Aspen Grove

After our amazingly awesome Disneyland trip, we headed back to Vegas for a few days before it was time for the long awaited Aspen Grove, UT Dixon family reunion!!  Parker got to come up for the first weekend we were there which was so nice!  This is how he does "prescription sunglasses" hahaha

 The kids were very excited to go to Utah!

 Aspen Grove is a large facility up Provo canyon that was set up specifically for family reunions and is run by BYU alumni/current students.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  And the facility itself was incredible!  They had tons of activities for all ages and had classes for each age group every day so that the parents could do some fun things too.  All food was provided and the room our family was in was very much like a hotel room in the lodge.  It couldn't have been better!  But the best part was getting to spend so much time with our brothers/sisters and cousins!

 Hayden was in NY doing an internship over the summer so he couldn't come.  But here are 4/5 good lookin Dixon brothers!

 Austin was so great with all the kids!

 They had these awesome swings that the kids loved.

 Loves for grandma and grandpa!

 One of the activities they did with the kids was building and then launching rockets!  It was pretty cool!

 They had a little pond the kids could fish in.  I'm pretty sure nobody has ever caught anything there though . . . the poles you get from them don't cast very far, and those smart fish all stay right in the middle of the pond, making it almost impossible to actually catch any.  But the kids had fun trying :)

 Bocce ball was one of the fun activities they had there.  Mom and Emily played me and Dad.

 The victors!

 The competitors!

Another fun thing was the "pirate park" play area.  Sam loved playing on the ship.

 And James loved the swing.

 And Lil's hair .. . 

 Another event that must be mentioned is the "ropes course".  Sounds fun, right?  Right . . . This is Emily repelling at the end of the course, which was the funnest part.  So see to her right, those climbing holds on that straight up and down wall?  You get to climb those after climbing up a totem pole looking log with notches cut in it for footholds.  And it was high!!  Climbing up the totem pole was scary enough for me, but then once you reach the top of it, there's a little piece of wood to stand on to get yourself situated to jump, yes jump, onto the climbing wall, which was probably made for a 6'4" man.  After what feels like forever climbing to the top of this wall, you stand on a small landing with the instructor and hook on your 2 carribeeners onto the top wire and step onto the bottom wire and slowly inch your way through the course (a square).  Word to the wise - don't look down.  After your arms and legs are shaking from constantly being tensed, and you reach the small landing at the top of the climbing wall again, it is time to repel, and once your feet finally hit solid ground, you give an exhausted sigh of relief.  "It's fun!" they said . . . hahaha.  I was proud of myself for doing it, but would i want to do it again?  Nah . . .

 These are some pics from "Cowboy night"

 Snow cones all around!

 The temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down and caught us unprepared!  Sam is wearing grandma's jacket, freezing, eating a snow cone :)

 Times like this were what this trip was all about!  These cute cousins holding hands on their way to their "Stompers" class.

 During some of my free time I painted this ceramic turtle bank for Sam.  Because it was for Sam, it had to be a ninja turtle, right?

 Pool time!

 The weather was so gorgeous and it felt amazing to relax and soak up some sun!

 On the last day, I gave Sam his turtle bank.  He loved it!  :)

This family reunion was SO much fun!  A huge thanks to mom and dad for all the work they put into planning this!  And to Ryan and Cameron and Austin who helped me so much with the kids while I was a "single mom"!  Love the Dixon family!