Family Reunion and Cousin Camp :)

So these last few weeks have been CRAZY for us. On the 22nd of June my Rasmussen family had our family reunion. It was SO fun to see all of my cousins and aunties and uncles. It seems like it has been forever since we have all been together. Anyway, we had a camp out in my Aunt Tonda's backyard Friday night and then on Saturday we all got up, ate an amazing breakfast of strawberry covered waffles and sausage and eggs and then we went to Cherry Springs for a couple of hours. It was fun to just hang out and laugh and be crazy with the people that I love :)

Family pictures :) We are a little crazy!

So a few months ago my mom decided that she wanted to have all of my younger cousins stay for a week after the family reunion for what she called Cousin Camp. 

 

I am not going to lie, I thought she was crazy to want to have 13 to 14 kids at her house for a week but she solicited my help and I felt I should comply with her request. We started the week with a trip to the zoo!

 Trying to be like Bears... some of us were better at it than others

Me and little buddy Fred (or Hayden depending on who you talk to)

This was the first time I have been to the Pocatello Zoo that I can consciously remember. My mom says she took me as a child but I have no recollection of ever going so I felt very accomplished after this trip. After the zoo everyone went swimming but I had to go to work :( I hear swimming was fun though!

The next day was by far the most creative, exciting, and fun day I have had in a while. 

My lovely Auntie Dawna is probably one of the most creative people I know and she always has the coolest ideas for fun activities. So when my mom suggested having Cousin Camp my auntie Dawna suggested we celebrate a YEAR in a DAY we don't get to celebrate all holidays together.

We started the year with New Years by waking the teenagers up banging on pots and pans and screaming happy new year at the top of our lungs. Oh man did they love that ;) 

We then gathered in the kitchen and had confetti pancakes for breakfast

 

 yummy confetti pancakes!

After New Years comes valentine's day :) We all sat down and decorated sugar cookies. They turned out way cute and some a little funny.

 

 Colton ate his before I could get a picture so these are really mine 

But his looked a lot like this

 My cousin Harland told Tonda,

 "Look I decorated my cookies with pancakes." 

Somewhere in that pile are his cookies

 

We then celebrated St. Patrick's day. Anyone who wasn't wearing green got a pinch. 

Unfortunately for us most of the kids were actually wearing green and those of us that knew we were supposed to wear green didn't have any on. 

 

After our pinching war we had all of the kids prank each other for April Fools day while the adults cleaned up the valentine's day mess and got ready for Easter. We dyed eggs and then had an Easter egg hunt. We also  had some Cascarones which are hollowed out eggs filled with confetti that you crack on people's heads. So as the kids found eggs they would crack the Cascarones on each others heads.

 

 The cute Easter baskets Danielle made for the kids

 

After Easter we celebrated Memorial Day. We went out to the cemetery and decorated Baby Dillon's grave. I would post that picture because it was cute but my camera battery died and I had to use Colton's camera and I don't know where the cable to connect it to the computer is so maybe later I can add those pictures.

On that camera is also pictures of our left over sugar cookies that we decorated with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and confetti sprinkles to cover all the holidays. We also had a pinata for our everyone birthday party. 

After the Birthday party we went to Hannah's softball game for the "summer" portion of the year. 

 

Following the summer come some of the most fun holidays of the year. First up... Halloween! We got everyone in costumes and went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood to some friends houses. Some of the people even played along and dressed up and decorated their house with some Halloween decor.

 

Getting ready to Trick-or-Treat

 

After Halloween we celebrated Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving in a pan. Basically it is a casserole idea for real Thanksgiving leftovers. You put mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and corn or green beans in a pan, cover it with gravy and top with cheese and there you have the essentials of Thanksgiving all in one pan.

Thanksgiving dinner!

 

Next up is everyone's favorite holiday... CHRISTMAS!! Well at least that is me and Colton's favorite. Unfortunately Colton had to work after Easter so he missed our favorite holiday :(

Before we started, we ate our birthday cake from earlier in the day. Then we opened our gift exchange presents from each other. Everyone loved their presents and was happy to have some new toys to play with. 

 

After the gifts were opened, my mom told everyone to get on their gloves, scarfs, and hats because we were going caroling! They all thought she was kidding but she was very serious.

 

 Our group of Carolers :)

 

We caroled to the same people we trick-or-treated too however this time we didn't tell them we were coming so they got a nice little surprise at the end of their day.

 

Once Christmas comes to an end, the year is also close to an end. 

At that point in the day it was pretty dark so it seemed like an appropriate time to let off some New Year's fireworks. We all sat outside my parent's house and counted down from 10 to 1 and yelled happy new year and watched a couple of fountain fireworks. The kids then played with sparklers and we all sat down and enjoyed the end of a very good year.  

 

The rest of the week was fun. We had a water day on Wednesday including a mud hole my dad made in his backyard. I missed that so I am gonna have to have a mud day in the near future! 

 

On Thursday we had a sidewalk chalk art competition. 

 

 Me and Colton's entry in the sidewalk chalk competition

Following the competition we went to the stake center and played in the gym for a couple hours. 

At 4:30 we went and saw Brave. It was a cute movie and surprisingly most of the kids sat still and didn't disrupt the whole theater. 

 

Most of the kids went home on Thursday night so there weren't many of us that went and enjoyed the 

slip n' slide we set up at Bart's field. It was a blast though! After slip n' sliding we went bowling and I almost lost to a 5 year old. That shows how awesome my bowling skills are, even with bumpers.

 

That pretty much wraps up the last two weeks of our lives. We had SO much fun spending time with my cousins and the rest of my family :) Now this week we have the 4th of July and Colton's cousin's sealing to attend. We are so excited for them and to be a part of their day! But that has yet to happen so I will catch up on that when it happens!  Now I am off to my Auntie Tonda's 3rd of July party! No fireworks this year but it will still be fun to hang out with more family!