The Reid summer Vacation

Ok. Brace yourself RIGHT NOW for the LONGEST blog of your lives. I repeat, turn back now if you do not have a good ten minutes to spare in your day. There are many pictures and stories to follow. beware.

So Mom and dad gave our family the greatest gift of all this summer, a vacation for the entire family! We have never really had a vacation like this before since we have all been married and grown. So I guess in reality it was kind of our first family reunion! It was soooo great I can't even stand it! I definitely could do this again (hint, hint....)

It started out with an RV Rental. That's how dad likes to roll. It's been a while since he has driven one of these bad boys so he was feeling the itch. We rented an RV for the entire vacation and Mom, Dad, Lacey (and her friend Danielle) Russ and I and Ryan and Bri went traveling in this bad boy. Our first stop was to none other than Viva Las Vegas! It's a popular stop with the Reid family particularly for the variety of entertaining shows they have. But we had a little trouble with the generator on the way to Vegas and when the generator is off the A/C is off too....sooooo we weren't happy campers.....

Half the group when to see blue man group and the other half went to see The Lion King. Since I have seen the blue man group 3 times I wanted to try something new. Mom, Dad and I went to see the Lion King and OH MY it was UH-MAZING! The costumes were so well made and the show and music in general was awesome! I'm so glad I went to see that, I recommend it to anyone!

Mom and dad got a hotel at the new Aria Hotel and it was pretty incredible.

It had a touchscreen controller by the bed that controlled everything fro opening the blinds, to turing on the lights and controlling the television. When we walked into the room for the first time the blinds opened automatically, the lights turned on and the tv turned on too. It was pretty cool. Ryan set the wake up call for the morning and he set everything to ON so when the alarm went off, the blinds opened the lights turned on and the TV tuned on (and it was set for ESPEN.)

We got hungry and traveled to McDonalds (while Bri went to sleep) and we did gamble away one dollar. Yep, we lost....

They even provided us with 4 robes, so of course we had to try them on for size.....

My parents, Lacey and Danielle slept in the RV for the night. Thanks guys! Then we pretty much drove ALL DAY LONG to Page. We were going to have a fun adventure at lake powell the next day but Dad wanted to take the scenic route through Zion's canyon so it took us a day to get there. We had lots of fun on the trip. Here were some pretty normal things you would see on the RV....

Bri, Lacey, or Danielle Reading their books ( i think Danielle finished 3 books and Bri finished 2 books)

Ryan and Russ Playing Pez Soccer on the xbox and HOGGING the back room where the A/C was the coolest....

And lots of Pretty Scenery!!

While we were driving through Zions Canyon they had to block off oncoming traffic in the tunnel for our massive RV to get through. You had to pay for a "tunnel pass" how rude, just because we are bigger and fatter than everyone else! We made this video as we passed through the darkness.......

We finally got to Lake Powell. Mom and dad had a hotel to stay in that night with Lacey and her friend and so it was our turn to sleep in the RV. It wasn't so bad until there were no spots left at the RV place with the Hook ups. Sooooo we had to stay in a campground which means you can't run your generator past a certain time. We ran it as long as we could and blasted the A/C but around 10:00 we got a knock at the door.....Some guy with a weird accent told us to turn it off because we were smoking up his RV right behind us. So then the hottness started. It wasn't bad at first but then we started sweating in our beds.

If you know Russ he CAN'T SLEEP if he is HOT. He got up from his bed and tried sleeping on the couch. He opened up all the windows, he went back to the bed. Let's just say none of us slept very good that night.

Anyways we woke up to dad banging on the door of the RV...It actually took a few bang for us to wake up out of our sweaty comas.....

Lake Powell here we come!

So we rented a boat and 2 jetski's and stayed at the lake all day! It was so fun and Russ was in HEAVEN! Since he missed the trip to lake powell with his friends this very same week I think it help him fill the void a little bit! We loaded up on sun screen and cruised around! We went tubing too! Here is some pictures to sum up our fun at the Lake!

And we can't forget tubing, here is everyones falls......

We loved the lake, we could have stayed a few more days. But after that we stayed the night in the lodge right off the marina (so we didn't have to repeat the sweaty hot episode from the night before) and Mom, Dad, and the girls went and slept in the RV in the Walmart parking lot....I know, it's pretty funny.

So we were off to Greer Arizona to meet the family the next day. My parents had rented a cabin up there and it was so nice! Take a look!

The weather was perfect and even rained on us a little (which I didn't mind!) It was SO SO BEAUTIFUL! It was so fun to be with the whole family! We played games (catch phrase and pictionary and it got pretty intense...We went to dinner the first night at the Neon Moon and it was very tasty! It was a big family dinner and it was just nice to be around everyone!









While we were there we went to Big Lake and tried to go fishing. We bought our fishing licenses and Took our fishing poles and tried to catch a fish. This is what inspired Russ and I's fishing adventure in flagstaff. So out of 12 people that were fishing....we caught....NOTHING. You can tell we are really good at fishing. I had a few bites but that is about it. We rented canoes and went around the lake. It was so beautiful up there. Russ and I said it felt like New Zealand or a really cool place that we had never been. It rained on us a bit and got a little chilly but overall it was a very good time out on the lake.

The girls made everyone tie dye shirts because what is a family reunion with out matching shirts! So we all wore our shirts to fishing!

I love tie dye!

I loved being with everyone and can't even thank my parents enough for all the things they have done for us! Thank you for this trip! We enjoyed spending time with the family and letting us tag along with you for a fun fill trip! Here are some random cabin pictures of us just hanging out.....





















I Warned you this would be the longest blog of your life. But I just wanted to get it all in one post so I could just lift this burden off my shoulders and get it all done in one shot! It has taken me like a few hours to do this whole blog! So I hope the fam is happy that they get to see all these! (and trust me, this isn't even a quarter of the pictures i took! Crazy i know!)

Last but not least, my family has NEVER gotten family pictures taken. I know, it's a shocker. So I took advantage of this situation. A pretty place, we are all together, WE ARE TAKING FAMILY PICTURES!!! So We did it! And I am very happy with the outcome. Trust me getting this many people to look at the camera and look good is VERY HARD. So I think they turned out pretty good. Thanks Danielle for helping me!