Saturday, July 31, 2010

family reunion: part II

We started day 2 of the family reunion doing what every kid loves to do in a hotel room- jumping on the bed! Ha! Actually I believe this shot is when Dathan threw Sean across the room onto the bed... fun times!

We headed out to Steinbeck Vineyards for a fun day outside. My aunt & uncle are good friends with the Steinbeck family and we have had many gatherings at this very place (my cousin's wedding reception, my aunt & uncle's 50th birthday party, etc). It was a beautiful day- not hot, and not chilly either... just perfect!

There was plenty of beer & wine (which Dathan & I didn't take advantage of because we don't drink LOL) as well as home brewed root beer (dathan loved it). The picture of the beverages in the bucket cracks me up because there is wine, water, soda, and juice boxes all in there! Something for everyone, I suppose ;)

My cousin Josh & his wife Dana grilled lunch for everyone. Dana was in charge of the corn on the cob and it was AMAZING. Oh. My. Goodness. She made some concoction of butter, garlic, & parsley (I think?), slathered it on the cobs, and then grilled them. Delicious!

Dathan also helped Josh grill the food. There was venison, and (my personal favorite) tri-tip! I especially appreciated the tri-tip because they DO NOT SELL IT IN ALABAMA. Nobody knows what I'm talking about when I talk about how my favorite cut of steak is tri-tip. (apparently they DO sell that cut in the south they just call it something else... but nobody buys it and they certainly don't grill it like we do in California). The food was soooo yummy!

This is the little "common area" where we hung out during the day. There were places you could go fish (we didn't), and there was a wine tasting room open (we didn't go there either) and then this open area with tables and people and food and kids running around :)

Someone brought a huge piece of poster board so we could try to figure out all the branches of the family tree. I worked on our part for awhile- Joyce & Troy are my grandparents (it was my grandma's side of the family that was having this reunion). Then they wrote down all of their kids (my mom, the 4th born, & her 2 brothers and 2 sisters). Then I went through and filled out the spouses, children, children's spouses, and our own children. Wow. That was just one little part of the tree!

While Nolan was taking a nap then Dathan, Sean, my brother Timmy, & myself decided to go take a walk around the vineyards. Timmy is a photographer too so we were loving all of the wonderful things we could capture around the vineyard.

Sean was trying to cut in the picture of me & Dathan ;) And I got a cute photo of myself w/ Sean (for once! ha!)

After we got done eating a bunch of the kids decided to play baseball. Sean has never played a "real" baseball game before and he sat and listened so well while Anthony (my mom's cousin's daughter's husband... got that? ha!) taught him how to hit the ball. For his first time playing without a tee he did REALLY well... he kept hitting the ball! He would get more and more excited and he finally hit a "home run" on their little field. As you can see in the last picture (which you may have seen on my photo blog already) that he got so excited he jumped in the air and threw the bat up above his head. The only problem was, well... gravity... the bat came right back down and hit him on the head! :( He was crying, I think more out of embarrassment than anything, but he got over it really quickly and went on playing with the kids!

We went back to the hotel and rested for awhile then my family all went to downtown Paso Robles to get some Cold Stone :) Yum! These pictures crack me up- me & my fam, my parents, Brian & his wife Candace, and then Timmy & his "this spot needs to be filled with a real person" pole ;)

1 comment:

Nancy said...

What a beautiful place! Great pictures, too!! Glad your family had lots of fun!