The rest

Alright I wanna finish up the reunion post but I'm in a blogging funk/writers block. I'm gonna just push through that because I know I need to journal sooner rather than later.
I want to journal some of my favorite memories from our trip:

• Playing out front of the house in the snow, the guys building a little jump and then pulling everyone in the sled over the jump, Schuyler doing the jump on his bike and crashing so awesome...causing a neck injury...he is okay though!
• Laughing and talking with my siblings and their spouses
• Bria watching Star Wars and entranced with it, also asking Papa 1000 questions about it 
• Taking family pictures in the coldest temperatures I've ever been in...and seriously enjoying it because I knew it was a memory in the making :)
• Watching my girls with their family, anytime I saw them interacting with their aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, it absolutely melted my heart I nearly exploded with puppy dogs and rainbows

And here are a few more thousand more pictures:

Bria and me sliding down the SHARC hill

Having a blast!

Brian and all the girls going down together

Kayla

Lance

Aunt Jaime with a sleeping Jax

Porter and Papa

Yaya and Papa having fun

Cute Kailey

Schuyler and Jax

I had to include a picture of the entry way...

...it was always cluttered with winter clothes and boots and I loved it, it meant happiness and fun were happening :)

Reese trying to get Grandpa's coffee

So while we were there, the lovely and talented Erin, took family pictures for us. Erin has been Jenny's best friend for as long as I can remember and she is like another sister to me. She is super talented!

The Armstrong clan

The Lance Armstrong family

My Mom and Randy

I feel this is a good time to bring up something that I get asked about a lot whenever I talk about our family reunions.
Yes, my Mom and Dad are divorced and both remarried.
Yes, we do our family reunions ALL together.
Yes, I have awesome parents.
:)

The best family shot we could get

Most were like this, Bria was miserably cold and not happy we were making her smile

The Jensen kids being all perfect, cuz they are :)

The cute Tegners

90% of the photos were like this :)

One of the better ones

The hubs and I

I don't even look cold do I? I'm good ;)

Have I mentioned I LOVE my siblings? Lance is the youngest, Jaime is the oldest, Jenny is the second, and I'm the third

And we're cute...and frickin freezing!

All 6 of the Armstrong kids

More hugs

At our house

Basically, we had an awesome time and can't wait for the next one!

Family time baby!

Every two years we have a family reunion on my side of the family. It's getting harder for all of us to get together throughout the year so this way we make sure that we all get to be in the same place and spend quality time with everyone :)
Last reunion was in Shasta on a houseboat, and it was super awesome. This reunion we decided to do a winter one and it was in Sunriver, Oregon. If you haven't been there you need to run...not walk. It's gorgeous-amazing-wonderful-glorious-freezing-fantastical! We have been there quite a few times and every time I love it even more.
Back to the reunion, Jaime and Schuyler were in charge this year and I have to say it's obvious they are veterans when it comes to planning family reunions. They did a perfect balance of planning activities, but also leaving time for everyone to relax. They booked a gorgeous house that we all fit in comfortably and allowed for each family to have their own space, plus it had a ginormous hot tub, the largest in Sunriver apparently :)
Alright, now to dive into the reunion. I get overwhelmed when trying to post about a big event such as this so I'm going to break it up, break it down, and just bear with me if I seem a bit scatter brained...it's cuz I am.
Let's do a summation of our trip, shall we?

Report card for Bria:

• Sleeping- A
• (Slept on a mattress on the floor of our room) She napped every single day we were there, wahoo! The first night she had a night terror and was up for a bit but the rest of the time she slept well. 
• Attitude- C
• That may be a little harsh grading, but I'm a stickler and she was a turkey at times. She whined and cried the first time we went sledding, she freaked when we went sledding on the mountain, and she was horrendous for pictures (granted it was below freezing, but I thought I had trained her well for picture taking!). She just seemed awnry and not grateful at times which frustrated me. My family tried to remind me she is 3, not 8.
• Car rides- A
• She did great, wanted a snack every 5 minutes, but overall did well. She even fell asleep on the way there for a little bit.

Report card for Reese:

• Sleeping- A+
• (Slept in the large walk in closet in our bedroom) She was AMAZING. Went down for naps and bedtime without a single cry, slept 12 hours at night, took great naps, and was overall the bomb.
• Attitude- D-
• Not even kidding. I'm not being harsh either, she was a brat challlenge!! She only wanted Brian or I to hold her and would scream at anyone who tried to play with her. It was quite embarrassing and super annoying. I have no idea what came over her, but I guess we know that Reese is grumpy in large groups...blerg.
• Car rides- B+
• She did pretty well for the most part, she did have a freak out session on the way there and then eventually fell asleep. She is not a deep sleeper in the car though which proves to be a little challenging.

