Friday, July 27, 2012

Berrett Reunion

I have been blessed by the families that surround me. Both my mom's side and my dad's side have incredible traditions that keep the families close, despite their ever growing size and expansion from the home base.

The Berrett family has a family reunion every year that we always look forward to. My grandparents have a posterity that numbers well over 100 and each of their nine children were there with as many grandchildren and great grandchildren that could make it. The numbers were in the 80s, which is incredible!

We spent four days in Blanding, UT at my uncle's incredible home and we had so much fun. The theme was the Olympics and we focused on the champions in our lives.

We:
had an opening ceremony complete with a torch being passed from family to family and "country" (family) flags with mottos, fireworks, the whole shebang.



hiked down a slot canyon and visited some amazing Indian ruins from 300 AD




swam at the community pool and watched our family dominate some chunky little kids who attacked us with squirt guns

played on the zip line, trampoline, playground, and wide expanse of grass at my uncle's house

hiked to an incredible land bridge and Indian ruins (Jon and I didn't do this since I was sick and his ribs were hurting)


overlooked Comb Ridge

ate DELICIOUS chicken phillies and shakes at The Patio

rented Razors from Four Corners Adventures and drove around the reservoir to the top of a butte and tested our technical driving capabilities (i.e. - scared the living daylights out of me)

check out Jon's dirt lines!
 

had a family talent show in which McKay rode Jake like a horse onto the stage for our Berrett Bandit rendition of "Horse With No Name"

played Fugitive or 007 through downtown Blanding which we won (jon, me, mckinlay, and katelyn, our 10 yr old cousins)...first ones on base without being caught by the spotters!! Whoowhooo! Lost a flashlight, got attacked by a large black dog, and got thorns in my pants.

chased the duck, Ming Ming, and the dog, Scruffy, around for hours on end to Adalyne's delight

ate our first "organic" lolipop, Addie's first taste of sugar

learned about our champion ancestors who came before us and have left a great legacy to follow

had an Olympic competition with races, balloon stomping, dancing, etc.

enjoyed sitting on the wide, white back porch of Uncle Jared's house, chillin' in the incredible weather

listened to the miracles that have occurred in our family during testimony meeting

got to spend some quality time with my brothers and parents


ate wonderful food and enjoyed the company of the entire family

had a closing ceremony with more fireworks!

This family is truly wonderful and we love this tradition. We hope that it will continue strong and that our small family can have traditions like this in the future!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Long Live the Brotherhood

This last weekend we got together for a ten-year reunion with Jon's junior high and high school friends: the famous Brotherhood of the Scooters. There aren't words to describe this awesome group of people...I love each of these guys and their wives and their kids. So happy that we could all get together and enjoy Laguna Beach. Sadly, Matt and Briana Reynolds couldn't make it and we missed them sorely.

We had a blast and in doing so, didn't get a ton of pictures so I have borrowed some from the rest of the gang! 

hanging out in the beautiful beach house of Steve Nelson (thank you sooo much!)

strolling around Balboa Island, eating delicious boardwalk pizza and taking the ferry
notice the "bs" - leaving our mark



being serenaded by good music from Emily, Nate, Meg, & Swin (check out Emily Golightly's music)

playing at Aliso Beach in awesome beach weather - killer volleyball, sand throwing, Bocci ball, tin foil dinners, dolphin watching, skim boarding


(dolphins!)














stuffin' face -- i've never seen her eat so much as she did this night on the beach


hanging out, waiting for the tin foil dinners to finish
our sprawl
playing toothpics and hanging out in the hot tub

playing at Crescent Beach - reaching 152 hits with the volleyball, boogie boarding, sand castle building 





lounging at Swindle's house (thank you Karen) and taking our family photos

the boys

harrassment

the ladies
check out Addie playing peekaboo



 thanks for all the fun and memories, B-hood. Can't wait till the next time!




Monday, July 9, 2012

Birthday Bash!!

sweet adalyne turned one last saturday! where did this last year go? a year ago she was this adorable newborn...

now she is this adorable walker, runner, talker, climber, clapper, giggler, snuggler, dancer, ball-thrower, squealer, girly, toddler girl. 

she is still our tiny toddler girl, though
16lbs 14oz -- 1%ile
28.5 in long -- 28%ile

her birthday was a blast! we had so many family members come celebrate with us and Addie soaked up the attention and smashed the daylights out of her cake. enjoy the pictures!

The Vintage Carnival Setup











The Singing



The Smashing
(a.k.a. - the demolition. notice her frosting fists and the fact that she hardly eats a thing but thoroughly enjoys getting completely messy while raking her cake to pieces)





not sure if you can tell, but this girl was haaaaappppy

The Spoiling
(not awesome quality photos, but oh well)

Opening Nana's present - a book with her voice recorded!
she knew exactly where to look for her presents
taking off with her ball...she ran away with her favorite presents: her ball and her doll
we finished the night with a warm swim in the pool, complete with sharks-n-minnows and fruit basket with the younger cousins. addie, as always, loved splashing in the water. it was an awesome night for a first birthday! we love you baby girl.