Herman, party of five.: Camping

Showing posts with label Camping. Show all posts

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Blanchet Family Reunion Pics - August 8th

I wrote a little about the family reunion at Red Bridge State Park August 7-9 here. But I didn't post any pictures, like I thought I did. This is the LAST of my catching up. Hooray, I am caught up with something. What a great feeling! After this camping trip we were going to plan one more (and it was going to be this weekend) but I felt so run down and exhausted that we didn't and can I tell you how GLAD I am that we are not camping this weekend. Oh so so so glad. We have a busy enough weekend ahead, but no packing, no crouching, no decampfiring, and not crawling out of a tent in the freezing cold at 4am to go PEE!

Lily and daddy making dinner over the campfire

Addie and Marley (my cousin Amy's son) - Addie is almost a year older but you'd never know it!

Addie and Rosy - my best cousin friend! :)

Addie having "dinner" on the first night. What, they are whole wheat and we are camping, who cares if she was eating them straight out of the pan?

Lily and Addie so happy after getting Grandma Lanie's tent set up for her. They were big helpers and made the process SO much quicker.

COOOOOOOOOLD. Getting Addie bundled for the night. With a lot of laughing.

Play Doh table. Yeah, I'll admit it, we are always the cool and prepared parents at these things. Maybe it is my obsessiveness in not wanting to be the one with bored kids, or maybe it is needing validation from older family members of how well behaved my children are, or maybe it is shear laziness that if I bring enough for them to do, I don't have to entertain them myself. In any case, the kids are always excited to see what Lawrence and I have in our trunk of fun (aka the Trailblazer) and this year we picked up a brand new pack of Play Doh for the occassion. Allowing ME to sit for almost an hour in one shot. Heh!

The camping spot of the reunion this year was perfect for bike riding. There was a large parking lot without much traffic right next to our tent, so the girls rode bikes a lot. Addie doesn't ride as much as she waits to be pushed, but she is getting the art of pedaling down slightly. Even if she refuses to actually do it as a method to make herself go.

Brushing your teeth outside. AWE-some!

Me and Kristen (my cousin John's wife) comparing bellies! We are both having boys, Kristen and John are expecting their first child, John Hunter Blanchet on Oct 28. We are excited for next year to see our two little guys playing together at the family reunion.

My brother was in LaGrande for his National Guard drill, so he got to come for a few hours one night. Of course this made the 3 ladies of my family (mom, Lily, & Addie) MORE than thrilled. I thought this was a very good picture of he and mom.

Riding your bike in your PJs...priceless.

Susannah and Lily

Lily on her favorite seat - Uncle Matt's shoulder

Me and Addie with my cousins Petra and Clemy - The last day I was trying to get things ready to go and Addie just wanted to be held. My back was killing me after 3 days of holding Addie and crawling in and out of the tent. So I said "mommy can't hold you, who can't hold you?" She said "Pet-Pet". So sweet, then Petra did hold her for the whole morning. We love you Petra! :) We were so happy to see Petra, who is back in Mexico working at the mission-based deaf school. We always miss her so much, what a wonderful young lady.

Grandma Lanie and Addie having "MILK TIME" and snuggles with bear-bear by the breakfast campfire.

Uncle Matt doin' what Uncle Matt does best...I think their faces pretty much say it all.

Aunt Caroline holding the Birthday gift that Addie and Lily made for Grandma Lanie

21 weeks pregnant! Posted only 5 weeks late! :)

Great Aunt Cressie (one of two of my Grandpa's sisters we have left) and me and Addie being shy.

Cousin Amy and her new baby Shelby Rayne.

The girls and Uncle Matt. Neither will leave his side.

CUUUTE!

Our family playing in the river. It was SO cold but we had a great time.

What a wonderful family reunion. I'm so glad that my family does this every year. Lily now remembers and looks forward to it. When I was a kid our family had a campground near Ukiah that my Grandpa's family (and his cousin, I think, owned). Anyway, I remember the reunions with such fun and fondness. I can remember the exactly places I slept, and the swing, and the little swimming hole in the nearby creek. My mom did a great job of keeping me in touch with so much of the extended family over the years. Her cousins, her aunts and uncles, their kids and (now) grandkids. I'm so close to so many of them, and I realize that some of my other cousins are just now meeting them for the first time that they would remember. It feels so special to have a deep relationship with the older generation.