Let me give you an idea of the activities we did there and then we'll get into the good stuff...pictures!

• Sledding at the SHARC, the SHARC is the activity place shared by all the homeowners in the resort. It has an indoor swimming place, outdoor swimming place, a sledding hill, and more.
• Snow tubing at Mt. Bachelor
• Riding bikes and sledding right outside our house (hilariously awesome!)
• Swimming at SHARC/ice skating (it was a choose your own activity, Bria chose swimming)
• Picture taking in the coldest weather I have ever been in
• A game of minute to win it that had us rolling around laughing
• And tons of other games like spoons, beer pong, and Quelf

Now I will give you some pictures and in the next post I'll go into a little more detail on our activities and the overall awesomeness that was our reunion.

Beware, there are TONS of pictures, and even more to come...

Minute to win it

Shake your Pong Pong (Left to right: Mom, Jaime, Brian, and Dad)

Jaidyn, Kayla, Kailey, and Kyle

Cookie Monster, moving a cookie from your forehead to your mouth using only your facial muscles (this was hilarious!!) Jaime, Kailey, Lance, and Brian

Bria and Cassidy watching in the family games

Bria and Grandpa (one of my favs of these two)

Tennis ball in hose

I can't remember which team won, Call Me Maybe? Yep, that was a team name, my team name was, wait for it....

No that was it, Wait for It. :)

Sledding at SHARC

All bundled up

Reese was not impressed with being bundled up

Bria was crying cuz the sun was in her eyes (see summation of her Attitude)

Playing out front of the house:

Yaya taking Bria sledding

This was Bria's favorite, just playing outside with everyone

Kyle and Lance riding bikes

Kayla strollin on through :)

Two newlyweds 

I have to say, Lance and Kayla were superstars. They were the only one without kids but you wouldn't have known it, one of them always had a kid in hand or was helping a kid. I can't rave enough about how helpful they were, our kids are so lucky to have such wonderful Aunts and Uncles, across the board. They even watched Reese in the lodge at Mt. Bachelor while we took Bria sledding. Talk about awesome!!!

Chillin:

Careful falling asleep first!

More outdoor fun (Dad up high, Lance and Kayla climbing)

The kiddos! From left, Kailey, Cassidy, Jaidyn, and Abby

Being an Uncle is hard work

 Mt. Bachelor sledding!

6 lanes of super fast hills

Cassidy, Abby, Porter and Jaidyn getting ready to go down

Mom and Randy having a blast!

 Schuyler and Jaidyn made these cute signs for everyone's door:

Jaidyn and I matching, we didn't even plan our outfits, we are just that awesome!

Baby bath time! Reese and cousin Jax taking a dip in the ginormous master tub

Blue eyed cousins!

Alright, I'll let you soak in all that awesomeness and return in a day or two with more pictures!

Just reminiscing

I'm doing a little flashback here because I was looking at old pictures and smiling at all the good times. I can't believe I had forgotten how blond Bria's hair use to be:

Baby Bria! She is about 18 months here

I think her and Reese look a lot of like in this picture

And I just had to throw this in because wow, she is a cutie! Can't believe how young she looks!

Now she's got the whole ombre thing going on, naturally :)
And we can't forget Reese way back when...

Precious newborn

I found an oldie but goodies of Brian and I, this is before we got married:

Oh, you didn't know we are good friends with Bill Cosby?
That's right.
Well, actually our friend Craig was working at the Corvallis Airport and Bill flew in for a comedy show at OSU. Anyway, we got to meet him real quick and take a picture.
Aside from how awesome that is, don't Brian and I look like babies?!

Oh what fun!

Have I mentioned that Bria got a cold after she got over her stomach virus? So first she got double ear infections, then the stomach virus/barf sickness, then a cold with a nasty cough. This poor girl has been hit hard and it has not been very fun to say the least. Not only do I have to wait on her hand and foot (little diva!) but we haven't been able to hang out with friends which has been hard on all of us. 

So we were pretty excited when we got to head over to the Inukai's and play :)

Charleigh is 1!

Randi, Amanda, and me

My girls in their pj's

"Reese, trust me, just smile and sit still and then they will stop."

Capri Suns rule!

Cuteness

 The kids had a bunch of new toys to play with since it was just Christmas and Charleigh's birthday so they stayed pretty busy. Us adults talked, drank, and laughed...like we usually do. And when it was Reese's bedtime, Dusty was sweet enough to take over rocking duty and he put her to sleep for me :)

Precious