I'm back!

Hi everyone :) I haven't posted anything in the last couple of weeks because I've been pretty busy... My last week in Kazakhstan I tried to spend as much with my family as I could, and I still have some photos that I have to share with you from those last few days! But first, I want to share some fun photos from my first few days back in California! We had a wonderful family reunion last weekend and I got to meet many great people from Greg's side of the family for the first time!

On Wednesday night we had a nice family dinner with just a few of us there. It was a beautiful evening in Big Bear, and we were enjoying our dinner outside.

Most people showed up on Friday and we all had a blast together! Getting to meet new people, enjoying great food and company, chatting, playing games - all of it was just so much fun!

Fred and Tony hanging out on the deck. Oh, and of course Mr Boots is there with them :)

Uncle Tony :)

Let the fun begin! Chris found Seth, and then Seth found himself hanging upside down for a while... :)

Deidre - my beautiful sister-in-law!

My camera just could not stop taking photos of this little cutie! Amalie is the most adorable and smart baby I know!

Poker was one of the main games of the weekend! This family teaches kids how to gamble from the time they are 8 years old!!!

Walking to Casie's house to say hello to the kitties that were hanging out there all alone and hungry...

Amalie

Amalie definitely looks a lot like her mommy :)

Our Friday's dinner that Deidre made - super tasty chicken enchiladas with green sauce! Yum!

Chris playing with his little girl, he is such a great daddy!

Cassandy Jo

Seth - cute little Mr Mischief:)

Grandpa playing with his youngest granddaughter

Jae looking through some old family photos

On Saturday we were all hanging out in the back yard playing games and just visiting.

Austin and Greg

Blaire and Greg

One of the games we played was "People Scavenger Hunt". We were all given a list of facts about family members and everyone had to find someone who matched one or more of those facts. No one could use their own name as an answer, so Alex was trying to figure out who, other than him, was born in a different country...

Gracie is learning a lot about her family members :)

Jill, Mom, Grandma, Aunt Jill - it's all her. My wonderful mother-in-law who kindly agreed to host this family reunion along with her wonderful husband Fred a.k.a. Dad, Grandpa, and Uncle Fred. It turned out amazing, thank you guys so much!

Alanna and Sam also trying to figure out who did what in that long list of things that were done and places that were visited by someone in the family.

Blaire

Uncle Tony giving me the mean look! Still looks so kind :)

Austin

Karen giving out prizes to everyone who participated in the game! It was awesome, you didn't even have to win, you could just get a gift for taking part in the game, how great is that??

Greg and Blair enjoying their gift - word find book, I think :)

Later that day we had another game. "Capture". There were three different buckets: one with a name, another with some action, and the third one with a place. You picked one piece of paper from each bucket, put them all together and you have your assignment. Without the person knowing you have to make them do the right thing at the right place and take a photo of them doing it... So here are some of my victims from this game :) The one above is "Greg, holding make-up, through a window". Yeah, it is a window screen and Kathryn had to use some force so that I could take the photo! Thanks Kathryn!

This one was a little easier to get, no force was used. "Carla, eating chocolate, in the street"

This one was actually Alanna's assignment, but I also took a photo just for fun. "Casie, wearing a hat, by the STOP sign"

"Austin, texting, on the balcony". Ok ok ok... he wasn't really texting, but it was close enough :)

This was just Deidre and Amalie being cute. No assignment, that's simply the way they are!

Seth took this photo. "Marina, wrapped in a blanket, by the stop sign" I added a little soda drinking twist to the photo :)

Amalie and Greg

Greg sneaked up on Nick while he was asleep. Creeped him out at first, but he went right back to sleep :)

It has been a very fun weekend! I was very happy to meet all the family members that made it to the reunion, thank you everyone for coming from far far away! And I'm happy I was back from Kazakhstan in time for the reunion, too :) Special thanks to my parents-in-law for having everyone at their house and making this family reunion as amazing as it was!