From Tuesday, August 4th until Saturday August 8th, 21 of the most amazing, fun people gathered in the San Mateo County Campground to play together on the beach and camp in a beautiful campground full of big redwood trees. That amazing, fun group of people is our family! Scott & EmmaLee were in charge this year and this area is where Emmalee was born and where her Mom's family is from so she has come to this area her whole life. Now we know why, it is beautiful!. Scott's family left on Saturday to go spend some time with EmmaLee's aunt near Sacramento. The rest of us left on Monday and made it to Reno, Nevada on Monday evening where we enjoyed some fun at Circus Circus. We met the next morning at the breakfast buffet - we felt like the reunion had already started. (Valerie & Wyatt made it to Battle Mountain) On Tuesday we ate at our first "In and Out Burger" and Melissa, Randy and their families toured the Jelly Belly factory as we each made our way to San Fransisco, then down the coast to Half Moon Bay. Even though we all traveled separate, we all arrived at the ocean on Tuesday afternoon and within an hour of one another we were all at the campground. How many times did I call each of you and ask, "Where are you now?" We set up our tents and as always the cousins immedialty went about having fun together as we set up the "kitchen" and fixed dinner. A couple times during that evening we heard loud cracks that had us wondering if the racoons were breaking tree branches or what. Then in the middle of the night a rather large tree fell. Fortunately it was caught by it's own branches in some other trees. The men quickly moved Melissa & Spencer's tent as it was directly where the tree would have fallen if it had come all the way to the ground. It hung there until Thursday morning when it fell the rest of the way to the ground. Our prayers for safety were definelty answered and we consider it a miracle that the tree didn't fall all the way to the ground that first night. So with that part of the story told the rest of our time together was totally awesome. Each family was assigned two meals and as always we ate well. We had a talent show and learned that the men in our family could be Las Vegas dancers. The Pryor family circus could be the next show under the big top with Wyatt on the harmonica, Katie could be the stand up comic with Jessica, Valerie & Kristine being the lead singers. Scott could be the gymnastic act with Luke & Alex providing the comedy skits. Branson would be the one sharing treats up and down the aisles while Preston did his tight rope walking. No circus is complete without a some magic and Brittany would be our star magician. EmmaLee would have people coming from miles around to sample the food - all made from the new family cookbook she spent hundreds of hours compiling. Tyson and Randy would assist with our circus specailty food - Go, go bananas. Keith would be the technical director but since he's so good at that in his spare time he would most likely be found helping out the boys with the comedy skits. Spencer would be our resident doctor, keeping all the funny bones in place and Abigail, Melissa, Savanna, Parker, Sara and Heidi keeping the audience cheering and clapping loudly for each performance. Sorry if I left out someone or didn't remember what your talent was.
Each day we would spend until after lunch at the campground doing things like the talent show, one day Scott "learned from the ranger" about a buried treasure and gave the kids the clues to find it. Alex was really drawn into the fun of finding a buried treasure. "It's real I know it's real" he just kept saying as they were digging it up. Our FHE lesson on Friday was about Lehi's journey and part of his vision of the tree of life and holding to the iron rod or the orange twine as was the case in this lesson. Hopefully each learned the improtance of reading and studying daily from the scriptures. We love teaching the gospel to our family and hope they learn from the scriptures, stories and activities we do at our reunion FHE.
After lunch we would load up and head to the ocean.(About a 6-8 mile drive) The water was cold but that didn't stop most everyone from jumping right in. We saw seals, pelicans, sand crabs, ocean crabs and only a couple time were there crabby children and I don't recall a single crabby adult. We built sand castles, made plaster of paris hand prints, and explored many tide pools and rock caves. The beach was a ways from the parking so we hauled just enough gear to have a great time each day back and forth through the sand. Being at the ocean is always an amazing thing for me. It is fun to think about being at the edge of the land and to look out to the horizon and know the ocean just keeps going ang going. The breakers are so peaceful to watch and I felt like the ocean was kind to our fmaily. I have swam in the ocean enough times to know it can be hard to even stand up when the breakers wash past you. Most times they just wash you up on the beach but the waves were small enough that the kids could stand through them and had such a great time. I would love to have been able to go swimming but felt blessed to just be there since having my knee replaced. I got tired each day but slept well at night and was ready to play the next day with our wonderful family. Each evening we would come back and head to the showers to wash off the sand and salt water. The older kids were anxious to build a fire and we enjoyed sitting around visiting after the kids were all in bed. They were all so tired that some would even ask to go to bed. Katie fell asleep one night in a camp chair and one night in Keith's arms. The nights were chilly and with the moisture in the air we were glad for a fire. It rained one morning but didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits. Spencer and Melissa were up in the rain getting breakfast ready so the other men quickly hung a tarp over the table and set up the dining fly we'd been using for shade at the ocean over the kitchen area. We got out the clay for the kids to play with until it stopped raining and it all seemed like it was part of the fun. It was sad on Saturday to pack things up and head home. Valerie's family only went to San Jose the first day so they could be part of the blessing of Wyatt's sister's new baby. They got home on Monday night. The rest of the kids all made it home on Saturday night (or early Sunday morning). Keith and I went a goofy way home making our way across the middle of California with the goal of seeing Lake Tahoe. Well we saw it but only after driving for 5 hours on cow trail kind of roads with many 30 mph turns and little silly towns. We stayed in Winnemucca on Saturday night and made it home early afternoon on Sunday. Thank you Scott & EmmaLee for planning such a wonderful reunion and for everyone's effort and sacrifce to come so our family could spend this week together. Enjoy the pictures! I'm sure I'll hear the applause from ya'll for my learning how to attach a slide show of our pictures. Sorry it is so long, I just couldn't cut any more of them out. Also watch the other family's blogs for additional pictures.
Sentosa Apartment - May '14
12 years ago
