The People I Love

Here are some of our most recent family photos:

Left to right: my mom, my brother, my sister, me, my brother, my dad

 All of my mom's side

 All of my mom's side

 My cousins, grandma and I on my mom's side

My family again

<3 These wonderful people are all very important to me and I'm so glad they're my family. <3

What I Will Put in my Hair

I have a butterfly clip that I like to wear often. One day some one told me I was weird for wearing dead butterflies in my hair when they saw the clip. Well, I won't wear dead butterflies...

 

But I will wear my pet bird! :)

Room Musical Chairs

My sister, since she is now in middle school with me, has to wake up an hour earlier than my elementary school brothers. So, we moved her into the basement, with me. She moved into my room, I moved into my dad's office, my dad's office moved to the kids' study room, the study room moved into my sister's old room.
Here's my new room. Love it!

Thanks to mom and dad for painting and helping me "re-theme." :)

WAIT!!!

Wait! Before you go on, read the post "Finally", then read the posts the opposite of the order they appear. A strange thing, blog chronological order is...

The Lake

On we go...
The rest of my family (EVERYBODY) arrived in the afternoon.
And so it begins...

The lake flooded like crazy about two years ago. (We could SKI in what used to be the PARKING LOT.) This year, it retreated somewhat. (Now the buoys are over the parking lot.) Here's what it left behind. My flip flops got caught in the mud and broke when I tried to pull them out.

 Feet in the lake...before the flip flops were destroyed.

Tubing...and fooling around with the effects...

At dinner, we all gather for a picnic.

If there isn't enough room on the ground...we take to the trees! :)

Family. With my cousin in the bottom photo is a girl we made friends with up there. She and her sisters hung out with us the whole week.

This is my cousin and her fiance. Congrats!

We were up at the lake for my cousin D's birthday.
We had a lot of cake...

The homemade Olympic Games after dinner. We also had an obstacle course and water balloon catapults. Yes, ALL of those people are my family.

One night, we stayed out late of the large lawn outside the condos.

What we're sitting on is a homemade human rubber band. Four people get in it, stretch it out like a square, and the opposing people take turns running towards each other and you try to stay on your feet as long as possible. We discovered it also serves as a "circle time" bench.

We are all little children at heart. I admit it, you admit it. :)
It wasn't REALLY that dark. We went inside before it got too dark to see.

My cousins and I also saved a water bug named Renches.

This was a teensy-tiny pitiful attempt at a summary of my EPIC vacation.
Okay, that's it people! For now...
Look for pics of my sister and I tandem skiing!!!!!!!!!!
Bye!

The First Morning at the Lake

Okay...second week...here we go.
My family (Mom, Dad, and siblings only) went to meet some old friends at the lake early. We tubed and boated with them the entire morning. SO much fun.

T & E, some friends a little older than I, "tube." (Or drown)
Yes. The water really is that blue. And so clear!

My siblings put-put at snail speed. *Sigh*

I got on with T & E and we tubed like one should. Back and forth, up and down, under the water...
This picture shows E falling off and T and I in the water.

Old friends.

On the way back to my grandparents' house, we stopped by a family friend's house. They have a daughter about my age and we're good friends.
Here we are:

It was fun to see you, M!
:)

Temple

Over the weekend, after WICKED, my parents drove us down to the church in which they got married. I love it. It's built into the mountain, and from the front it looks small, beautiful, and quaint, but in the back it has spacious lawns and is kind of medieval in my opinion. It was incredible.

 Thought this was a cool photo. The clouds break right above it.

 This is where the wall merges with the mountain.

 The front.

The side.

Okay...brace yourselves...WICKED!

Okay. This was the most completely AWESOME gift I have EVER received. I. Went. To. Wicked.
The Broadway musical.
Yes. It's true.
The complete and total utter AWESOMENESS of this experience cannot be stressed enough.
The music was incredible.
The singers were impeccable.
The dancing was breath-taking.
The effects were stunning.
The dialogue was amazing.
Do you want to picture the full awesomeness?
Follow these directions, then look at the pictures.
1. Get a thesaurus.
2. Look up every synonym for every word with a positive connotation on the PLANET.
3. Admit to yourself that even THAT can't come close to an accurate description.

