2015 Nowland Reunion!

Jeremy and I were in charge of planning the Nowland reunion this year, which started out slightly stressful since we are so far away, but ended up being great! Jeremy's family is pretty much all in California, so we knew it made sense to have the reunion there. Since we couldn't go scope out places or anything, I suggested a campground I went to a lot as a kid - New Brighton Beach State Park. It's in Capitola, CA (near Santa Cruz) and has a walking trail down to the beach. Kid heaven! The reunion was 4 nights, Friday-Tuesday, and was a lot of fun! I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as we did. It was so nice being at the beach and enjoying the sounds and smells of the ocean.

 We had a huge group campsite which proved to be well worth the money, in my opinion. It was so nice to all be together, but to have plenty of space. It had four picnic tables and lots of spots for tents.

 This is off to the right. You can see a few tents off in the distance.

 And a few more tents off on the left (above), and our campfire area and a few picnic tables (below). It was sad to see the effects of the drought everywhere in California. The campground was not nearly as green as I remembered.

The first night we were there, we set up camp, had dinner, and then played some games. We stole some ideas from the last Nowland reunion 2 years ago, and a few ideas from the Astle Reunion this year, and it was a lot of fun. Even the 3 two year-olds got to participate, which was really fun to watch.

 This was the "try to get the oreo from your forehead to your mouth with no hands" game.

 Grammy is the two-time champ now of the dice stack!

 This was a fun one. Throwing cheese puffs onto a whipped cream covered shower cap. Connor, Eli, and Boston were the throwers and Becky's three oldest volunteered to wear the messy shower caps!

 Below was probably one of the most entertaining. The two year olds were supposed to drop mini marshmallows into their daddy's mouths, but they didn't understand it was supposed to be done from a distance, so they pretty much just put the marshmallows directly into their mouths. All of them had pretty grubby fingers, so it was quite hilarious. They are so cute!

 Cereal box puzzle - Cooper had to do this with one hand behind his back and one eye closed...but he still won.

 The start of many dirty fingers and faces!

 Marshmallow toss. Yeah, I won.

 Shoe fling! We had all the kids line up first to fling their shoes and then all the adults. This was our tie breaker. Lots of fun!

We ended the night with some s'mores of course and enjoyed chatting by the campfire after the kids went to bed.

The next day was beach day! We got there around 10am and didn't leave until 3 or so. As we got most of the way down the trail to the beach and could see the sand and the ocean, Eli shouted out, "This is AWESOME!!" I couldn't agree more! It was so great. We really hit the jackpot with the weather. It can often be foggy and cold down there, but by the time we made it to the beach it was clear and beautiful. Sometimes when the wind picked up it got a little chilly if you were under the shade of the umbrella, but it was really nice. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and the ocean waves and the adults enjoyed a little playing and a lot of relaxing. :) We didn't bring our nice camera to the beach, even though I really wanted some nice pictures, but I was afraid of it getting ruined (we've had it happen before with another camera).

But Jeremy and I did manage to get a few phone pictures:

 Coming down the trail...

 We started off this reunion very tired after traveling so far and getting into California about 1:30 am (4:30am our body time), so Anna took a TWO + hour nap on the beach the first day! I was so glad she slept. She needed it!

 Cooper and Jonathan were the main diggers. Cooper dug a tunnel connecting these two pits.

After the beach that afternoon the kids did a craft making airplanes and enjoyed playing with the sticks and dirt. That night we had s'mores again and got most people bathed so we could be clean for church the next day.

 Tim won best uncle ever award because he had the patience to sit and make these complicated airplanes. Thank you Tim! Eli was so happy with his airplane. He carried it through our three hour drive back to the airport, two flights, and another two hour drive home.

 Cuties!

 Anna was excited to get a turn on Aunt Shannon's bike. We were sad we couldn't bring our own bikes but grateful for everyone sharing!

 Adorable.

 Uncle Jared with baby Malina. This was our first time seeing Malina! She is such a sweet baby.

 One of our many delicious meals. Yum, yum!

Sunday we went to church in Santa Cruz and then came back and ate, relaxed/napped, did some crafts, and played a bit before going on a hike. Connor and Kami were pretty cute together as Connor was "reading" Uncle Tim's book.

 My kids had a blast with their cousins!

 Stick sword fighting.

The hike we did was in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. It was about 10 minutes from our campground and was beautiful! We may or may not have gotten a little lost, but it turned into a great adventure! Our one mile hike turned into a two mile hike, but everyone was a good sport about it. And it was lovely seeing some of California's great redwood trees.

 Becky and Matthew (or Matthieu). Matthew was their foreign exchange student from France! He was a great kid and it was fun to see him enjoy some of California's great sights and it was fun for us to learn about his culture.

 The little kids all did great even though it was longer/steeper than expected.

 Of course they needed a break at some point...

 The men had to help the kids (and women!) down a particularly steep spot, but everyone made it fine!

 I think they called this the twisted grove or something.

 We were supposed to just do the Old Growth Loop Trail, but most of the signs were faded or missing, so we ended up doing the Oak Ridge Trail as well. Woohoo!

Monday was another beach day and we stayed for 5-6 hours again. My kids didn't want to ever leave. I was so happy they could experience the Pacific Ocean like Jeremy and I did so often growing up.

 Monday night, we had a nice Family Home Evening with some family history stories told by Papa, and some incredibly delicious homemade ice cream! Almost everyone helped churn the ice cream and it was sooo tasty. We had vanilla and raspberry, with raspberries from Grammy and Papa's backyard. Yum!

 We were too busy eating to get a picture of the finished product I guess!

Jared and Jon had to leave after our festivities Monday night for work reasons, so we had a small group after that, but we played some games by lantern light and enjoyed one last campfire. Tuesday, we packed up and headed out! It was a good time!