My Trip to the West Coast: part 2

 I'm finally back home! I've literally been gone for about a month and two weeks. This has been like, the best summer ever, the most adventuresome, and the most busy. :D I went independent for awhile and went to another state on my own for like, three weeks. I didn't even get too homesick, though it was nice to see everyone when I got back yesterday. :) You have to return to your own life sometime, you know. ;) Oh, and I turned 16 on September third!! I haven't had a party yet, since I was gone then... it was also my cousin's wedding. I'll probably tell you about that stuff sometime. 

  Right now, I'll go back in the past now, and tell you about our awesome family reunion, at my grandparents house. :) 

 So, we went to stay there the night before the reunion officially started. I saw lots of awesome cousins, some who I hadn't seen for a couple years. Us girl cousins (from ages 20 something down to age nine, I think) slept up above my grandpa's shop. It was great sleeping quarters. :D

This was my little corner. :)

We had a little candy table. ;)

                 Doesn't it look cozy? It's like a loft. :)   

                                                                      

Out a window.

  This must have been the first day's breakfast. These are probably the gluten free ones though. ;)

 We had really good meals, which were served on tables in the garage. :) We'd just wake up in our little loft, maybe use the wooden outhouse out back, and walk to the garage for breakfast. :)                                         

                             
                            

  Here's the boys quarters. ;) I think they ended up all sleeping in one tent together, though. The more, the merrier. ;)

                         

 We even had a disc golf course set up around the property- starting in the backyard, going throughout the pasture, by the driveway, and also ending in the pasture. :)

  Those papers on the siding in the picture are our score cards. :) I was bad, by the way. :P 

    The side pasture. There was a disc golf basket near the top of that hill. The night before the reunion started, me and some cousins (and siblings) decided to stay up instead of going to bed. So we went in the pasture, and then some of then started telling ghost stories. :P We went all the way to the top of the hill in the dark. :D 

  So anyhow, that first day of the actual reunion, we went hiking. :) It was kind of in the mountains... but it isn't a mountain. More like a giant hill, or something. And from the top you can see three mountains, I think. :) It was beautiful, so it obviously needs a post of it's own. :) I took a lot of pictures.

This is the little creek that runs behind the shop. :)

              Here's some moss I photographed over there. 

  That night, we had a campfire and s'mores. Me and some cousins (mostly boys) and a couple of my siblings sat out at the fire for a while. I listened to them tell jokes... and sing ridiculous songs! :P It was funny. Then they started doing star tipping, where a person spins around for a while, and when someone shines a flashlight at them, they have to try to get to the flashlight. That is funny to watch! I didn't do it, but I watched my cousins stumble around like they were drunk! Haha! :P We probably went to bed fairly late that night- there were other people out late too. Some of the guys had gone fishing out in the ocean so they were canning tuna. :)

 The next day was cloudy. I went in the pasture with my little sister, taking some pictures.

  

   
      Here's a spider on it's dew-sprinkled web. 

 And we saw a lot of slugs! Ugh, no wonder I was kind of scared of those things (at least stepping on them) when I was little- they're gross. :P 

      I took a picture up on the hill. :) 

 I don't know if I did anything too interesting that day. But that night some of the cousins put on a little glow stick person show. 

They taped glow sticks to themselves so it looked like stick people were dancing and walking around out in the dark! :) It was sure a cold night though! (like, it was SUPPOSED to be summer... ;P) We didn't stay up too much longer after that. I watched a little bit of star tipping, then went to bed. :)

 The last day, I was a little late for breakfast. It was french toast, and quite good! ;)

 Blueberries from my grandma's garden. :) Fresh blueberries are so good! 

  My cousin set up a board with balloons on it, and kids lined up to pop them with darts. :)

  I just sat on a swing for a while and watched. And played with my camera. ;D

  I tried the balloon game, too, after sitting on the swing for a long time, being lazy, perhaps. :P

 For lunch we had DELICIOUS chicken sandwiches! :D I tend to be messy when theirs some sort of sauce on my sandwich\hamburger. :P Maybe I just put too much. But this was very good, despite being messy. ;D

 After that was a very fun time for me. You know why? Because I got to take pictures of the cousins in their age group! Other people took the pictures with me in them. :) Me, my sister, and two boy cousins had our pictures taken. After just normal ones, we decided to do something fun and went in my grandpa's old orange pickup! :D After that I did the pictures of the oldest cousins. Well, my cousin who is also a photographer took some pictures too. They "posed" in the truck too... and my group redid our pictures with it, because the other ones weren't the best. ;) 

  After that it was the adults turn for pictures. I just like pictures, so all the picture-ness was fun for me. =)

Then we did ANOTHER super fun thing. Water balloon volleyball! It was great! :D 

 That night some of my family went back to my aunt and uncles, but me and some of my siblings and cousins (those who weren't staying at my grandpa and grandma's, and lived there anyhow) stayed one more night. So I got another night up in the "loft". :) Before we all went to bed, the boys came up there and we played "mafia", a fun game we played a lot during the reunion. :)

  The next morning, two of the families had to leave. :\ And it was Sunday, so we went to church. The reunion was over- the best reunion I've ever had, I'm thinking! :) We have to do it again as soon as possible! ;D

 Well, that's the end of this post. It would have been nice to post picture of people on here, especially the age group pictures, but I don't think all my relatives would appreciate that! :P

 The next post about my West Coast trip will be about our beautiful hike! :D