I went with my cousin, B, (the same one who directs our family plays) and my sister. In the background is the-get ready-Oz Dust Gift Shop!

Me at intermission. I had only experienced HALF the awesomeness, and I was SHAKING.

My sister.

Go see this incredible amazingness!!!!!!!!!

Your life depends on it, because you haven't lived until you've seen Wicked!

Of Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandmas, Grandpas, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins, Great Aunts, Great Uncles, and other relatives.

Most of this is going to be pictures, but I'll give all of you a little background information first.
Every summer, my ENTIRE family goes up to the mountains to spend a minimum of two weeks just plain having the time of our lives. We probably get around 100 people up there most of the time, to give you an idea of how big my family is. One week it's just the small groups (aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa, and 1st cousins) staying at a resort, and then we ALL (great aunts, great uncles, 2nd and 3rd cousins, etc.) meet up at a lake for another week.

So the below photos are of the first week.

On the way to the resort we stopped for some of the most amazing sandwiches on the planet.

2 of my cousins and my Grandma's arm. :)

My sister presents a small portion of our hydration stores. By the end of the week it was ALL gone.

My cousins and I are very outdoorsy...IF there are woods and a decent creek. One of my cousins and I fought our way through some trees along this creek, and found this before the creek went underground and we couldn't follow anymore. What you see above is two different colored water groups separated by a log.

(In order left to right.)
My sister, A; my cousin, S; my cousin, M; me; and my cousin, M in the woods. We are getting ready to build our fort for the boys against girls cousin competition. Our building site can be seen on the left in the background.

My aunt and cousin bringing in logs.

My kungfu superwoman of a cousin, D, was our champion log-finder and carrier. The stick she is carrying is HUGE. I didn't even try to fit it all in the picture.

 You can see some of the boys at their site in the background in this one. What you see is the construction of our archway. Don't worry, we made it taller than that.

 I like building forts. It's like a puzzle! With really heavy peices...
This wall is halfway done.

My sister and cousins.

Our "carpeted" floors.

Building...

 Cousins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of our cute toddler cousins, E, decided that he preferred to hang out with the girls. We all thought that this was VERY sweet.

So I was like, 'We need a barbeque grill/fire pit in our backyard!' and there was this perfectly good rock...

We have a roof for the first time in all the years we've done this!!!! Oh, look! A squirrel is in our roof! (Upper Left)

Birdseye view! I'm watching you grandma, M, and D.

E inspects the tree.

Hanging out at the park. It took a while to get that picture taken. My face is very red. :)

Having fun in our traditional ty-dye T-shirts.

Practicing for our "Annie" musical. These are my cousins and sister practicing "Let's Go to the Movies." In the background is "Punjab." My cousin, B, is very interested in theater and directs a play/musical each year. I think this was my last year in the production. I want to watch and be surprised next year. I'm not quite sure about my decision yet. A lot can happen in a year...

My ty-die shirt. And the camera responsible for this post. It's a handy little waterproof Kodak Sport. Greatest camera in the world.

 Standing on the edge of a cliff... :)

The last five pictures are trying to tell you something...I love being up high!

Who needs a bridge? I don't ever use a bridge! Really, why use a bridge when you can slog right through? Whoever thought of putting bridges over every single body of water on the planet needs to seriously rethink their life.

My cousin fell in so we decided it was our duty as family to not let him be the odd one out...we all got wet.

That isn't all of us. There was more, but I forgot to ask permission to put their picture up. Use your imagination!

Rock. Enough said.

Halfway through the week, my Uncle M from my mom's side of the family came up with my cousin L. It was fun to introduce them to the rest of the family.

Yeah. I drank it all. Don't worry. I got my parents' okay. I'm not crazy. :)

Okay, next post is the WEEKEND in between!!!

Excited about this one!!!