The first Annual Clyde and Ann Mason Reunion

So this last Christmas my family decided that we needed to do a campout every year, like we did when we were younger. And since we're all getting our own families and busy with life, we thought it'd be a good idea to get together with just us kids (and the ma and pa) of course. This year was Krista's year to plan and we went up to Black Hawk Campground above Payson Lakes. It really was so fun...it seemed too quick but I think excluding the endless scraped knees and Alexa's finger that got sliced in the camper door everyone had a good time.

We all tried to have a couple of activities for the kids. I found these cute aprons at the dollar store that we let them color and then wear for breakfast.

It was SO hot that even breakfast we had to find shade for the kids...but I think this worked well.

Thanks to Cordelle's brother Cameron, we were able to borrow this raft and had so much fun rowing around the lake. But Jaq kept trying to bail out of the boat so it did last long with her. Oddly, enough though she loved the life jacket we made her wear and wouldn't let us take it off her, even when she would sit down and the front of it went half way up her face.
But isnt it so pretty here?

My sister's and I with our babies...okay so none of them are really babies right now...but still

"Jaq and I"....and no comments about the Mega farmers tan....I dont do a lot of swimming. :)

Cordelle and Seth lounging by the shore.

Seth kicked around in this thing for a good 30 minutes....I guess some baby toys aren't just for babies.

Anytime we're at Payson Lakes we spend a great deal of time feeding the ducks...and these guys were hungry little fellas.

Neal spent a great deal of the time just entertaining us. He really is pretty funny. So here he is diving from the not so sturdy raft....

...and here he is with the rafts stacked on top of each other jumping into them from the shore.....Scott and Tallie did not have the same accuracy for this jump.

I was so glad Brett and Tiffany came up one evening. She is so cute! I love her! Lets make things work out eh Brett?

Cordelle was so excited to take Seth fishing and Seth just reveled in it. He just thought it was the most exciting thing to do with his dad. They didn't catch any fish, but Seth did fall in the lake once so it wasn't completely uneventful.

And lastly, my sister Krista made this fabulous treasure hunt for the kids. She made this map out of a sheet and stapled it to a tree. And the kids had to find clues all around to get to the treasure, but with each clue was a costume piece. The first one was their ripped/tied pirate shirts and rope belts....

....then came their pirate gold and necklaces....

....then they got foam core swords and daggers with some glittery stickers to decorate them....

...and then lastly they found their big treasure which was a cooler full of water balloons....

...which they surprised the rest of our camp with a full blown attack! It was so fun! Krista is a genious. Seriously having activities makes camping with kids so much easier. And this one was fantastic!

My camping pirates!
Thanks family for a great trip!

ECLIPSE PARTAY!

Okay so I have 2 friends that are obsessed with the whole Twilight craze! And one is openly OBSESSED with Robert Pattinson...so Cordelle and I came up with this little photoshop gem.


But anyways, so they did a Eclipse party which was SO decked out and fun! There were fantastic prizes and a Twilight theme gift swap. Everyone brought a Twilight themed treat (mine were the TYPE O, A, B licorice and the "wolf food." Then we all went with our husbands to see the movie! (I know, good men eh?) It was a fun night, so I thought I'd share the pics from it.

Summertime TV confessions

First off does anyone's family love this show as much as ours? Seth begs us to watch this, and then every commercial break he has to ask us if its coming back on cause he's so worried its over. It actually is pretty funny especially with the commentators. I've just decided, there is something in all of us that we find genuinely hilarious at the sight of watching someone slip or fall shamelessly on their face. And that is all this show is.


2nd confession: I am a closet Bachelorette watcher. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with this show...but I'm intrigued. Usually if people ask me if I watch it, I deny it. I'm not sure where the shame came from, other than the fact that its cheesy and well, a reality show at its best. But I have a question. Is there anyone out there that religiously watches this or the Bachelor? Is it really all rigged? Do they pay out people to cause drama or to walk away? This may sway my ability to continue my somewhat lame indulgence.

