Stone Cousins

These cousins had a fun time playing on Nona & Papa's trampoline.

These little girls posed this way of their own accord. uh-oh, can you say attitude?

Hayden

Jemma

Kyrie, Sean, Daphne, Dallin, & Jemma

Half Dome

Even though I grew up in California's Central Valley, just a couple of hours from Yosemite National Park, I had never climbed Half Dome, until this summer. At my sister, Emma's request, (It's all Emma's fault!), Dad organized a backpacking trip that Arthur and I were lucky enough to go on, thanks to Mom watching our kids.

We spent three days backpacking in Yosemite culminating with our climbing half dome on day three. It was AMAZING, and I have a new respect for myself. We're pretty much awesome, I think.

***Prepare yourself for A LOT of pictures.

I'm bad at narrowing down my selections.

I should just take less pictures, I guess.

Me and Emma being dorks. We were excited for our trip, okay?

Now, how exactly is all this stuff going to fit into that pack?

Emma, Sharee, and Natalie being . . . what else? AWESOME!

We haven't actually started hiking, but I was pretty happy with myself for getting that enormous pack onto my back.

Arthur also being . . . awesome?

Here we all are at the start of our hike.

Natalie, Dad, Jacob, Emma, me and Arthur

Crossing a freezing river

And up we go

We're all smiling because we got to the end of a pretty intense climb on the first day. Just a little bit of downhill to find a campsite for the night.

Here is our campsite. We had a big spot of snow behind our tents and also a friendly marmot who little cave in the rocks by our site.

We camped by this lake. Ahhh, so pretty. The only bummer was the mosquitos. I have never been attacked by so many mosquitos in my life. They were intolerable!

Here we are swatting at the mosquitos

Here is poor Natalie whose blood was most appealing to the little devils. I think she got 20-30 bites on her forehead alone!

Cute Emma

Arthur soaking his injured ankle and sporting a very fashionable mosquito net.

There was a controlled burn going on in another part of the park, so that's smoke you see there in this shot.

We had some unexpected rain on this trip.

Good thing we brought our very attractive ponchos, just in case. After awhile in the rain, we felt pretty miserable, so when that sun came out, we stopped for lunch and dried out and it felt glorious to be warm and dry!

Jacob and I exhibiting some mutant pine cones that we found around our campsite.

Half Dome anybody?

There are three "humps" to climbing Half Dome. This is "hump #2" which is a very steep switch-back stair trail.

Shade is a premium once you get onto "hump #2" so anytime there was a tree, we stopped for a bit to catch our breath and enjoy the shade.

Yipeee! Natalie & I on the top of Hump 2.

Next is the crazy hump #3, so steep you pull yourself up using cables. Me and Jacob are modeling our climbing gloves, (found in the garden section of Walmart) before our ascent. If you wait too long at the bottom, looking up at the specks of people climbing up, you might lose your nerve, (I almost did) so the best thing to do, is just start climbing.

I am bordering on insanity taking this picture. I am holding on to the cables (for dear life) with one hand, and taking the picture with the other. Risky business--I don't think I'd recommend it.

Here is Arthur coming up over the top!

Those small people are Dad, me, Natalie, Emma & Jacob. For cooler pictures, you should check out Natalie's blog--I never got the "cool" pictures from the other cameras.

On top of Half Dome, Arthur and I are relaxing and enjoying the views.

On the way down from Half Dome, I kept looking back feeling so proud of myself. I don't know how many times I said, "I can't believe I climbed that. Look at that thing!"

I've decided it feels really good to do something hard.

A view of Nevada falls on our way back down to the valley.

Look at this picture--it looks professional, right? I took it! It was me! It was me!

And Arthur took this beauty.

There was never a sweeter sight than the car waiting for us at the end of our hike. I was so happy and sore and tired and smelly! I couldn't wait to go home and take a SHOWER!

Summer Vacation: Part 2

Packard Family Reunion 2009

We continued our drive up into Utah where Camelot Resort, Fruitland, Utah was our destination for the 2009 Packard Family Reunion. (My mom's side of the family.) These reunions are always a party because my mom has 13 siblings so there is no shortage of friends to play with and things to do.

Some of the highlights this year: Games, crafts, archery, river floats, more games, good food, foot races, pinata, snow cones, foot races, stargazing with Arthur's telescope, family dance, variety show, and a video presentation of Grandma & Grandpa before Grandma passed away last year.

We had a blast. The only downsides were the mosquitos, the bathroom situation (not enough showers for the campers) and not enough free time to play card games. I guess we just needed one more day to squeeze in all the fun!

Games for the 3-10 year olds on the first day.

Notice all the beautiful color-coded family t-shirts, (designed by Kimball and Marianne--good job, guys.)

All 14 children have a different color assigned to their family, so when you see some little kid running around in lime green Packard t-shirt, you know they belong to Owen & Aimee's family.

Our family was navy blue this year.

Pin the star on the "sheriff" (Grandpa)

Some of the aunt and uncles did bottle rockets with the kids. Sean LOVED the bottle rockets! He hung out on the field watching everybody launching theirs.

Water guns

Foot races

I think Sean ran in almost age division. He's lucky he didn't trampled by those teenage boys. They were fast and ruthless!

All the aunts lining up for their footrace.

Hayden sitting on Grandpa's lap watching the races.

Archery

River Floats

This little river that meandered through the camp was deceptively fast. Dallin & I tipped over and had a hard time retrieving my flip flops and getting ourselves set to float down the rest of the river. When we got to the end of the ride, we were both sporting some scrapes and Dallin said, "Wow, Mom, I thought we were done for!"

Here is another part of the river that was dammed up so the little kids had a fun time cooling off in that part of it. It was so hot, sometimes I'd just go stand in the river to cool down myself.

Arthur and Hayden

Sean & Hayden.

This little swing set was fun for the kids riding it, but unfortunately, it took down quite a few little ones too.

Mom doing her crafts with the 3-10 year olds

No Packard reunion is complete without a pinata. There were three this year. One for the little ones, one for the in-betweeners, and one for the teenagers.

Here are the uncles doctoring up the teens' pinata so it would last long enough for them all to have a turn. That's red duct tape that they are wrapping around the thing. Needless to say, everyone got a chance and the last guy just took it down and started beating it on the ground to open it. Very entertaining. (In fact, I suspect the real reason the Packard's do pinatas at these reunions is so all the adults can get a good laugh.)

Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this reunion a success.

I feel so lucky to have such a big, fun, awesome family!