Storm

I cant remember the exact date, but we had big storm that hit our neighborhood and the one next to us really hard. quite a few people lost roof tiles and the whole community lost about 30 trees. The park next door to us lost this tree into a homeowners yard.
our neighbors who were out of town at the time lost a few tiles.

and the neighbor on the other side of us lost the tree in his front yard and the one in his back yard....it took the fence with it.

we lost one and a 1/4 roof tile. we were lucky. Unfortunately it is on the second story and we don't have a ladder to reach it. Chad needs to borrow a ladder from one of his friends.

I do love the amazing Arizona storms we get here. soon after this storm we got another great thunder lightning storm and the kids were really scared and worried we would lose a tree. I kept telling them it was so cool as we watched from Aiden's window.

Monterey

I always wanted to take the kids tot he Monterrey Bay Aquarium so when the second day of the reunion was to be spent in Monterrey doing what ever we chose to do on our own we decided to go to the aquarium. Sam's family joined us so the older boys took off on their own but we got a few shots of them before they left.

Chad and I spent the time with Court, Aiden and Brody. They had a great time, but it was super crowded!! I still got some great shots though.

We decided this had to be the UGLIEST fish ever. It is a sun fish.

The new exhibit was the seahorses and sea dragons.

Court and Aiden had to have this picture posing with a statue of this sea horse giving birth (notice the tiny horse protruding from the belly) my sister later informed me that the males sea horses have babies, so this is apparently a male.

After the aquarium we meet everyone at Denis the Menis park for lunch. We had a picnic and then took the kids to play. They had great fun and Melinda gave Chad her camera to get pics. he had a great time taking hundreds of pictures of the kids and everyone else at the park...even the strangers. he was looking forward to Melinda having to sort through all the pictures for the ones of our family.

After lunch my brother Nate's family was going to walk the fisherman's wharf by the park so we decided to join them instead of heading back to the hotel. I love this pic so much. It totally shows Aiden's attitude. He was mad and so refused to join us for the pic so I told Nate to just take the pic anyway.

I had to get i pic of the old guys building a sand castle. Cool castle, but every though it was creepy for him to be by himself playing in the sand...no kids with him.

Grabbed a quick shot of the kids in the harbor between wharfs. We wend down the fishing wharf first and then over to the commercial wharf.

All down the wharf restaurants are giving out samples of their clam chowder to taste. Since we are not a fish family I was not interested in trying each one so I decided that Nate and Laura's could decide on the best one and that one I would try. Also since the kids are not allowed to say something is gross until they try it I told them they had to also try the final winner. I told them I would buy them each giant jaw breaker if they did (I was going to get it anyway) Tyler wanted this giant sucker!

At the end of the wharf we spotted these sea otters. if you look close you can see one has a crab he is eating and the other had a bottle he was using to break muscles or something against, we could hear him hitting them against it if we listened close.

We had so much fun walking and seeing everything. On our way back we stopped at a candy shop where I got the kids their jaw breakers and we also got a huge bag of salt water taffy that we sampled on our walk back to the cars. The best one was the peanut butter taffy it had small pockets of peanut butter in it. Yummy! Thanks to Nate and Laura for letting us tag along.

On to the Borgia reunion

We left the Farley reunion and headed straight over to the Borgia reunion about an hour drive away. This reunion was in Morgan Hill. We were told to stall arriving since our rooms were not going to be ready...dejavu!! When we arrived in Morgan Hill we found a park and let the kids play then waited in the hotel lobby. By the time we got our room I was not feeling great and so when we went to my uncles house for swimming so I didn't get many pictures because I ended up in the guest room lying down and taking a nap. Casey also got sick there and threw up so we didn't stay long at the swim party.

Other fun we had at the farley reunion

First, just a couple more pics from the beach...

My big brother Sam and me.

We had to introduce more Farleys to our traditional game of SCUM, not to mention we had to get a few games in because how could we not get together and play.

Aunt Karen, Uncle Tim, and then my cousins Angela, Matt and his wife Tia were the only brave enough to join us. We had lots of fun rearranging my parent room so that we could try to make a table big enough for all of us to fit around.

Our families were spread out through 3 buildings. The kids had such a great time running around crazy playing tag and hide and seek and all manner of games. We had to get a pick of all the kids together.

These girls named them selves the seven group since most of them were seven or going to be soon. One day I kept hearing calls of "seven" answered by "heaven". I guess this is how they would call each other as they ran around.

Here is shot of grandma and grandpa with their grand kids who were in attendance

and then one of all the great grand kids

My cousin Jeremiah and his kids the missed the group shots so we grabbed one while waiting for our last meal before heading out

Court found a caterpillar before we left

We had such a great time. This resort is so amazing with its location to the beach and the absolutely wonderful, rich gourmet food! The kids had such a blast feeling so grown up in their own room next door to chad and I and the two little ones. They had such a great time bonding with all their cousins. Such a huge thanks to Grandma and grandpa for the wonderful time! We really can't thank them enough.

vollyball and smores

one night we played volley ball and visited around the fire while we had smores and hot cocoa.

Eden, my brother Sam's daughter

My cousin Angela, caught in mid blink, sorry Ang, but its a cute pic of Aiden so I had to include it.

My mom and Brody

My cousin Matt. He tried to lour Tyler to come live with him for the measly price of an x box and the promise a wonderfully spoiled life in Texas. Tyler declined and chose to stay with us, awww he does love us :)

My sis Mandi and her 7th kid Laine

My studly brother Nate and his beautiful wife Laura with their new baby Tahlula (ill have to check the spelling on that one)