The Burnett Reunion at RMNP

What follows is a complete and total photo dump blog. I took too many pictures. And because Rocky Mountain National Park is so beautiful, too many of them turned out well.
I started planning this reunion for my family over a year ago. It was so great to see so many of my siblings, nieces, nephews, parents and sibling-in-laws. It was also wonderful to see a long anticipated trip come to fruition and to have so much of it go so well.

Welcome to Grand Lake, Colorado. The largest natural lake in Colorado, resting pretty at over 8,000 ft above sea level:

Everyone had a blast playing on a tiny beach at the chilly mountain lake. We got some beautiful sunshine and warm mornings which made for the perfect time to practice our paddle boarding skills.

The closest I came to tipping over was turning my head for this photo.

Chase and Laszlo: cousins, but they look like twins.

Jordan bravely allows Sophie to paddle him around.

And, of course, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to hike around the forests and the tundra in the mountain peaks:

Heading up the Trail Ridge Road we saw some incredible mountain views, the Continental Divide, and we stopped at the Alpine Visitors Center and walked the tundra. While up on the mountain tops we ended up having to run back to our car as a rather sudden hail/lightning storm headed our way. We made it back before the lightning was striking too close and we missed the heaviest of the deluge, but dang! It was scary!

Olivia ponders the great vistas.

The sign says we're at 12,000 ft, and do you see the storm that is sneaking up on us?

Photo snapped right before we started bookin' it back to the car.

We visited the Holzworth Historic Site, an old dude ranch that is preserved and now you can visit it to learn about the cowboy life and tourism in RMNP 100 years ago.

This is my favorite picture.

After some serious climbing, we pause to enjoy the view.

From the same climb as above, that road is the one we climbed up from.

I arranged to do some family portraits as part of this trip, but the night we had planned to do it ended up being impossible. Hail the size of marbles and mega lightning forced us indoors. So the next morning we did photos before everyone started their drive home. Thanks to our photographer, Haylie Snow, who was so nice about working around the weather, it ended up being a lovely morning and a nice way to end the reunion:

and curse blogger for degrading the photo quality so thoroughly!

And that was the big reunion! I wish everyone could have been there, but I guess that is just how it goes! Plans change, people get called on missions and go into the MTC the week before the reunion...it happens! It was a delight to see everyone who was there, it was great to see my kids interacting with their cousins, becoming best friends, generally creating great memories and forming bonds. All the great things we saw and did were just icing on the fun family cake!

Le Summer: Local Family Fun

I've been busy, sapped of energy, and relentlessly harangued by two demanding children. It has been a long busy summer with some very fun highlights. Let's focus on the fun stuff, shall we? Let's start off with the stuff we've been doing to explore our own back yard, so to speak. We visited the Lomita Railroad Museum.

Small, hands-on, well maintained, and very inexpensive. It's a good place to spend an hour or two with kids or train enthusiasts. 

Another of our weekend adventures included biking along the coast. There is bike path that runs along the beach for several miles, so we loaded the kids into the bike trailer and set off. Next time we do this we'll just have to pack a picnic because Paul was starving and he wanted to play at the beach. We couldn't get him food and stay at the beach, so we got a tantrum. yay.

We have gone to the beach a lot this summer. We usually go to the beach near Miramar Park because there is often free parking available. Every time we go Paul asks me to take his picture with one of the two statues in the park:

Statue #1

The Elusive Mer-boy

Statue #2

The little boys and I attempted that Build-a-Bear discount day, along with millions of other people, and we chose to take the coupon offered to us rather than wait in line for 5 hours.

So a week after the infamous Pay-Your-Age Day, the day of which it has been said, "It was so successful it failed," The boys and I went again to Build-a-Bear and found it nearly empty. We got our little buddies, walked to the Disney store where the boys watched cartoons, and then we went home.

Smokey the Firefighter Bear, and Captain Bunny, the Optimus Prime Rabbit.

We got to have a cousin sleepover with Grandma Karen a couple weeks ago. We met up at Travel Town in LA. Travel Town has old trains, cars, and wagons you can look at, some you can climb on, and a mini train that you can pay to ride around the park. The park itself is free, and right next to the LA Zoo. If you are visiting from out of town it is a place you might consider visiting. We took Grandma and our cousins to the beach, played in the yard, and watched movies together. Paul is so looking forward to doing another cousin sleepover.

And of course we went to Knott's Berry Farm a couple times too. Though after accidentally being there on the hottest day on record for half a century, we've chosen to wait until it cools off to go again. (In case you were wondering, it was 109 degrees that day and it we all stayed very well hydrated.)

That is what we did with summer in So Cal, keep watching for the post about our travels, we really got around this summer!