Family Reunion

This last weekend marked the middle of July, what does that mean? Olpin reunion!!! This is easily one of my favorite weekends of the entire year, every year. It is my mom's side of the family but it's HUGE!!! My Grandpa has 8 siblings so my mom has 76 cousins. Then my generation came in so there are a couple hundred of us, and now we are all growing up so there are lots of great-great grandkids now too, it's crazy!! Every year I look at everybody there and what everybody is doing with their lives and I think to myself..."Man, all this just because two people fell in love."

We do a lot of fun things at this reunion. There is the annual timp hike on Thursday, (which got moved this year because there is still too much snow for it to be safe), then we eat taco salad. We then have a program which is always nice. And then it gets crazy. We have a rook tournament each year. Yup, rook, the card game that NOBODY plays. Except us. And we are intense. I didn't get to enter last year because I was only there for one night due to camp, but the year before I was the champ! I didn't win this year either, aunt jeannie beat me out, but I had a great time staying up til 5:15 with the realatives playing til we couldn't think anymore. On Friday morning there are always pancakes and eggs, which I had been craving, and then there's the craft/skeet shoot, whichever you pick. After sandwiches for lunch, we have the games. Then we just chill for the most part til dinner, another program, then rook again. Saturday morning there is a simple breakfast and we break camp til the next year. So that's how it works. It's great fun to camp out for a weekend and catch up with the people that you love!

The kids all loved running to the fence to watch the Heber Creeper

as it passed right between the Chalet and the Lake.

Monica and Me

Me and Elise

(I somehow missed one with Madalyn, sorry.)

Joey during late night rook

Monica and Joey beating me at a round

The "Fab Four"

Madalyn, Monica, Me, and Elise

We were all born within 14 months of each other.

I doubt we'll ever grow up around each other.

I love it.

The boys trying to look manly while waiting to head to the lake

Monica and Rylee sporting their crafts

A pretty picture of the field

Stewart Falls

Ok Katherine, this one is just for you. Well, also just for Dan because I told him this picture was getting posted since he stuck his tongue out, sorry Dan, but you asked for it. ;) Anyways, Saturday night Dan and I went and hiked to Stewart Falls just up behind Sundance. It was great. It was just before sundown so the weather was perfect. We got up there pretty quick, took a few pictures and headed back down. Pretty simple, but it was a pretty hike and we had a good time and got some great pictures out of it, so here ya go.

Me and Dan

Lower Half of the Falls

Upper Half of the Falls

Stewart Falls

Stadium of Fire

Whew...post 4 of the week, I told you there was a lot going on. This is my last one for the weekend of the 4th though. I wrapped up the holdiday by going to "The Stadium of Fire" at LaVell Edwards Stadium. It was a lot of fun. Katherine's (I work with her at RC Willey) husband works with a guy named Dan. Dan's mom hooked him up with four tickets for Stadium of Fire so he told Matt and Katherine that they could double with him if they set him up with a girl for the evening. So I was his date and we had a great time. He and Matt were good sports for putting up with me and Katherine going crazy and being too into the Jonas Brothers for two girls our age. Oh well, I'm not really embarressed. :D SheDaisy also performed, I have always loved them, and they sang two of my favorite songs of their's so I really enjoyed it. They burned a flag because it was old and ready to be retired, that was really neat. They had lots of dancers and crazy people playing with fire which was really cool. The fireworks were ok, the Murray fireworks are better to look at, but it was fun to have music to go with these ones. After the fireworks we went to back to Katherine's and Matt's and played on the Wii. I got my butt kicked in MarioKart, I don't think I've ever played so poorly. Then we did boxing which was entirely too much fun for a video game. I'm pretty sure I pulled a muscle in my arm, it was that intense, it was great! Overall, it was an excellent night, we all had a lot of fun.

Fireworks. I love my camera.

Jonas Brothers

Flaming Jump Rope

Dan and I

SheDaisy!

4th Of July

First of all, I would just like to say that I am sending this blog to you from my favorite spot. The bus to Salt Lake. This is the bus high life, right here. I am currently exhausted and have hit the wall on my paper that is due in an hour, as a result, I am taking a hit on the paper and getting marked down 10% so I can turn it in late, but I feel better about that than turning in the piece of junk I have just constructed. Moving on to the purpose of this post.

The morning of the Fourth of July is always one of my favorites. We tell ourselves every year that we are going to be early for the parade, ya right. I've gone to that parade for 20 years, I don't think we've ever been on time. It's part of the tradition now I guess. We sit in front of best buy on state st in Murray. We've done this for as long as I can remember because it used to be the armory which is where my grandpa always wanted to sit for the parade, so there we stay. :D I didn't take pictures at the parade because I was just goofing off, but after we went back to my parent's house and had a water party for the grandkids. This I took many pictures of, I'll try not to post too many. :D

Davy running through the sprinkler

Timmy's watergun

Run and jump Jami!

Rylee shocked at how cold it was

Davy and Jami in the pool

Family Fireworks!

Friday night we had our annual get together at my brother Troy's house. Every July we go over and have this mass barbeque hosted by him and his awesome wife Danielle. Most of her whole family comes and most of our whole family comes and we just shove our faces. Following that activity, we watch a bunch of dinky fireworks and a couple cool ones, but it is fun just to chat and watch the kids reactions to the fireworks.

Troy with the Ice Cream and Baby Mikey

Rylee and Olive Fingers and Melanie and I reliving our childhood.

Fireworks

I loved Timmy's reaction to the fireworks.

Oh, and sorry I held the camera the wrong way, I always do that, my bad.

One Year of Best Friends

Ok, so head's up, there is going to be a mass amount of blogging this week because it was a busy busy weekend and I don't want to cram it all into one post. So, this is the first post that was discussed in May about Boondocks for the RC Willey work party, but never happened because I never got the pictures from Checko til the other day. But here they are. They also came at a good time, because yesterday, the 4th of July, Checko called me while I was on my date and left a message saying that we have officially been real friends for one year. Not just Oakcrest friends, but real friends. My first memory of us goofing off was writing the name song for camp, and then I think the first time we bonded was at staff pictures when we had the common connection of having the same medical procedure done to us that could be some sort of ancient chinese torture. :D

Then last year on the 4th of July, we hadn't had enough of each other living together for the last month, so we met up after camp and went to a BBQ at her friend Kyle's house. (Except he is now my friend too.) Then we went to fireworks at my favorite spot and out for ice cream at iceberg. Sweet memory. From that day on, we have been best friends. We still have other best friends that have jumped in which we love, but it's crazy to think how fast that year went, and how sometimes it feels like we've been friends for so much longer.

We've been through a lot together in the last year, surviving camp, both of us dealing with crazy boys both good and bad, her becoming a missionary and then coming home for medical reasons, sleeping in the same bed for two weeks, partially because I was so sunburned I couldn't get on the top bunk and partially because we love being cuddly. We've talked about anything and everything, served others and served each other. We both just love life and have had countless good times and memories that we'll have forever and many more to come!!

Checko's Mission Call and One of our worst pictures

Fun Times and Twinners

Boondocks Pictures

Cemetary Mini Golf Hole

Waiting in line with some random guy

Bumper boats

Tiki Hut. This was a must for me

Go Karts

Volcano Hole