Family weekend

We spent the past weekend over in Chico. It was our second annual family get-together weekend with my mom's family. This included her siblings and their children, and her cousins and their children. There were about 28 people there, including six kids under age 7!

My cousin Alison and her husband Chad, along with my Auntie Barb and Uncle Bill did a fabulous job hosting the weekend!! We all had a great time. The weather was pretty toasty. I think it was about 95 degrees when we got there on Friday evening.

The first night's activities included a surprise baby shower for Mary and Jeff.

As part of the shower we all made a scrapbook page that included, among other things, advice for the new parents, guesses on when we think the baby will be born, and our favorite books for the baby. Mary and Jeff received a lot of great stuff to help get them started, including a basket of all our favorite childrens books.

On Saturday morning, four of the guys went golfing while the rest of us went to my aunt and uncle's house to swim and hang out. The kids had the best time. J.T. especially loved having Uncle Jeff throw him up and in the air and catch him. Abigail practiced jumping off the side of the pool.

Unfortunately our pool time was cut a little short when the rain, thunder and lightening started. It was pretty much out of the blue and it was very strange!

Saturday's dinner had a luau theme. We all festively wore our leis, including Buddy the dog!

Another really cool thing about our luau was the "pig on a spit" that Chad did. He spent all day prepping, seasoning, and watching that pig. He may disagree, but I think it was well worth it! The pork was fabulous, along with the rest of the meal!!

I couldn't let Mary get away without a baby bump shot... You can't probably tell at this angle but we made her wear an open lei, because in Hawaii pregnant woman cannot wear a regular closed lei. I think it's some kind of superstitious thing.

Sydney and Abigail had a great time sitting in the kiddie pool and blowing bubbles..

I think it's truly amazing that 28 people can all be looking at the camera, don't you?? I think this shot turned out pretty well...

Here's one of my family.... one of the very few that I was in for the weekend.

Here's one of my generation of first cousins....

And one of my mom's generation of first cousins...

I asked Alison if I could take a few shots of her twins... This is my favorite of Tyler!

And both of them....

At the end of the evening, J.T. discovered that the boys have a John Deere Gator. He probably would've been all over their yard except the battery ran out right here...

On Sunday morning we had a great brunch at Barb and Bill's before everyone headed home. We also looked through stacks and stacks of photos that were my grandparents' before they passed away. In addition, we all got a wonderful memory book that my cousin Jacqueline put together of a bunch of old pictures. I will try to put a few pictures on here of that later.

When we left Chico, it was 92 degrees.... when we got back to Fortuna, it was 61 degrees!