The Atkin Family: June

Eve was still in school in June and she had some fun times:

She also loved this umbrella and wanted me to take a picture:

We soaked up our last days with Lizzie:

Then, it was time to take her to the MTC. Sadly Natalie couldn't make it because of a rehearsal so the rest of us drove down. We met family for a last lunch at Cafe Zupa's:

We picked up Sam, too, since he'd been at football camp. He took some family pictures for us at Rock Creek park:

Then it was goodbye time in the parking garage:

I handled it better than I thought but definitely cried on the way home. Poor Eve took it hard especially and was sad for a bit on the way home. Lizzie had spent a bunch of the drive down using her sweatshirt as a puppet to play and talk with her and she loved it so much. We all miss her.

Soon after that, we headed back down to Utah for Jacob and Morgan's wedding. We met everyone for some go kart racing the night before:

The next day we went to the beautiful sealing. I especially loved having my parents there. After that, we got lunch at a really delicious French cafe Matt took us to. Eli loved his meal:

Then, we killed time between that and the reception playing blow pong at Matt's house and laughing hard. Sadly, sometime during that time we managed to lose our van keys. We thought they were in the van at first because it drove but then it wouldn't so we searched Matt's whole house too. It was the weirdest thing. We couldn't ever find them. We did make it to the ring ceremony where Eve conked out for a bit:

Joe spent a lot of the reception searching while the kids and I hung out there.

So fun to have the whole gang together (except my Mom who was resting):

It was a fun reception and we all really like Morgan. Jacob chose well!

Back at home, we had a girls temple trip and Cafe Rio lunch. I always love those:

Things ramped up for Natalie in Les Miserables. She even was chosen to go on the morning news to promote it with Collin, who was Mr. Thenardier. I loved these promo photos:

Also this cute selfie she took:

We had the Atkinder reunion here with Marsha. It was a bot of a hodge-podge one with some people in and out who had other stuff going on but we had some good times too. We all especially love swimming in The Drops:

We did it a bunch of times and then some of the older kids and dads did the Long Drops while the rest of us got ice cream at the Snack Bar in Shoshone:

I especially loved watching these three playing together well:

Maddy wasn't feeling great and Joe laid by her:

It was a fun reunion.

My dad had a knee replacement:

Luckily, he recovered pretty well.

Then it was time for Joe and I to leave on our Allen siblings trip to Greece. Marsha and Becca were nice enough to each take 5 days watching our kids. Eve was in swim lessons while we were gone, too, with Becca's kids. She loved that:

Sadly, we missed all of Natalie's shows! We were able to go watch their dress rehearsal before it started, though. We were so blown away by her! She nailed it. We were also later able to watch a recording of it.

We were so glad family could be there for her, too:

Jameson was really nice and took the boys golfing and then made them steaks. They loved that:

Now, on to our amazing trip...

We had a pretty uneventful trip over. We were on the same flights as Matt and Melissa. We got into our hotel (Kelli had amazingly booked all the accommodations and tours for us!) and then we ventured out for a meal with Matt who was hungry too. We found an amazing area in Athens that was so beautiful and had one of the best meals of the trip there:

They had live music and the atmosphere and the music was incredible! We especially loved those honey cheese balls. Delicious.

The next day we did a food tour that Matt & Melissa found:

That was a lot of fun, especially sampling all these kinds of honey. A nice European couple was in our group too.

The next day we went on a regular tour of Athens Kelli had booked. We got to see the original Olympic stadium:

The highlight was the Parthenon although it was a very hot day:

It was amazing to be up on the hill and see it in person. We also liked the museum:

Matt went back to that restaurant we'd loved that night:

Joe and I were spent so we took cold showers, laid in our air conditioned room, and ordered room service.

The next day it was time to fly to Santorini. The trip was pretty uneventful and we made it to our amazing hotel there. We had some time to wait so we ordered lunch by the pool there. I had another of my favorite meals there--this incredible beet salad:

I loved it so much. We ventured out in Oia that night and had a great dinner while watching the sunset.

The next day, Joe, Matt and I walked down to the ocean to swim. They also had a little cliff you could jump off of.

Then, we saw that you could pay for a donkey ride back up the steep hill so we decided to do that. It was a hoot and a fun memory.

My suit was still wet, hence all the wet spots. :)

We had dinner at the resort that night and took some sunset pics:

We also went to a really delicious gelato place that night:

Those were some of my favorite time. Just sitting around talking and laughing over gelato or dinner.

This was my favorite part of breakfast:

Greek yogurt with chopped pecans and honey. So good.

The next day Joe and I went on an ATV tour.

We went to Black Sand beach and played in the water a bit and then had a good lunch:

We had another good meal in Oia that night and the girls took some pictures:

The next day was Kelli's birthday and she booked a catamaran tour for us. It was so fun! We got to swim around, eat yummy food, and get splashed randomly while we cruised along. Plus, no one got really sick like we were worried about.

That was such a fun evening that we all loved.

The next day, Matt, Melissa, Chris, Lisa, Joe and I did a tour of Santorini. We had a great tour guide and had a fun day driving all around. His family had lived there for a long time so it was interesting to get a different perspective of such a popular tourist spot. He took us to ruins from 4000 BC, and to a church and whispered about an amazing spiritual experience he'd had. He also found us yummy gyros. It was a great day: