another family reunion!

The first week in July we headed up to St. George once again for ANOTHER family reunion. This time it was the Isom (Nathan's mom's side) family reunion.

On Friday after work, we dropped Buster off at Nathan's sister's house. Amy was nice enough to watch all the family pets (minus Sarah's dog Rusty)- that's 4 dogs plus her own puppy! After leaving Buster, we drove up and picked up Marvin, Sarah, and Rusty. We decided to carpool up to Utah this time to save on gas. It was a little cramped having for adults in my little Corolla, but it was fun having other people to chat with on the way up.

Just getting out of Phoenix was an adventure! Since it was Labor Day weekend, it seemed like everyone was trying to exit the valley all at once. We didn't want to sit around in traffic forever, so we took some side roads and found our own way out of town. Instead of going up the 17 to Flagstaff, we went through Wickenburg and Kingman and VEGAS! I was excited because I had never seen Vegas before- unfortunately I was half asleep when we drove through- but it was still cool.

On the drive up we saw one of the coolest lightning storms ever. There was lightning all around us. It was like the ultimate lightning drive! Marvin tried to take pictures of the lightning- it was pretty funny to watch. He was taking pictures as fast as his phone would let him and he'd either get a picture right before or right after a lightning strike. I tried like twice to get a picture and then gave up!

I think we got to Grandma Smith's house around 2 in the morning- I don't really remember. I was so tired! I just wanted to go to sleep because I knew we had to wake up in like 6 hours. (Nathan who claimed he wasn't tired when we got there wound up falling asleep before me.)

The next day, we all woke up and got showered and headed to Hurricane to meet up with the rest of the family for breakfast. It was fun to get to meet MORE family. I was finally able to match names with faces, and place cousins with the right aunt/uncle.

After breakfast, we were introduced to a new game- Bocce Ball!

It was pretty fun to play, and the rules were easy! We played a few games, then we headed over to Peach Days!

Peach Days is a little festival that happens in Hurricane every year. There were a ton of displays and booths to buy crafts and things. I bought some vinyl wall transfers for like $5! The ones I had priced online were like $30, so I was super excited. There will probably be another blog about those soon, when we finally do something with them.

After our Peach Days excursion, we went back to the reunion to have a late lunch. Everyone was taking pictures- but we were such picture slackers on this trip! So I'll probably post a few more pictures later as they get emailed to me. Here is one of Nathan and I though!

After we had eaten and taken pictures, a few of the cousins decided to drive up to the family ranch property. We borrowed Rod & Virginia's Blazer because Nathan didn't think my car would like bumps and the dirt roads. After taking the drive, I was glad we did! My poor Corolla would have been torn to bits! The view was worth the bumpy ride to get there. Some of the cousins were thinking about camping there, but since the weather forecast said something about scattered thunderstorms, they decided not to.

While we were there at the Ranch, Nathan's cousin Daniel suggest that we take a drive over to Kolob, because there was an amazing look out over there. He said it would take about 15 minutes to get there- so we hopped in the car and took off. An hour later we pulled off at a lake- it was a very pretty lake, and the sunset made it even prettier-- however, it was not the place Daniel was trying to take us. It was starting to get dark, so we decided to head back home.

As we headed back down the mountain, Nathan announced "The low fuel just turned on..." Eek! We knew we had about an hour drive just to get down the mountain, and then who knew how much further before we got to a gas station. We tried to call Daniel who was in the car in front of us with the rest of the cousins, but none of us had cell phone service! Nathan threw the Blazer in neutral and coasted our way down most of the road- we were only in drive when absolutely necessary! I was praying the whole way that we would at least be able to make it to a main road where we had cell phone service-- and we did! It was the most stressful drive I have ever been on! We were able to make it to gas station too.

Of course, we were hungry after that long journey! So we switched back our cars and headed over to Iceberg! Our favorite St George treat! We didn't wind up getting back to Grandma's house until 11:00! Then it was straight to bed, because we had to get up early to have breakfast.

I must admit, Sunday's activities are a bit blurry- that's what I get for waiting so long to blog! I know we went on Sunday morning to have breakfast with everyone and say our goodbyes. Then on Sunday afternoon,we were back at Grandma's house for some relaxing and at some point we started the most epic game of Monopoly!

We decided to make up some of our own rules to make the game more interesting- like putting all money that would be paid to the bank in the middle as a free parking reward. After Sarah landed on Free Parking for the first time, I felt like I didn't have a chance at winning! So Sarah and I made a deal- I told her I would do everything in my power to help her win- just Marvin and Nathan would lose! Those boys are soooo competitive! It's ridiculous! So at the opportune moment, I trade Sarah all my properties for $1 and became her "real estate advisor." She then had at least one of every property color on the board. ULTIMATE POWER!

This is a picture of all of Sarah's wealth at one point in the game. Check out all those houses and hotels! Marvin and Nathan tried to make a similar deal, but they greatly under-estimated our power. Marvin and I were eventually out of the game and it was between Nathan and Sarah- Nathan would not give up! He was forced to give Sarah the last of his properties, and his overly competitive brain was still telling him he could win with the $6o he had left. Sarah literally owned every single property on the board, all the $500 bills from bank, and practically all the $100s. Sarah was the champion in every way possible, and yet as we were lying in bed that night, Nathan muttered, "I still think I could have won...." Oh goodness!

On Monday we all went to Chuck-a-Rama for lunch, and then headed over to Tai Pan to doa bit of shopping. I didn't feel like I had enough to really shop Tai Pan- because we wanted to get back to Phoenix at a decent time, so I didn't really get anything. I think Marvin and Sarah wound up getting some Christmas ornaments or something. We will have to go back in a few months so I can do some real shopping!

And so we were off, back to the valley of the sun!

Here's Marvin & Sarah, sleeping on the ride home. I tried to get Rusty in the picture too, but the angle was too weird.

We were almost home, when noticed the brakes sounded awful and we heard a strange noise coming from under the car- which is never good. We pulled off the road to find that a piece of plastic that was protecting the engine, had started to fall off and was dragging on the ground. So we had to go to Wal-Mart and get some tools for Nathan to take it all the way off, since we didn't have the screw to re-attach it. After it was safely taken off, we dropped Marvin and Sarah off at their house, and Nathan and I went over to his parents house. We moved all our stuff into their other Blazer and dropped off the Corolla at the repair shop!

It was quite a trip! But it was a ton of fun. I can't wait for our next adventure!