Brown Family Reunion

This past weekend is one that I have been looking forward to all summer!! It was the annual Brown Family Reunion! We have a reunion every summer but I haven't been able to attend for several years because we are usually gone in the summer. So I was especially excited to be there this year. Growing up the Brown Family Reunion was something we always looked forward to and wouldn't miss it for anything! As usual all the activities took place in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard and it was great! There are tons of pictures to follow so enjoy...

As always we had many great meals, here's everyone at the kick off dinner Friday night.

Look at these cute kids enjoy the good life:)

Friday evening my "best friend" cousin, Brittany and her mom my wonderful Aunt Tye put together a super cute and fun baby shower for me.

Of course some good treats:)

Thank's to Brittany and Tye for such a great party, they are so nice to me.

It was also the 24th of July weekend. Here is everyone enjoying the parade.

Tavin was loving life and everyone was loving him. He is just the happiest, smiliest little baby and you can't resist those kissable cheeks:)

I just love this pictures of Nate, I told him to smile and this is what he gave me...are you bored Nate?

Everyone enjoying our visit from the parade clown, she is the best clown around.

My Dad was even in the parade, looking good Dad:)

Back to Grandma's for fun and games in the backyard. Here's Emily, Tye and me getting ready for some serious competition.

These guys started making up there own games, noodle sword fights.

This was the ultimate water balloon toss, great fun.

This was the funniest game, the Oreo eating contest. You had to get the Oreo from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands. It was quite funny to watch and some of us were really good at it. Kristi got as you can see.

It takes serious concentration.

Tye, me and Brittany doing some finger weaving making some bracelets. I should have got a picture of Shaye he found a hidden skill for finger weaving. He was loving it and got so good at it that he was making bracelets for many of the kids. If you'd like one just contact Shaye, he's taking orders:)

And then it was time for the pool! Here's Mikkel and Traj enjoying a run down the slide.

Brittany and Blake's turn.

Here's Shaye playing some basketball with the boys. We only had one casualty. Unfortunately Brandon wasn't even in the pool 5 minutes when he went up to block a shot and cut his head open on the basketball hoop. He ended up getting 14 stitches in his forehead and the top of his nose.

Em's and Traj enjoying the good times.

As you can see everyone kept playing basketball after Brandon's fatality but they were a little more careful:)

Love these three

Shaye and Brant serving up ice cream before the fireworks show.

I had to put this picture on. Tavin's big blue eyes and chubby cheeks are so lovable. I'm so glad they came home for the week. We had such a wonderful weekend and I am still feeling tired. I love getting together with family, now the count down begins for next year:)

Summer Project Done

So one of the projects we wanted to get done this summer was to finish our backyard. I can't believe how quickly the summer has gone by and it is the end of July and we have FINALLY got our backyard put in! We are so excited with how it turned out and it was really fun to watch it transform from a dirt pile and lots of weeds to a beautiful yard. Here are the results...

Before...

...and after!

We are already loving it and look forward to spending lots of time outside. Shaye did a lot of work deciding just how he wanted it to look and drawing up very detailed plans:) We had some landscapers come and do the curbing and rock work around the outside but Shaye prepared, leveled and put down the sod. Thanks to our neighbors and friends that came and helped us lay the grass down it looks great! I'm so happy to have it down especially since we've been saying we were going to get it down this summer, now we can check that off our list:)

Let Freedom Ring

Yes we had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! We were pretty excited since we hadn't spent a 4th of July in Kanab for several years, well for Shaye it had been 6 years since he'd enjoyed a Kanab 4th. Before we headed to Kanab we were a little worried that we were going to be disappointed because of all the hype we were giving the 4th in Kanab. Well luckily we weren't disappointed and we had a fabulous weekend! The best part of all was spending time with family and running into old friends. Here are some pictures to give a run down of the holiday activities.

Here we are ready and excited for the parade to start but the morning had started much earlier for Shaye as he volunteered to help his dad at 4:30 am to get the roast ready and cook all day for the park BBQ. Though you cant see it he also managed to singe the hair off his leg, arm, eyebrow, and even a little off his head. But I am so proud of him because instead of coming home he ran in the Annual Fun Run in Kanab and even got 2nd place in his age division. He wanted to soak up every bit of fun he possibly could, and he did! As for the parade it was pretty good this year, my favorite part was hiding on the side of the building with Nate from the fire trucks that were spraying water. As soon as Nate saw them coming he was out of there, he knew what they were up to and I was quick to follow him:)

After the parade we headed up to the park to enjoy the booths, food and fun. Shaye was a good sport hanging out with all us girls.

That evening we enjoyed a yummy BBQ in Grandma Brown's back yard. All the kids were enjoying a great game of backyard baseball, here is Grandpa Brown getting in on the fun. I think he hit the ball into the garden, go Grandpa!!

Now they are playing some football, their was much fun had by all.

We even got to celebrate Mom and Jana's birthday with this very yummy cake that aunt Kristi made, plus it is very cute and festive:)

Brant broke out some sparklers to get us excited for the fireworks coming up. Here's Shaye and Heath doing some sparkler spinning tricks.

Well this didn't work out as planned Brandon's sparkler went out right when I took the picture, oh well:) We enjoyed more fun times at Grandma's house on Sunday. After dinner of course there were more back yard baseball and football games. Then we enjoyed a play, courtesy of Rianne and her recruits. It's so funny cause Rianne reminds me so much of myself when I was young, I was always the one making people watch my shows and making others participate in my plays. I know Brittany always reminds me how I made her sing in one of my plays in front of the whole family. Sorry Brittany, glad you are still willing to be my friend:)

When it got dark we headed out to my parent to enjoy the fireworks show that Shaye and the boys put on for us. Shaye was loving life:)

Here's everyone enjoying such a fun evening together. I loved the 4th of July and it was a wonderful weekend. I am grateful to be an American and hope that everyone was able to enjoy this great holiday and think about how blessed we are to be Americans!