The couches that keep on giving

Hey Barnett's remember this beauty? After storing it for 3 years in our unfinished basement and for 2 long weeks in the garage we finally got someone to take these curiously comfortable couches so we could start working downstairs. If I were in college, they would have been snuck into someone's apartment months ago and if I had been home it probably would have made its way out onto my porch for a red neck solution to a porch swing...so I feel pretty good that even though it took awhile to find someone to take it off our hands, that it is in deed gone. :)

4TH OF JULY

Seriously, this is like my favorite holiday next to Christmas. I just love being out, going to parades, fireworks, playing in the sun. This year, we changed things up a bit and went and spent it with Cordelle's family. They are great, and I miss seeing his cousins (which many are more my age so its fun talking to). After being pushed back a day because of the previously mentioned crazy Cedar Weddings, we left Saturday morning to meet up at Aunt Myrnas for the famous 4th of July swimming party. She has this fantastic pool in the ground where all the cousins get together and have lunch and swim. Usually we dont go up that far on the 4th so we've missed it since we've had kids, but I was glad we went cause the kids loved it! Afterwards we hung out with Krista's kids a bit, had a barbeque with my parents and went to bed early. Sunday we went up to Cordelle's brother, Keith and Brooke's house in Lewiston (above Logan) for the first time in our married life. They were blessing their 6th child so we decided nows as good as good of time as ever! :) I was mad I didnt bring my camera cause I could've gotten pics of the fun things we did with Seth, Jaq and many of their Morris cousins. We checked out the cows, collected eggs from the chickens, played basketball and ate! Cordelle spent most of the day shooting guns with his brothers. Its a GUY thing I guess, cause I went out and shot the hand guns, shot guns, 22's and what not and was quite frankly pretty terrible at it. I did hit one clay pigeon, but I am pretty sure even that was an accident because my eyes were shut the whole time. It was nice chattin' it up with the sista in laws. They are incredible women! Anyways we left there around 7 to head back to South Jordan so we didnt have to make the whole trip home to Cedar in one day and within 3 minutes, a nap-less Jaq was out and within 10, so was Seth. So needless to say, we actually enjoyed a 2 hour Sunday drive, followed by a peaceful viewing of some street fireworks with no kids to chase. Nice.
Monday was chill, but Seth got to hang out with his all time favorite person in the world, Mason. I dont think I even said 3 words to him the entire day cause he followed that kid around like a trailer on a hitch. (well...until we had to leave, then the melt-down began). We made it back for the last 2 minutes of Enoch's fireworks and then stayed up and watched Cedar's from our back porch (by the way Enoch's fireworks kicked Cedar's trash and we only saw the last 2 minutes!). Anyways pretty fun 4th for us, perhaps not as exciting for you all to read, but hey, can't win 'em all. :)

Title? good question....what? it wasn't a question?

These are just random pics I want kept somewhere now that I don't really scrapbook...
(ahh scrapbooking...things I just can't do with kids....kinda like buying upholstered kitchen chairs, or using coasters for the red soda in my living room. Coasters. HA!... an object with the purpose of preventing cup marks on furniture....if I had any sort of beverage lying around on a piece of furniture, with my kids around, the last thing I would be worried about would be cup marks.)
I cant get enough of this girl!

I snuck up and found Seth reading the book, "CTR Boy" to Jaquelle on Sunday before church. He was so cute, he'd ask her to find the dog on every page just like we did for him.

Love the Spaghetti Dinner mess

..."got...to...get...every...last...bite...."

Allergic to Penicillin anyone?

This is my little nephew Gaven. Can you believe this? The poor little guy was on penicillin for an ear infection and found out he was allergic to it! It took like a week for the huge hives to go away and then it left big bruises where each one was. This was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Poor guy. They gave him some medicine but because hives are a reaction that is under the skin, they can't do a whole lot of treatment as far as topical creams go. Probably took 2 weeks for him to get all better.