Family Reunion in California!!!!

So, Wednesday night we left California about 6:30pm to head to California for a family reunion. We had planned to drive to Arroyo Grande and stop there for the night at my brothers house, get some sleep and then leave early in the morning to come the rest of the way to El Dorado Hills. Unfortunately when we reached my brother's house in Arroyo Grande, Avery had woken up and was talking and giggling up a storm. The decision was made that we would go ahead and continue up to El Dorado Hills being that Avery was not likely to go back to sleep if we pulled him out of the car. So, we called my brother Gregory at 2am and told him that we were gonna go ahead and continue the drive. And, after 12 hours in the car and surviving horrible wind, we finally made it to El Dorado Hills at 9 am. With a cranky 6 week old and a 13 month old that had peed out of his diaper all the way up his back and front. But none the less we were very excited for the weekend. The first order of business was Alex's graduation. It started at 7:30 pm on Friday night. It was FREEZING!!! Not to mention drizzling a little bit and we had no coats for the boys. I had called my mom to check and see what the temperature was supposed to be and she said it was supposed to be 70-80's. So we didn't bring anything. So, we waited to see Alex cross the stage and then we took the boys home. Needless to say, mom and dad and the kids didn't get home until almost 10pm!! Crazy! Here is a picture of Alex and my parent's right after graduation.
Then Saturday at 10am Amanda went through the Sacramento Temple for the first time. It was amazing to be there to see her go through. We took a couple of family pictures at the temple that day, but I will have to wait for Katie to send them to me so that I can put them up on here. Saturday afternoon, Nana and Poppa had bought a kiddie pool for Avery and Tyler to play in, so we set it up in their foyer and let the boys go for it. It was soo amusing watching the two of them play together. Here is one picture of the fun, but in another post I will put up a slideshow of more pictures. There are also a couple of videos, but I am not sure if I will be able to get those to load.

Sunday night three of my sisters - Kelly, Riley, and Kaitlin - received their young women recognition award. It is so wonderful that they were able to get it!! Kelly and Riley are Laurels and Kaitlin is a Mia Maid. We are so proud of Kelly, as she was able to recite The Living Christ from memory in front of everyone. Which is a huge feat for her. To see the projects that they had done was really cool also. Here are a couple of pictures of me, Riley and Kelly.

Then, today we went white water rafting down the southern fork of the american river. It was soo much fun. I have to admit that I was very nervous......well, to be honest, scared to death is probably a more accurate description. Hee hee. But once we got there and got on the river, I was excited. It started out pretty slow with just a couple of little rapids, that I thought were pretty, bad, but at lunch I was informed that they only were going to get worse, much to my displeasure. lol. The rapids at the end of the run have such names as - satans cespool, ambulance chaser, and hospital bar. Needless to say, I would have rather just stayed at the lunch point. But, we got back in the boats and headed on down the river. As you can tell, I successfully made it through all of the rapids alive. Luckily we had an awesome guide and I was able to stay in the boat the entire way. There were a couple of rapids where I ended up in the middle of the raft instead of the side, but I was happy to be in the raft and not out. Once again, I will have to wait to get the pictures to put on here, as they were taken on waterproof disposable cameras. As you can tell, it was an absolutley amazing weekend. Really busy, but lots of fun. It was really cool because all of my siblings were there. The only person missing was Gregory's fiancee Carinna. It was amazing to have all of the family together for the weekend. We always have lots of fun when we get together. Here is one finally picture of Avery, Tyler, and Great-Grandpa Johnston.