Hall Family Reunion {2014}

Over labor day weekend we headed down to Oklahoma City for our Hall Family Reunion. My parents came with us and the kids thought it was so fun traveling with them!

 Slightly tired from the car ride! HA!

 There was lots of family fun on Friday evening and plenty of cousins to play with! (I took my nice camera but forgot it and left it in the car - sorry for the grainy pics!)

The family did some skits and a talent show and gave us some history on the Hall family. Even Uncle Jim and Diane joined in on the fun! 

We also had a "snowball" fight with giant marshmallows - Dom chose to eat instead of throw them!  

 That night a couple of my cousins met up with Robert and I and we ended up singing some karaoke at the hotel bar! Now that's one to remember! Lol!!

 Me, Lauren, Phil and Robert

Two kids, two adults and two grandparents in a not that big suite made for a couple interesting nights! Robert wasn't sure if he would be back from work so we hadn't reserved two rooms. ;)  

Elena really enjoyed playing with her cousins! Especially in the pool!  

 Dom is always up for the pool too!

 We headed to a massive shooting range right down the street for some afternoon fun. Dom wasn't sure about this lion.  

 and he started crying and saying Daddy, No! When Robert did this for a picture! Such a protective little guy!

There were a ton of shooting ranges, including a pellet gun range! The kids (big ones too) had a blast!

 Back at the hotel there were snacks and card games and family photos to look through.

 and even a color coded family tree so the kids could understand better how we were all related (great idea!!) Our poor brown branch is pretty bare ;)

We joined some family for dinner out that evening and afterwards we couldn't turn down this magical carriage ride around Bricktown!! Elena was in heaven!!

 all the kids loved it!

 Seriously, so excited!

 Carriage selfie! :)

 My little princess, waving at the ''commoners''. :)

 Just when she thought it couldn't get any better...she got her very own glass slipper when the ride was over!!

 Then we walked around the awesome Bricktown area for a little bit - such a cool water walk area.

Our 2009 reunion was also here and it was so much fun!! I cant believe how much this area (and our family) has grown!! Here is a link to the last reunion in 2011 parts 1 and 2 also - time sure does fly by!!

Brad's Wedding!

2 weekends ago my good friend Brad got married! I have know Brad since we were in the 3rd grade and am happy (and a little surprised) to say that even thought we don't see each other all the time, we are still very good friends almost 25 years later! We dropped the D-man off at my parents house and enjoyed an evening with our baby girl and a lot of my high school friends! Elena was so excited to get dressed up and hang out with us for the evening.

 

Elena got to be Auntie Linds' date for the evening. :)

One thing I would add to my wedding if I could do it over again would be to have a photo booth! So awesome and so much fun! :) We even caught Elena taking pictures over at it by herself during the reception - hilarious!  

It was really like a mini-high school reunion at the reception! So fun!

 Cheers to Brad and Kim! Congratulations!

Hall Family Reunion 2011 - part 2.

Though Branson was an amazing place to have a reunion, one bad thing was that there was just so much to do and all the family was usually going in different directions! But we all got together Saturday evening to hang out and have dinner. My cousin Katie planned the entire reunion this year and did an amazing job! Not only that she also cooked dinner for everyone! 60 people total - and it was delicious!!


After dinner we headed outside to take our group pictures. Elena had a blast running around and it was a little chaotic with so many family members trying to get organized! Hopefully I can post the big group photo that we took when I get a copy of it.

Here are all the 1st cousins - immediate descendants of the Hall brothers and sisters - where this whole reunion started in the first place.

I didn't get too many individual families pictures since I was chasing after E, but here are a couple~



Our group is always one of the smaller ones every year. :) That's ok though, we are used to it. It was definitely bittersweet to be at the reunion without my Aunt Marge - but we had some great times reminiscing about her this weekend, which was very nice.


Then we played some games~

Looked at old photo albums~

and had ice cream sundaes. I let Elena have a squirt of whipped cream in her mouth - she thought this was great! ;)

Elena particularly enjoying playing with her cousin Savannah who is 14 months old. They were too cute together!

Here is a picture of Savannah's mom Lauren, Elena and I. Funny thing about Lauren and I - we are only a couple years apart in age and only got to see each other at reunions as we were growing up, yet we have so many similarities, besides being tall and blonde, we both ended up playing softball in college, we played the same position (pitcher), and both had a huge interest in Architecture as we were growing up. Kinda strange! Now she designs toys in Colorado - how cool would that job be??!!

Finally Sunday rolled around and it was time to leave the cabin (at least there were no more bat sightings!).

As we were driving home, Elena talked my Mom into letting her play with my camera. Which actually turned out to be pretty hilarious with what came out of her taking pictures ~

About 5 hours later we finally made it home!! Whew, what a fun, family-filled weekend! We had a blast and can't wait for the next one!