Sorenson Family Reunion

We just got back from the Sorenson Family Reunion in Paradise, Utah.  Weston, Ellie, and I left Friday morning around 8:30.  We dropped off the dog at the Petsmart Pet Hotel (again).   We almost made it to Brigham City before Ellie started screaming that she was hungry.  I felt kinda white trash feeding her in the Wal-mart parking lot while Weston went to get some swim diapers inside.  I guess you do what you have to when you have a baby.  When we finally got to the large house that we all stayed at, my mom was the only one there.  The rest of the family was at the park for the rest of the night.  We watched our family compete in the Sorenson Olympics (S'lympics) and had lunch there.  Weston played some softball with my brother and a few cousins.  Ellie was passed around quite a bit.  We were all bothered by ants everywhere.  My cousin Lisel's poor little Landon got bit all over the backs of his legs by the ants.  Later on, we had some excellent dutch oven barbecue chicken and potatoes.  After cleaning up, we headed back to Paradise Springs where Weston set up the tent our little family would be sleeping in.  We all sat in the house and sang songs while our Uncle Robert and some cousins played the guitar.  That is a tradition our extended family has done since before I was born.  Ellie had a great night of sleep.  She was asleep all of the night except waking up at 4:30 to eat and then going right back to sleep.  I was very impressed that she did so well in the tent.

Saturday most of the day was free time.  A lot of the cousins and their kids went to the outdoor pool (in Logan I think).  I wanted to take Ellie to the indoor pool, but we would've been the only ones going there.  Weston went golfing for the first time ever.  He went with my dad, brother, and my cousin Eric.  Ellie was so tired and napped for a couple of hours when I wanted to be swimming.  We decided to just have Ellie swim in the kiddie pool that was out on the grass.  We got her changed into her new swimming suit and a swim diaper that was a little big for her.  As soon as I put her feet in the pool, she started to cry.  I think it was too cold for her because she really likes her baths.  We didn't get pictures and it didn't last long at all.  She didn't even get her swim shirt wet.  Saturday night we watched a really neat slide show my cousin Ernie put together.  It had pictures from our family and included our ancestors a few generations back.  After the slide show everyone stayed up to sing again.  Ellie was tired, so we went to sleep.  At about midnight, the wind started blowing so hard I thought our tent would blow away with us in it.  I was more worried about our rain fly blowing off and having to chase it down the great big hill we were atop.  It started to rain pretty hard.  A few hours later, the wind had stopped and the storm was stuck over us.  It poured and I could see the lightning striking and lighting up outside our tent.  The thunder lasted for 10 seconds at a time and rumbled the ground underneath us.  Ellie slept through all of it.  I wish I could say the same.  I sat up being afraid of what was going to happen.  We could've run inside and slept on the floor of the house, but we would've gotten soaked on the way in.  That's how hard it was raining!  

We were alive in the morning and as soon as Ellie ate, we were on our way home.  I had to teach sharing time so we had to be back home before noon.  There were only four of my cousins that didn't make it.  That's pretty impressing considering we have 36 cousins in the family.  All of my uncles and aunts (11 of them) were there.  We had a really great time as usual and next year my family will be in charge.  That means we probably won't have as much fun because we'll be so busy.

Weston said that he heard about the storm we were in from a co-worker today at work.  She said they issued a severe weather warning for that area.  They also told everyone to stay inside and away from their windows and we were in a tent!