After dinner on Saturday the kids wanted to go fishing. Andrew and Jason Jr. were totally gung ho on the fishing thing so we all walked down to the neighborhood pond that was stocked with fish to let the kids try their hand at fishing.
As we were walking around the pond to get to the fishing stuff the kids saw this in the grass. It surprised me so much I screamed.
Hopping the rocks around the fire pit while they waited for the fishing poles to be ready.
The boss of fishing
Kathi helped all the kids cast and take their turn trying to catch a fish. I was amazed at how long Paul sat and held that fishing pole.
Liam and Justin liked fishing, but weren’t to keen on having to wait so long for something to happen. They both lost interest and ran around the pond instead. I left to take some of the smaller kids home and after we left Shayla caught a fish! On the way home we saw 5 deer that ran across the road really close to where we were walking. Three of them headed up the hill behind the house we were staying at and stayed up there until the kids went out back and made lots of noise that scared them away.
We all slept really well on Saturday night since we were exhausted from being on the boat/in the water all day. Sunday dawned bright and early with signature hot cakes made by grandpa. I was still waking up so didn’t think to take a picture, but suffice it to say that my Dad is well known for his hot cake making abilities. He makes whole wheat blender pancakes that for some reason we always call hotcakes and he’s been making them since I can remember. When we were little kids growing up it is the one thing I remember him cooking besides spaghetti. The best part was that he would make our initials, or mickey mouse, and for awhile he got really creative and would take requests from us. He would put the batter into a syrup bottle so he’d have more control in how the batter came out. We would always try to get him to make hard things like a giraffe or other animals. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t, but they always tasted good. Anyway, it wouldn’t have been a Stevens family reunion without hotcakes.
After hotcakes we headed out to hike to Stewart Falls. It was a fun hike for everyone, but maybe a little bit of a challenge for the youngest family members. It took us way longer than I expected it to, but we had fun!
This was at the beginning before all the kids got tired.
Once we got to the falls they had fun playing in the water
Shayla was hot so she checked out the back side of the water fall.
Kathi and Andrew after their waterfall adventures.
Em did it too
I asked this guy to take a picture of all of us that hiked and didn’t check the pictures before we left. Thankfully the finger that he got in the picture just barely didn’t cut off our heads and I could crop it out.
We hiked up to the falls from Aspen Grove, then the big boys hiked back that way to get the cars and the rest of us went back via Sundance since it was supposed to be shorter and easier that way. Our lunch ended up happening around 3:30 or 4:00 I can’t remember exactly, but by the time we cleaned the grill and got everything ready it took way longer than we thought it would, again. At least everyone was flexible! Because of that we had another LATE dinner that night, but we didn’t want to miss any of the great food we had planned.
Sunday afternoon Matt and Sandra joined us at the house along with Wendy and Sabrina. I’m so glad they did! It was great to see them and great to have the girls get to know their cousins better. The other thing we did on Sunday was go through the boxes of stuff my Mom got from her Mom’s house after Grandma died. Everyone claimed what we wanted and the rest we sent with Lynn. That was emotionally exhausting.
Monday we cleaned up the rental house and headed to Boondocks for more fun! There was something for everyone to enjoy there and everyone had a blast. We started out with a family laser tag game that was every man for himself.
waiting for bumper boats so they could soak their parents.
Sure we were going to be able to stay dry.
Jason was ruthless!
Liam had great aim
I kept getting ganged up on.
Andrew was sneaky
Kathi was ruthless too!
All the boys were stoked that they had go carts small enough for them to drive. They loved it! Liam was so serious about it. I wish I could have gotten a good picture of his face while driving. He was in the zone!
Lots of video games, tickets, 4d movies, batting cages, and playground time later we headed home exhausted.
All in all I think it was a successful reunion. I can’t wait until the next one!
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