As usual, Thanksgiving was a blast at our house, but I still have to process the pictures before I can get them up here. In the timemean… um… I mean meantime… I thought I would post some pictures of our recent family reunion/trip to Santa Cruz (a.k.a. the beach).

Once upon a time, deep in the heart of California, an alarm’s harsh cry was heard at 5:30am. The beeping was quickly silenced. Five minutes later another alarm made its existence known to the world. The outcome was the same as the first. The third and final alarm clock sounded its trumpet, letting us know that a fate worse than the beeping would soon be upon us if we didn’t face the cold and get out of bed. So the day began…

It was a Sunday much like every other, except this time our family was not getting up at that early hour to make our 1 hour 45 minute trek to church, but to head out on a 3 ½ hour drive to Santa Cruz for a family reunion. A quick breakfast of cereal was consumed and then we hit the road. One gas stop, one bathroom stop, and one store stop with some very amusing shopping carts later, we arrived at our destination just eight miles from the beach. We could smell the salty air with every breath that entered our nostrils, but family duty confined us to our dad’s cousin’s house in the mountains.

We did not get to the beach right away like we were hoping, but we did have a good time at the reunion (even though we were the only ones there that were over 2 years, and under 35 years old). Our time was mostly spent playing Frisbee or kicking the soccer ball around. Here are some pictures of our time there.

Anthony was gearing up for the game of “Ultimate Frisbee” that we are planning for sometime in the future…

Laura was practicing her form…

And Ben was just being Ben with a funky hat…

Sara got mucho better at catching and throwing that day…

She even had a little competition from big brother Matthew…

I saw this and had to get a shot. If you squint your eyes and shake your head back and forth twice and clockwise three times, it looks like someone stretched and twisted Anthony while he was on the hammock…

Then the soccer ball came out. Poor Big Red is not as young as he once was…

Anthony tried doing the splits as far as he could. And that’s about it…

Nic could only take so much of the running around, so he sat back down with his drawing pad and pencil. I’ll have to put some of his work up here sometime. He is very talented…

I say Bex should audition for the Rockettes. That or go up against Pele. One or the other…

Ben was getting pretty tired, so he decided to take a quick siesta on the hammock, still with the funky hat...

When I saw this next picture, I just about died laughing. It really shows all three of my sister’s true personalities. The devious Bex is about to knock Sara out with a Frisbee, Laura is in her “mother” mode and pointing out the grass stains on Sara’s pants, and Sara is looking at her pants with the attitude of “yeah… so?”…

Now that I have shown their “at home” personalities, I will show a picture of the true and caring little angels that they actually are. Yeah right…

Next is a very, very rare picture of our whole family. You can tell we were facing right into the sinking sun due to the fact that dad’s eyes are closed, Bex being on the verge of tears, and Nic appearing to have swallowed a very large bug…

The day was coming to a close and we still wanted to make it to the beach, so we said our goodbyes and drove the eight miles to the largest body of water in the world. The beach where we finally ended up was a place called Natural Bridges. There used to be two “natural bridges” at this beach like the one pictured in the next photo, but one fell-down-go-boom, so now there is only one. Pay no attention to the beach bum. There are a lot of those in Santa Cruz…

It was pretty cold out, and mom and dad were tired, so Ben and I took the kids minus Sara down for a little while. Here is some randomness at the beach that I got video footage of…

Partial family shot. Notice that the people with no shoes on are closer to the water than those with…

It was about time to go, so they all waved goodbye to the waves. Yes, the waves waved back…

What’s a trip to the beach without a good sunset shot? I tried to make this one extra special…

There is a downside to driving 3 ½ hours to get to your destination. You have to drive 3 ½ hours back.

And so concludes this adventurous tale of adventurous people.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving.