Home Again AND The Family Reunion

Okay, here we go:


My cousin Barron and his wife Jessica came along with me to New Mexico over Father's Day weekend. If you know my sister Emily (Mary) and Barron, you know that they are two peas in a pod and have always had a special bond, so I thought all parties would like it if I brought along my cousins to New Mexico. Here we are eating at one of my all time FAVORITE pizza places, Dion's. Unfortunately you can only find them in New Mexico...it took 3 tries to get this photo to work. :)

For fun, we went to the Rio Grande Zoo together. Jessica took my camera and snapped away...I will hopefully put up a slide show of all the animal pictures she took soon (there are many)

...here are some people pictures in the meantime!


The beautiful bride! Seriously, isn't this a good shot? I think so...


The rugged groom...he wanted to show off how big his mouth his...or maybe he was trying to roar like the lions...I don't know...


The oh so cool...me. :) Have any of you peoples who regularly see me noticed that I can't go anywhere without those glasses? I should get them surgically attached...


...this is actually a really funny shot. This is me chaperoning...:) I can't believe she got this picture actually, I just happened to turn my head and there they were being all cutesy, lovey dovey...I think I got up and walked away when I saw that starting...I don't remember :)


It was kinda warm, and were walking in the sun all day...this is the Barron and the Elizabeth tired...


This is the happy couple looking not so happy...


...and this is the Jessica having a blast...:)


Just to prove we really were at the zoo, here is a picture of an aminal (this is partially for Daisy because her FAVORITE animal is the Elephant, and partially for all my fellow Univ of Alabama fans...ROLL TIDE!!! I will be out there soon...as in, within the next few weeks soon!!!)

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We had our Raisor family reunion this weekend...we spent it up at Mormon Lake Lodge. Mormon Lake isn't really a lake (unlike what the maps and all those physical geographers say). It is a large marsh. It MAY be five feet deep at some points. The real draw to this place are the trees, the cooler temperatures (LOVED THAT), and the animals that live in the area.

I drove up with Kent and Belle Thursday night really late and we saw SOOO many Elk...probably 30 or 40 going up there. I was really glad Kent was driving and that he was being so careful. He really is a good driver. We passed the entrance for the lodge because the directions were horribly bad (if you are going there, call me, I will give you MUCH better directions, especially if you are traveling at night). We turned around and when we got to what we thought was the entrance, we flipped around to get a better look at the sign...as we flipped around we saw this HUGE male Elk. It's head probably stood a good foot above mine, the antlers were probably, what, 4 feet high (they went almost straight up rather than out like most I have seen do...). Really cool. We sat there and watched it. But being that we had passed our turn and we had drunk too much, we decided to get a move on to our cabins.


We made it safe and sound and were greeted by a number of family members, including LOTS of little boys...here are three of them, Brett, David and Dayton from left to right. Aren't they cute? They must be trying to look like Elk...


We had hot chocolate to warm up in the morning...here is Tommy enjoying his scalding cup of cocoa...


Some grown ups were also there. Here are Jessica and Josh preparing to play the game this family has a love affair with: 42. Trivia, other name for this game is Texas 42.


Here is my FAVORITE Uncle Kent. (I am his favorite niece...:)...ok, so we are all his favorites...it is amazing that this family has the ability to make everyone feel like they are the favorite...I think that is how heaven will feel...)


I took some of the younger kids on a hike...they had been out wandering before and had found this sign that said (according to the kids): no trespassing, property of the wild animals. :) Actually it was the National Forest property sign, probably would have been fine to walk around, but it wasn't property of Mormon Lake Lodge, so...the kids were really scared, but I really wanted to get a picture of them around the "Wildlife Property" sign...it took quite a bit of coaxing, and David (Blue Lightning McQueen shirt) wouldn't go near it...so I had them make scared faces.


...then funny faces...they are so good at these!!


We found a tree where half of it had fallen down. I totally posed this picture, but isn't it good??

Monique found a stick with moss on it, and thought it was really cool, which of course it was. She wanted a picture with it. Cute, huh???


The kids found a caterpillar on the ground (seriously, kids have WAY better eyes than adults like me do...I probably would've stepped on the poor guy)...they all loved it. It was pretty cool. We put it on Monique's stick and took it back to the cabins and showed it off to everyone.


Soon after we got back the three little ones decided that it was way too warm outside and took off their shirts. I have this REALLY cute video of the three of them, but it is sideways and I don't have a video editor that I can manage yet...I will try and post that video soon...I may just put it up sideways...no staging, they came up with it on their own...


We heard there was a petting zoo and a place to see real Buffalo so we walked down to the lodge. Here are Dayton and David looking at the Buffalo.


And here is Monique and the Buffalo. The baby to the left is five weeks old.


BTW, my sister came along with us to check all of this stuff out. Here is a picture of Monique, Wyatt, Dayton and baby sister entering the petting zoo. As it turned out, the petting zoo consisted of...


...these two goats. Tommy wanted a picture with them. Poor Tommy, he had that sweater on most of the day in the heat, I didn't think to suggest that maybe a tshirt would be better...


We found a play area that the kids had a great time with. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids have a blast. Above is Brett...he mastered the rope swing real quick.



Tommy, the master of finding cool ways to slide down the slide...


Wyatt trying to figure out the broken handles...I think we ended up putting that up (Janel, I have two REALLY cute videos of your boys, one on the monkey bars, the other on the swings, I will get them to you on a CD or something).


David and Tommy swinging...

And that was half of Friday. The reunion went on until Sunday morning, although we (Kent, Belle and I) left late Saturday night (saw about 4 deer and 3 stupid Elk, one really stupid one who decided to cross right at the last second...no worries, the Elk is fine...and so are we, we didn't hit it)

I had a lot of fun at the reunion. I would post more pictures for the gloating parents, but unfortunately I really didn't take any more. A video that I think I meant to be a picture of Josh and Kayla's boys and it's REALLY short and not a good picture...and then a couple of really dark pictures...so...

I got some of Daddy's pizza Friday night!!! No leftovers ( :( ). But it was VERY VERY good.

Whew. K, I am tired. Night! (Rocketgirl, I PROMISE I will do that tag thing soon...)