ, made homemade Nielson family ice cream with rhubarb cake, played games, and watched a movie.

And with that, there was only one day left of our vacation! Sunday came around and Garrett gave his homecoming talk in church about his mission. He did a great job, and it was wonderful to hear some stories from him. We spent the afternoon watching Kraus family videos and playing games before taking some family photos in the evening! This was the first time since Taylor had left on her mission (which was back when Dustan and I were dating) that the whole family had been together at once! Which also means, that this was the first time both Bryson and I had been with the whole Kraus family at once since we married in :) So of course we had to get a picture!


We also took a few cute pictures for Bryson and Taylor to help them announce their new baby girl :) Of course, Dustan and I had to join in a few toward the end, since our babies are due just within a couple weeks of each other!


We ended our last evening watching a few more home videos and just chatting. We headed to bed fairly early, because we had to leave at 4 am to make it to a baby appointment the next afternoon and get moved in to our new apartment! It was worth it though. We are so happy that we have the Kraus family so close! We love being able to visit them :)

**More new posts below!**

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