Park Family Reunion

This last weekend, my family went over to the 5 star Ranch at some place in Utah (somewhere near Spanish Fork and Birdseye..I think), for the Park Family Reunion! I always love giong to this one, because I actually know everyone, and it's not a bunch of third cousins twice removed that I've never heard of! Granted, I'm sure almost everyone whose reading this was at the reunion, so you may want to skip over it, just look at the pictures, or actually read it, but I got a lot of pictures, and what good would it be to leave them unshown from the world? That would be quite ridiculous ;-) Anyways...

Me, my mom, dad, and brothers left our house at about 6:20 on friday morning. I haven't woken up that early in a long time (even when I was in school, i never woke up til 730!). The ride over was pretty good, no big delays or anything! The mountains are SO beautiful! I took this picture and I thought it was really pretty :)

Daniel had been in Texas all summer long, and recently came home! We decided we wanted to get it a secret from my sisters, and surprise them all at the family reunion! Well, apparently we're (well, my mom) isn't good at keeping secrets, because she told my sisters of a "surprise" that we were bringing, and that Daniel knew about it. They all figured out that it was probably Daniel when they got there, but it was fun to have him there! We made daniel hide in the back of the car, under a lot of blankets and pillows, and he was going to jump out and surprise them. Well, my sisters got there like an hour after us, so unfortunately he didn't really want to stay in the hot car under a bunch of the blankets. Even though everyone had figured out he'd be coming, it was fun to see a reunion between everyone!

Unfortunately for all you blog stalkers out there (I know your out there..I do have a blog tracker!) , I forgot to take pictures of the reunion the whole first day! Sad, I know. Don't worry though, I hvae plenty to make up for it! Pretty much the first day we just hung around the house and visited. We had this really delcious meal..probably one of the best I've had ever! Uncle Rob put together all of my mom and her sister's home videos from when they were kids and put them onto DVD's, and one of the DVD's was a heritage one...Videos of them dancing, their clothing, and best of all, their hair. I think my mom had more hairstyles than anyone else ever has! It was so neat! After that we all ate cookies (maybe that was just me) and played Mafia. I don't think it would be a Park Family Reunion without a few rousing games of Mafia. My phone didn't work up there, so i never had it with me, thereofore I never knew what the time was, but I guess it was almost 1:30 when we all headed off to bed. My family got these wonderful mattresses to sleep on. I'm not gonna lie, i slept better on those than I ever do at home, it was a lot more comfy. Pretty sad eh? Anyways, I woke up. And had breakfast. yum! This is about where I started taking pictures (i ended up with about 350..yay!).


There was a tramp right outside the house that all the little kids loved! Levi and Mason tragged me out there several times saying "tramp tramp!". It was cute! Me, Diana, and Cindy even had a good ol' bum war on it!

Levi found this mini basketball and a hoop that goes along with it. Well, the ball somehow was deflated, so Levi was adament on me blowing the ball back up....it didn't really work out. I enlisted his help, and guess what! It still didn't work. But it did turn out to be a great photo op. Kind of. Not realy though, cuz I kind of look strange. lol.

I just thought this was kind of funny, cuz Daniel and Michael pretty much have the same facial expression...they must have been looking at something incredibly exciting :)

Levi must not have liked that they were both looking so bored! Lucky for him, his Uncle Dan (and Michael) are really fun and always up for wrestling and playing around

One of the hits of the weekend was Rock Band for the xbox! I'm not sure who brought it, but everyone seemed to get a kick out of it. I never got the chance to play, but it was fun to watch everyone!








As tradition at probably every family reunion that's ever gone on, we all had pictures of our families taken. I'm only putting up the pictures of the three seperate families though, cuz there are sure a lot of married couples and families, and that would be a lot of pictures to put up! I don't have the big group picture, but hopefully i'll get that eventually :)


The Barker Family! I think it's pretty much impossible to get a picture of all of us looking at the camera at the same time :) All of us were able to be there this weekend :)










The Merrell Clan. I think we got pretty much everyone but Chuck and TJ looking forward in this one! I believe everyone but Jared was there from the Merrell family!









And finally the Stevenson's :) The only one missing is Paul (whose serving a mission in Hawaii).









In between pictures, Mason and Levi got kind of restless. It looks like they are having a duel with their hockey sticks :)



These next pictures are from the Park Traditional Golf driving contest! I think this has been going on since the first Park reunion before I was even born! I think the only time I ever won was when I was 4 or 5, and I won for my age group...I think I was the only one in that category :) It was really fun, but very hot outside! Here are some pictures depicting the exciting contest! There are quite a few pictures in this section, by the way.

After the golf contest, everyone got to go out and look for the golfballs, and for each one you found, you got a dollar! Well, I didn't really feel like looking for golf balls for myself, so I helped Levi find a bunch. He found 8! I just thought this picture of him holding all the balls in his shirt was adorable. It was so cute how excited he was whenever he spotted a ball! It was even cuter when he got the money later that night :)

Like I mentioned, it was HOT and sunny outside during the golfing. It never dawned on me that I should put sunscreen on. I mean, I burn even when I put sunscreen on, so after sitting out in the sun for about an hour and half or so, I got toasted! It might not look that red..but it was pretty bad, and hurt!

Jamie put together some fun crafts for all the little kids to do! The little girls loved making wands, and the little boys got little dinosaur eggs that they got to dig through to get bones!

Here is Tori making a foam picture of dinousaurs! She loved all the crafts-and she was so good! Her wand was so cute!

Mason kind of lost interest in his dinosasur, but Lexi, being the nice cousin she is, took over! Here we are being "amazed" by our discoveries! It was funny, when I asked Lexi if i could take a picture with her, she responded, "Of course. You can take as many pictures of me as you want, because I am going to be a model when I grow up." I wouldn't be surprised, check at these great pictures that my cousin Kristin took! (Check out her photography blog while your looking at those. She's really great!)

Before heading upstairs, I couldnt' resist taking this picture of Brandon. He fell asleep while playing around on David's computer. He must have been so tired!

Auntie Lin brought some great pictures of a lot our ancestors! She is really good at family history, and always knows so much about our family! Some of the pictures were so old, but they were really neat to see! She's also holding Sasha and Jason's adorable new daughter, Taylor. I think there were very few times I didn't see Auntie Lin holding her :)

Here's another doting grandparent :) Dad was playing with Carter, and I couldn't help but take some cute pictures of them!

Every reunion we have a "guess how much candy is in the jar" game. This year, a jar of money was added! I sure wish I'd won that! Unfortunately, my guessing skills failed me this time, but my mom won the pretzels and Cindy won the jelly bellys!




























I have to say, Carter is just the cutest baby!! (No, I'm not biased at all)He is smiling so much, and just a joy to be around! There's just something so special about little babies :)








Mason is so funny! There were lots of cookies at the reunion, and he would take one, take a bite, and everytime he didn't want it, he would bring it to me. Whenever he wanted to go outside or something he'd be like "Tee Dee", cuz he knew i'd take him out :) I was so excited because when I was taking pictures, he actually cooperated and said cheese and smiled for me! I look kind of weird, but i had to put it up :) He's so adorable :-D



All the Grandpa's (haha) helped make dutch oven dinners on Saturday. It looks like my dad and Uncle Mike aren't working very hard in this picture :-D



Jamie and Ty brought this really cool baseball toy! It was a hit with all the little kids. Mason played with it for hours! Sometimes the ball would get stuck though, and no matter how hard you hit the ball, it wouldn't come off!


I just really liked this picture of my mom and me! So i had to put it up!






My Grandma is the best ever! I just love spending time with her! I just wish we could see her and my Grandpa Park more often! It was funny, because she was talking about how weird her smile was, so for about 5 or 10 minutes, i took lots of pictures of her, helping her find her natural smile. I think she has a beautiful smile in every picture!




Daniel thought he looked "hot" in this picture, so I thought i'd do him the favor of putting it online for the whole world to see (all my single friends out there, he's single as well ;-)








Mason and Levi are such good friends! They always seem to have so much fun together! I thought this scene was far to cute not to capture!




There was this fun little game, that involved throwing this ropes with golf balls on it. I was kind of deficient in playing it, so I figured I'd take pictures instead :-D All my brother in laws seemed to think it was the best game ever! (I didn't get a picture of AJ playing, but be assured, he was!)




After our delicious dinner and a few rousing games of badmitton, what better way to end the night than roasting marshmallows! They were delicious! The only down part was that when I was roasting my marshmallows, the smoke was going right towards me (well..it does follow beauty!), and it pretty much burned my eyes out. But boy, I wasn't about to give up a marshmallow that was roasted to perfection because my eyes were hurting! lol



Like I mentioned earlier, Cindy won the jelly belly guessing contest! Good Job Cindy!










Unlike the rest of my family in the golf competition, (besides AJ and Brandon--good job for getting second place in your divison!) my dad did great and got first place for the men over 30 category. He got 25 dollars! Doesn't he look so happy!


So i was wearing this headband/scarf thing all day, and eventually it kind of fell off. When i attempted to put it back on, I gave up half way. Daniel says I look like a terroist. lol.























I just love this first picture of me and my sisters and my mom! Definitely one for the memory book! THe second picture though..I had to put it up (You knew it was coming Diana!). After we had taken the first one, Diana was like "Oh wait, i blinked, take another one!", only to find out afterwards she just wanted to make a funny face. She's such a trickster!



I'm not sure who brought it, but at the end of the reunion, Brandon, David, AJ, and Daniel (and apparently Diana got in on the fun as well), decided to launch water balloons into the lake. Well, when AJ was out in the lake on the canoo, one of the balloons actually hit him! I gotta say, it was hilarious. I wish i'd gotten it on tape, but oh well. It was fun nonetheless :)









After driving home, and getting stuck in a big ol traffic jam, we arrive in littleton to these beautiful double rainbow! Being in a moving car,t his is the best picture I could get, but it sure was beautiful :) i love rainbows!









I took this picture from Cindy, but I just loved it. Without my Grandparents, this reunion definitely would not have happened (Because none of us would be here!). They are so wonderful, and I'm grateful for the example they have set for all of us. I love you guys! This reunion was a lot of fun, and I can't hardly wait for hte next one :)