Allen Reunion

At the very end of July we drove up to Greenwood for the Allen reunion. We had a really special church together on Sunday and then we were able to bless Eve. Marsha drove from Idaho and we had lots of family zooming in that couldn't be there.

Wearing Natalie's blessing dress:

Joe did a beautiful job with the blessing and I loved being able to have family there for it.

Of course we had lots of time at the pool:

We had fun playing tennis and pickleball one night:

And just hanging out:

We got really into scum this year and had some epic game nights:

Nate got a par:

We had a lot of fun rafting down the Truckee River again this year. We couldn't bring Eve so Joe stayed back with her. 

Of course there was a lot of splashing and jumping from raft to raft. Elizabeth got a bit militant with the paddling. Nate accidentally dropped his flip flop and Brad accidentally fell in getting it for him and lost his wedding ring! We didn't notice until later but we felt pretty bad. 

One night we had a girls only activity decorating cookies with a tutorial Lisa's friend made. It was fun!

We had fun playing some cornhole:

We went to Sand Harbor another day. They weren't letting many people in because of Covid so we had to be there super early but we made it.

These two had a blast jumping off of rocks:

Isaac was doing some crazy flips and impressing everyone over there.

As always, we loved the dinners at night where we got to just all be together but I don't have any pictures from those. We missed the Nelsons, Abby and Melissa.

Eve wasn't sleeping the best there so it was a tiring week but I was glad everyone could meet her:

On the way home, we stopped in for a bit to see the Ashby's:

We miss those guys. 

It was a great first road trip for Eve!

July

 All of the non-reunion pictures from July are pretty much all of Eve. :) When you have 6 people all wanting to take pictures of the baby doing something cute you end up with a lot. Here they are..

I love chubby baby legs:

She doesn't always love photo shoots:

She loves her play mat:

We got his Nirvana onesie as a hand-me-down and we thought it was funny.

I love how babies sleep with their arms up.

I think Eli took these:

Natalie loves sleeping curled up with Eve:

Smiley, happy Eve:

She brings us so much joy!

Atkin Reunion

At the beginning of July, Joe decided to drive the kids out to Idaho for a mini-Atkinder gathering. Immediately following it, we were planning on hosting his family for our own family reunion. I wasn't feeling up to doing both with the baby so Eve and I stayed home. They had a lot of fun there. They were able to do a ropes course, go on a hike, have a BBQ, watch fireworks for the 4th, and the older kids got to play paintball. Joe got to see a cousin he hadn't seen in years and lots of other family.

Eve and I had fun at home together just he two us. Here she is watching me get dressed. :)

Since almost everyone was headed back to our house we decided to break up the kids into age groups to make the drive. That ended up being so much easier! (So I heard...I wasn't there). Joe drove the younger kids, Chris and Regina drove the middle kids and Marsha drove the oldest kids. They all loved it. Joe and I had the younger ones for a day until everyone else started arriving and we had a lot of fun. They were begging us to swim at 10 am. We had a full house once everyone arrived but it was a blast. We missed having Tom, Shari, Hallie, T,J and Matt.

The first couple of days were spent swimming and hanging out together at the house. There was a trip to a local candy store and Joe bought some candy cigarettes, a favorite from his childhood:

We went to Yosemite one day. Once again, we had carsickness on the way there, unfortunately, but we had a lot of fun there. 

We found a better spot this time by the river and ate lunch and then played in the water.

After that, we hiked up to some of the close falls:

Then, some of the kids wanted to climb around by the falls. We're still not sure if that was technically allowed but Joe went with them and they had fun doing it.

On the way out of the park, everyone wanted to stop and see the giant sequoia grove but Eve and I were done so we stayed in the van. She'd been screaming, I was hangry and spent, and there were lots of mosquitoes so we just hung out. Just another reminder that adventuring with a baby isn't quite the same. She was a trooper, though.

We had another day at home after that, making tie-dye shirts and then doing some night swimming.

We opted for the beach on our last day. It was a lot more driving but another great day with great weather. My kids loved feeling like the beach pros and experiencing it with their cousins.

There was a guy there fishing for rays and he caught one!

Sunday was the last day. We had a short church and took some pictures before some people had to leave that day.

Eve got lots of love from her cousins:

It was a great reunion and we were so glad everyone came out! We were worried about getting together during Covid and it did cause a lot of stress (I didn't relax until 10 days after when no one had gotten sick) but it was so nice for our family to have that time.