It's Raining It's Pouring

So I have about 10 more family reunion blogs that will eventually be written and posted, but in the meantime I have been extremely busy going to the lake/wild waters/river/dinners/dates (for real though) and have not had time. I know, I know, it's a hard life but some body's gotta do it! Today however, I couldn't resist the urge to quickly update all you Vegas folks on the beauty that is 90 degree weather. Do you remember that? Back in November? Well it's awesome. Today I went to my most favorite place on earth Lake Tahoe where I swam and played and had a great time. Just as we were packing up our stuff from a SUNNY day.... the clouds rolled in... I mean really rolled in. Like, not an end in sight. It was perfect though because the first rain drop didn't hit until the last raft was deflated and loaded into the car. So I drove down Mount Rose Hwy (which is already a gorgeous drive) with Xiana sleeping in the backseat and the rain down pouring on my windshield making the most noise I have ever heard from rain (this is not an exaggeration though I know I am often guilty of embellishing) and it was amazing. I turned off my music and I drove. It was magical. Truly magnificent. Nobody rode my tail encouraging me to go faster than I felt comfortable going. Nobody went too slow in front of me causing me to ride my breaks the whole way down. No. It. was. perfect. I seriously felt like the only person in the only car in the whole world so "touched" by this scene. I've never seen so much water come down at once. It was cascading down the mountain and the street. Life is beautiful. So that's all. Sorry to rub in the great weather thing, ask me again in November when it's 90 in Vegas :)

Truckee River

If is wasn't enough to get to enjoy Lake Tahoe, right in the heart of Reno travels the Truckee river. The city has built some beautiful white water parks along the river and in the process have blocked the currents in some areas to that there is shallow, slow, swimming water. Xiana loves to jump off the rocks and "bob." The only problem is that she always wants to jump in the only place where the current is fast. She is such a little dare devil!
She says, "ready, set doe"
And "one two free!"

She also enjoys sitting on the rocks eating some granola bars (which I have frequently had to prevent her from dipping in the river water!
Church! She still looks so cute in this dress she wore to Christine's wedding-- a year ago!

Home Sweet Home!

As wonderful as it was to be in Utah.... I missed my Lake Tahoe. I remedied the situation by going up to 3 times a week since I've returned. This is Zepher and I will post Sand Harbor pics shortly. I'm afraid that photos cannot and will not ever do this great lake justice. There is nothing in this world like the feeling of swimming in the cold, refreshing water. It is crystal clear and the view is different from every direction. Want snow? look to your left. Want trees? Look to your right. Want blue mountains? Look behind. Brown mountains? You got it! If you haven't been here....GO!

Garrett, Kacie and Xiana in her little boat. She refers to the little yellow one as "nana's boat"
This blue boat has provided endless fun for a myriad of kids this summer.
Pull me out mom!

Payson Lakes

My bestest friend Cambridge, her daughter Morgan, Xiana and I went to Payson lakes and then hiked the gorge. I vaguely remember hiking the gorge way back when and I don't remember Payson lakes at all. How could I have forgotten such a wonderful place that was sooo close to where I lived for so many years? At any rate, the water was beautiful and the gorge was a nice, brief hike. Mostly it was just great to spend time with Cambridge! We also went to her parent's house for game night in Spanish Fork and had the opportunity to frequent my most favorite fast food joint in the world... Glades. Seriously, Utah folks have fry sauce down to an art! When I lived in Spanish I ate there weekly! It was strange to be somewhere that was so familiar, yet felt like another life. Most things looked the same with more buildings and stores in previously vacant lots. It was a nice trip to wax nostalgic on!
These falls were ICY!
I diligently tried to keep Xiana's tennis shoes out of the water, but ... it was futile!
We got to cross several little bridges.
The second lake was perfect so of course Xiana decided this was a great time for a nap!
This was the first lake we went to, but it was more of a fishing lake than a swimming one which resulted in a significant amount of dirty looks from the fishermen.

Pool Party

The day we got back from the camp out my cousin Gretchen was kind enough to have all of us over for a pool party at her house. She has an amazing pool, and a slide that goes from the top to the bottom of the house. I could seriously post an entire entry describing her incredible home.... but I won't. We swam and roasted hot dogs over her fire pit. Xiana, by this time, was desperate to swim and so was her mommy so we were happy to be here!

Initially I thought going down the slide would be scary for Xiana because it dumped us in hard, under water every time. Alas, I was mistaken! She kept repeating "more slide" pretty much the entire night.
This picture was taken because we were laughing about how Nicholas's dark skin matched Xiana's and Jared's light matched mine, but in the picture I look much darker than him so the motivation is lost. The babies are still pretty ebony and ivory.

We got to go to the Oquihrr Mountain temple open house and it was beautiful. Xiana pointed at every picture she saw and said, "Jesus." It was heart warming.

