Family Reunion FUN!

It has been a week since our First Annual! ALLEN FAMILY REUNION!!

I'm hoping everyone would agree, we had a blast! We started the week off by attending the temple...what an amazing experience! A friend from church watched ALL of the kids, including two of the newborns! Eileen survived beautifully (she is A.MAZING, such a sweetheart!!) and the kids had a ton of fun! The next day, we went to Water World. We played until the park closed and then came home to enjoy a D-Licious dutch oven dinner by Chef Pops! Friday, after taking some family pictures in our living room with my studio set up, we picnicked and hiked at Lair O' the Bear, a favorite open space park of our family's. That night, all the boys (minus Kyler, Quade, Teegan and Graysen) PLUS Meagan and Heather went to a Rockies game. They all had a fun time, while the rest of us had a mini, almost-all-girls' night IN, Olive Garden stlye. Saturday, we had planned to go to the Zoo, but opted instead to just hang out at home...after all, we had not yet had ample time to play cards and games!! Included was a game of 7-11 for the kids (we all witnessed Cooper's competetive nature firsthand...notice the sour-fit-face in the slideshow) as well as some BackAlley and Meet-it-Beat-it-Eat-it...and how could we forget Cities and Knights (ugh!) and Snorta!! Needless to say, the week went WAY too fast and we didn't get to do half of the things we planned! But whatever we were doing, we were all laughing and having a good time enjoying our family!!!

Altogether, we had a fabulous time catching up, reminiscing, and making many great memories.

I put together a few collages, as well as a slideshow of some highlights...

Below, the NewlyWeds, GoldyWeds, and, um...Jimmy's guns?

Gary and Mauri's sweet family! Everyone loved snuggling little Graysen and we all adored Kyri's adorable personality, complete with cheezer smile!

Our little family...well, our kids anyway. I prefer to be BEHIND the camera! Danny gave Teegan his baby blessing on Saturday. He was blessed in our home, which was a wonderful experience (all our other kids have been blessed at church). It was a sweet blessing to say the least. We feel SO incredibly blessed and honored to have Teegan in our family. He is an incredible baby and special spirit!

Dustin and Cassidy's precious family! We were so excited to finally meet little Rylee! Everyone could not get over how simply adorable she is! What a doll!

And here we have Chris and Tammy's Crew!

Chris is such a good sport for us to do this...

We all joked around about photoshopping Chris in some hair, so I thought I would give it a try...We were all close to tears from laughing so hard at the result!!

Everyone loved playing with the Precott Boys, especially all the Allen Kids! Jadan and Cooper in particular were SO SAD when their cousins had to go home. They are SO much fun and we all will miss them!

What a great week! Personally, I am thrilled to make this a tradition!