Johnson Family Reunion

At the end of July we had the opportunity to have the first ever Johnson Family Reunion. This was the first time that all of us had been able get together in quite some time. We had the reunion in Island Park, Idaho. It included all 8 kids, spouses, and 28 nieces and nephews. It was slightly chaotic to say the least but it was a lot of fun. Here are some of the highlights:

We started the reunion by going to the West Yellowstone Rodeo. It was more like a pretend rodeo and they didn't actually rope anything. Here is Devon all ready for the rodeo. What a stud.

The best part of the rodeo was when they invited all the kids out into the ring to chase a sheep (for the younger kids) and a baby cow (for the older kids). The first to grab the flag off of the animal's tail won a prize. Sadly to say none of our group actually pulled the flag but at the end they gave everyone a gold dollar for participating. The kids thought this was great.

One of Dan's many hobbies is photography. While in the beautiful outdoors he took advantage of the scenery and was able to take some great photographs of the kids. This particular one he is now turning into a drawing. (It is still a work in progress.)

One of the perks that we were able to enjoy at the ranch that we were staying at was horse rides. We were each able to get 2 rides in the beautiful countryside and let me tell you my sore bum couldn't have taken anymore!


Some of the other things that we did that we don't have pictures of include: The Johnson Family Cup, which included a series of mini games that every family had to come up with, lots of time in the hot tubs at the cabin, canoeing in the lake, lots of games, and a family golf tournament. We ended the reunion by going into Yellowstone. We saw animals, went on hikes, saw waterfalls, and played in the river. It was a great end to the reunion.


We were able to finish the reunion by getting a picture with all of us in it. Unfortunately it is already out of date because another baby has been added. It was great to see everyone and it will be a long 2 years until our next one!

Dan Graduates!

So this post is extremely overdue and Dan has been bothering me that I haven't posted about it so here it goes. Dan graduated! For those of you who hadn't heard Dan graduated with his Masters in Recreation from Texas State University. We are so proud of him. It is a great milestone in our lives. He is busy looking for a new job with his new credentials and we are ready to see where life takes us.


Here is Dan walking down the aisle at the beginning of the ceremony.


Here is Dan receiving his diploma.


Dan's parents were able to make it to Texas for the big day. They treated us to some yummy Pappadeaux's for dinner.




CONGRATULATIONS DAN!

Trip to the coast

Dan had a conference to go to to give a presentation on the need for outdoor education among the community's youth. The conference was in McAllen, TX which is right on the boarder with Mexico. We decided to make a trip out of it and spend a couple days on the coast at South Padre Island and Corpus Christi.

We started out our trip in South Padre Island with a boat ride to see the dolphins. When we arrived on the boat they had just rescued this turtle from exhaustion out in the bay. We were so excited to see the turtle that they ending up naming it after me. So this is Dan and I and the turtle Lizzy.

On South Padre Island they have a turtle rescue that came and got Lizzy from us on the boat. They have a special aquarium where they rehabilitate them and then release them back in the ocean. This is me (in an awful picture) checking up on Lizzy after she had been cleaned up and made comfortable in the aquarium.

Now onto dolphins. We found a guide to take us out into the bay to go on a dolphin watch. It was amazing. The dolphins were all over and they would swim right up to our boat. This is Dan with Rozy the dolphin dog that would bark every time he saw a dolphin. We had a blast.

We ended our trip in Corpus Christi. The main thing that we did when we were there was go to the Aquarium they have there. We watched a dolphin show and looked at all the other animals. This is me with the shark that they had in one of their tanks. Overall we had a really awesome trip. While there are no pictures we had some great food and spent lots of time on the beach. It was a great relaxing vacation.

Squirrel?!?

Recently Max has been having fascinations regarding bunnies and squirrels. So Dan came up with an idea that he wanted to try. We went and bought a stuffed bunny from the store and decided to put it in one of our trees to make it look like a squirrel. Here is the video of his reaction:) :

SNOW!!!

We woke up this morning to snow in Kyle! We got about a half an inch but we will take what we can get. We both had work called off today and Dan hasn't had class in 2 days because of this weather. Max obviously hasn't been in the snow much so we were excited to take him out in it. We decided to bust out our sled for the first time in 2 years and had a good time with it on the driveway. Here are some highlights:

Arkansas!

A few weeks ago Dan and I had the privilege of going to Mountainburg, AR. Since we have moved to Texas Dan has been pretty sad that he hasn't been able to see any fall colors. So we planned our trip the best we could to be in Arkansas for their "peak" fall colors. Dan decided that he wanted to go to the Ozarks. While his first thought was to camp...he soon realized that if he really wanted his wife to come along that a cabin would be better suited for our needs. We found one that let us bring pets so that Max could come too. It was a much needed family vacation. Here is our cabin that we stayed in, the outside and the cozy inside. It sure was nice to come back and start a fire each evening.

While we were there we went to 3 state parks. The first was Devil's Den State Park. They had a bunch of cool caves that were unfortunately closed due to the harm people were causing to the bat population. Here are some highlights from day 1:



The next state park we went to was Lake Fort Smith State Park. The fall colors were much better here and the lake and scenery were beautiful. Here are some highlights from day 2:



On day 2 we also went and checked out Fayetteville, AR. We wanted to see the University of Arkansas and get a nice steak dinner. This was a park that we found with beautiful color.


The last state park we went to was White Rock Mountain State Park. And man did we save the best for last. We were able to hike around the whole mountain and watch a gorgeous sunset to end the day. Here are highlights from day 3 as well as a video:

We had an awesome time in the Ozarks and would love to go back!

Dallas State Fair

Awhile ago a friend invited Dan and I to go to the Dallas State Fair. While this was sometime ago, (I am a horrible blogger) I still wanted to blog about it because we had so much fun!

Here is Dan and I as well as our friends on the Ferris Wheel. This was our first time riding one.

Here is the view of the city from the top. (It's no Chicago but fairly impressive.)

Playing some carnival games. This trip was definitely not our best showing when it came to winning prizes.

Dan well...being Dan :)

Here is some fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This is not an experience we would like to repeat. We also had fried cookie dough and fried ice cream. The fried ice cream was delicious.

Look past all the yellow and the fact that the picture is slightly blurry but this is me with Bumblebee and I'm pretty pleased about it if you can't tell.
We had a blast at the fair and if we are around next year we would love to go back!