May Girl's Weekend

With such a big family on both sides, I'm sad to say that I don't know my cousins very well. This spring we tried to change that by planning a cousin, sister, aunt weekend in Cedar City at the Henley Manor our cousin's B&B.

Kimber rode the shuttle down and met me in Orem where we planned to head to Cedar City to do some hiking. We took Mike's mini to save on gas, but also to have the top down on our fun road trip. Little did we know that a storm would come in and our fun in the sun ended up being an adventure in the snow instead. Kimber and I laughed as the snow got so bad that we had to pull over every few miles to get the ice off of the windshield wipers. We kept passing a semi and then having to pull over again and again. By the end it was as if the semi and mini were old freeway friends and at the last exit he gave us a wave. I'm sure he was thinking all kinds of blonde jokes at our expense, but for me, it was nice to know someone at least noticed the tiny mini barely visible in the blowing snow. :)

Our group ended up being Alice & her girls, Silvia & Mary, and Kimber and I. Not as big of a group as we had planned, but it ended up being great for the first cousin get-together. The first night we ate loads of pizza, played some games, and headed to bed at a reasonable time.

On Saturday we went shopping, ate at a yummy sandwich place, and mostly just hung out and got to know each other better. It was cool to see how well everyone got along - and to see that even though we live different lifestyles, practice different religions, are of all different ages, some single, some married, it didn't matter because in the end we are simply family. That night we stayed up WAY to late talking about everything from babies to teens, sister-wives, to religion, to our parents and different childhoods. You name it, we covered it. The group chat ended around 1am or so, and then Kimber and I stayed up talking till about 5am. CRAZY, I know, but it was a blast to get to know the cousins and aunts that I grew up with but never really knew and then great to finish with a wonderful chat with my big sister.

(Back: Kimber, Mary, Silvia, Alice, Sandra; Front: Kate, Fawn holding Billy, Robin, Sara holding Maya, Taralyce)

One funny of the weekend was that before going, Mike's co-workers had found out that Robin Brown of Sister Wives was not only my cousin, but was going to be there. They all have a sort of crush on Robin and were jealous that I would get to see her. For fun, she wrote them a note and signed it, and then we took this picture for proof that she was actually there. The guys absolutely LOVED it and still have the note hanging up in the office. LOL

It was a wonderful weekend and I can't wait till the next GNO!