It's really awesome. One other special person that I don't have a picture of here (though I'm sure my mom will dig one up and email it to me pronto after reading this) is Opal. She is my mom's cousin's (Herb) wife. Before my mom had kids, she didn't think she really wanted kids. Opal DESPERATELY wanted kids but was never able to conceive. My mom told Opal if she ever had kids she would give them to Opal. So when I was born and Opal met me for the first time, she said, "Thanks, hand her over...". By that point my mom had already grown very attached to me and decided she'd go ahead and keep me. Over the years it has always been a joke that Opal was "almost" my mommy. I even told Lily that if Grandma Lanie wouldn't have been my mommy, Opal would be my first pick. I don't know if it is because of this, but Opal and I have always had a strong connection. Herb and Opal tried several times to adopt a baby, ending in heartbreaking story after story (many of which I'm sure I don't know). They were foster parents to 100s of kids. At some points I remember their modest home being filled with over 10 foster kids. Opal's loving heart and need to parent was almost filled by helping these kids. There was one boy who she tried to adopt for his full 18 years, David. He was Native American, and there were issues related to that that made it impossible for the adoption to go through. When I think of Opal's story, I think it is an example of lives being touched because things don't go our way. God has plans for us in this life that are so much bigger than our own. Hundred's of kids (including the awful ones, like small boys with sexual abuse issues) were taken in and cared for and shown love (some for the first time) by Herb and Opal. They made a difference in more lives in more ways that is even fathomable. The made more of an impact that some of us will ever make during their fostering years. All because their hopes and dreams and prayers were not answered. They are a reminder that we have a choice of what to do with our dissapointments and life long pains of wishing and wondering what if.

My family is a little bit redneck, a little bit country folk, and a lot of bit wonderful people with really big hearts that I am so proud to call MY family.

Friday, September 11, 2009

7 blogs in 7 days - Day 2 - The Ranch

Day 2 - I feel like I should post something profound about Sept 11 - (besides) Happy Birthday Aunt Sylvia!)- while it's too personal to delve into, and I don't really want to share my story now (it almost feels selfish to do so, because really, what did I lose? It changed all of us in one way or another. For me, seeing the planes hit on my morning commute up the NJ Turnpike made me realize how much safer I felt in Oregon than in NJ. That day Joseph, Oregon sounded like the safest (and only safe place in the world). And it's weird on this anniversary day - especially spending the first one in Portland a year later. Everyone, everywhere seems to feel that they experienced it "more" than the next guy. The people in midtown Manhatten didn't experience it like those downtown, and those in NJ didn't experience it the way people in the city did, and people in Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Indiana, couldn't have possibly experienced the way people in NJ or the greater tri-state area did. 8 years later none of that matters, we each only know the horror that we felt that dreadful sunny morning as we thought about the magnitude of what was happening and feared what was to come. We know who we thought of first and panicked when we couldn't get through to them. We felt unsafe in a country where we've always felt safe. Anyway, thank you to all the soldiers and families who have sacraficed since then for me and my family and don't forget how lucky you are if your only sacrifice has been taking your shoes off at the airport.

Now on to catching up with my blogs...day 2

Started this blog back in May...
Memorial Day Weekend at the Blanchet Ranch - 3.5 months ago. One of many blogs that was mostly written. Memorial Day was a stopper in my writing because there was so much more I wanted to say about it and SOOOOOOOO many pictures I wanted to go through and post. Any bloggers out there who have a system to filtering the photo madness for uploading to snapfish and shutterfly then uploading to blogs! PLEASE let me know.

We went to the Blanchet Ranch for Memorial Day weekend. It is a Wheat Ranch that my Great Grandfather homesteaded. It is about 2000 acres. This is the property that my mom grew up on, a few of my cousins grew up on, and one where I spent Thanksgivings & Christmases and many weeks during the summer, I have numerous childhood memories. Now that the Ranch has been passed down to my Grandparents 6 children, every year they meet (with as many of their children as possible) for a business meeting that deal with running the place. My Uncle Larry lives there now and my Grandmother's house is a bit of a bachelor pad, so I'm sure he feels invaded when 30+ sisters, kids, grand kids, nieces, nephews and now great nieces and great nephews! He is a very gracious host and since we all grew up there in one way or another we feel at home, and are all anxious to share it with our children and the second generation of cousins that is growing! This year 3 cousins were pregnant so next year there will be at least 3 more kiddos.

Lily and Addie thoroughly enjoyed the Ranch. They loved the tent, the 4 wheeler ("weeeeee" as Addie called it), the wide open spaces, the other cousins, and just being outside for 3 days straight.

They fed horses and touched a snake! Addie learned to crawl out of her pak n play and unzip the tent much to my surprise while I was relaxing after bedtime and I saw her run by with her shoes in her hand looking for someone to put them on for her.

I told my mom I was pregnant (9 weeks at the time) and she was thrilled. So was the rest of the family.

There are SO many pictures here. For those of you who don't like the collage, this is the reason to do it. It condenses. But I don't feel like making a collage so you get 20+ pictures. Keep in mind that it is my mom's fault I don't get these blogs done. She took 500 pictures during Memorial Day weekend, and 90% of them are great pictures. So whenever she is around I tend not to blog as I can't choose which photos to choose.