We just got back from a wonderful vacation and bi-decadal (I love making up my own words...) Petty family reunion. We got to spend a week in beautiful Estes Park, CO with Mom's family. It's been 20 years since we've had a reunion like this, so the family has definitely changed!!
Here are some pictures to commemorate the trip.
We stayed at Amberwood, which has lodges/cabins that were perfect for our group (
http://www.amberwoodestespark.com/). The Grand Room lodge was great for gatherings (with a kitchen, great room, pool table and 6 bedrooms for the "grandkid" generation).
We also rented out a few "Sunday House" rooms for the rest of the group. It gave the "aunts and uncles" generation somewhere to run to when the young-uns wanted to stay up all night.
The area was gorgeous!!! Greg is really good at taking one-handed pictures, isn't he?
The whole group:
light blue-Derek, Lisa and Lydia
green-Lionel, Artis and Brian
gray-Karen, Dylan and Kate (we missed you Mike!!)
blue-Leslie and Kevin (and baby on the way)
pink-Beth and Frank
orange-Jim and Liz
maroon-us (of course we got maroon!!)
dark green-Mike, Jess, Maya, Caleb and Jake
purple-the matriarch of the bunch, Grandma (with the shirt from the last reunion to honor Grandpa)
And since I'm more of a picture-taker than a story-teller, here's what I have...
My cousin Sylvia was only able to be in Estes Park for a couple hours, and since she's getting married in a few weeks, we threw her and impromptu "bridal shower" that consisted of giving her a card/gift and taking a picture.
Making a family scrapbook to give to Grandma as a surprise for her 79th birthday.
Greg is working so hard isn't he?!?!
Estes Park had a parade in honor of their rodeo, so we all went down for the morning. There were LOTS of horses, LOTS of politicians, and it was LOTS of fun. Allison kept waving and saying "Hi" to everybody that went by; it never got old because it was so darn cute!! We got a video of it on Mom's camera, but here's the best pic we got of her waving...
There was an Aggie flag on the back of, you guessed it, the Willie Nelson float.
Waiting in the shade for the parade to start
Most of the time at the reunion was spent playing around. Mike brought cowboy hats for all the kids, and there were bubbles, slinkies and toys galore.
Yes, that's Allison in Jake's baby swing. I'm glad she didn't break it!!
I love these two pictures of Allison!!
If you look closely, Allison is blowing a bubble!! It only took her swallowing a pint and a half of solution to learn how to do it :)
Lions and peacocks and elephants, oh my!
We took a day to drive down to Denver to visit the Zoo. It was Allison's first time at a zoo, and Denver's was pretty nice. And yes, I have my child on a leash; but it's a cute leash nonetheless...
These weren't the only bears we saw on our trip. We must've had the best tasting garbage in the area because a bear got into the latched-and-bungee-corded dumpster every night. One evening we heard it and all ran out with our flashlights to catch a peek. Greg drove the car around and shone the headlights on the huge thing that was sitting on the dumpster. No pictures of that one though, so the zoo will have to suffice...
For Greg's college buddies: a couple obligatory pics from the zoo.
What an exciting trip!! It was so nice to get to visit with the family, but we're glad to be back. We missed our cousins who couldn't make it, but babies and island weddings are a pretty good excuse!!
I LOVE IKEA!!!