Camping continued

So the next hike we went on was a family event. We managed to get all 23 reunion-ers up the mountain. Larissa checked it out and it was only 2 miles round trip, but boy was it steep. It was a lot of fun though and at the top was another beautiful and "cecret" lake. We crossed rivers and played in snow along the way.The mountains were ah-mazing!
WE managed to get all 13 children across 3 creeks with only a few shoe casualties.
Seriously beautiful!

Garrett climbed around the lake and up the snow drift on the other side. He was like a little ant sliding down the mountain from where we sat. He realized that his footing was not as secure as he would have liked and came back around, but only after starting a trend with other hikers heading up the snow.
This was a really fun intermission snowball fight.


Back at camp grandma and Jared got a lot of love.
Xiana was extremely clingy this trip despite cousins galore to play with. Her a crew is doing a good job of keeping her distracted from her mommy with a game of peek a boo. This provided endless entertainment through the week.

Family Olympics

Okay, so I mentioned that my sisters were so clever right.... well this was Cami's creative activity....the family Olympics! Mind you, this is after we got home from the hike and had eaten a delicious dinner. Cami had all families create a family flag and a family cheer. Each of the kids got to design part of their flags which was really quite fun (Xiana colored our whole flag....apparently Garrett and Grandpa and Grandma weren't too picky).
Creative juices are flowing.
The Talbot clan obviously having a blast....doesn't Zachary's face say it all?
Xiana coloring her hands instead of the paper (this was a reoccurring problem)
The kids took a quick water gun/ swimming break.
Here is the finished product for the Frey the 2nd family.
The Cherpeski family flag.
The Talbot's creation.
And the Frey 1st family flag (otherwise known as a sword).
Cami then had a torch that she had made (which really looked like a torch) and had one runner from each family carry the torch from tent to tent and finally to the main fire which was lit. Next each family did a circle around the fire holding their flags proudly and finished with their family cheer. Then I took full advantage of the photo ops and made each family pose for a pic....



This is one of many shots of the awards ceremonies. After each event Cami had gold, silver, and bronze awards and the rest of the camp had to cheer "fill in the names" are grrreat! Depending on who took the gold. She created such events as the mom call where each of the mothers were blind folded and their children called "mama" for them to raise their hands when they heard their children's voices. I was at an advantage because I only have one, but it was a disadvantage because she was not thrilled with being away from her mommy and proceeded to repeatedly cry, "mama, mama." Other events were the daddy run where the fathers had to get all of the children across a finish line without them touching the ground, the shoe race where each of the kids had to get their shoes on out of a shoe pile and then cross a finish line, a relay race (which resulted in Xiana telling me for the remainder of the trip, "go fast mommy" because I held her on my legs of the race), and a cup cake decorating contest. This was seriously so much fun. Everybody got a chance to participate in all the awards ceremonies and everybody got to and had to participate.

The final event resulted in a great deal of frosting, candy, and cake being consumed. It was a wonderful night. Thanks Cami for your creative plan that I am definitely going to have to steal sometime.

Family Reunion 09 take 1

So family reunion 09 was spent camping in Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah really close to Cami's house. Mom, Dad, all 5 children, 3 children-in-law, and 13 grandchildren made it for this unforgettable event. The first night there we set up camp and then enjoyed hanging out and talking while the kids ran wild together exploring the grounds and enjoying some serious cousin time. Karly gave a really nice family home evening lesson the first night which was followed up by a game of family jeopardy created by Larissa. My sisters are so clever and creative! Just wait till you see pics of the family Olympics. I was feeling a little apprehensive about my plans for an impromptu talent show after these extraordinary activities, but fortunately we got company on my assigned day and I got off scott free!
The girls on Karla's lap!
I'm pretty sure we had 25 chairs for 23 people up here!
Our first adventure out of our campsite was up less than half a mile to this beautiful water fall. There were many creeks and falls making this a beautiful site!
These girls were like the 3 musketeers the whole trip. All three of them are the only girls in their families so it was wonderful for them to get some female time!
This little creek was right in our camp site. I spent a significant amount of time trying to keep Xiana out of it. She never met a body of water that she couldn't jump right in to!
The next morning we woke up and Cami found a hike that started with a brief 2 mile round trip, but could be extended into a 7 miler. So.... we ALL headed up the mountain. One hour later we stopped for lunch roughly 7/10's of a mile up the mountain. The kids and the adults supervising the kids decided this was an appropriate place to head back. Cami spearheaded the extended hike so Garrett, myself, and Dad followed her up. Thank goodness that Dad was with us because he had to stop often enough that I never got too tired. Poor Cami would run up a half a mile and then wait for us for 15 minutes. This continued the entire way up the mountain.


At the top we discovered this.......
I really wanted to jump in, but this water makes Lake Tahoe feel like a hot springs! It was beautiful and peaceful up here and I was so happy to have stuck it out to the top. On the way down I stuck with Cami and Garrett stuck with dad. Cory came to pick us up at the trail head and got so tired of waiting he started up the mountain. Cami had enough time to drive me back to camp and then head back to pick up the men by the time Cory found them on the mountain. It was a wonderful hike and I wasn't even sore the next day like I had imagined I would be! After we got back to camp we ate and then...