Sorenson Family Reunion

This years Sorenson Family Reunion took place August 11-13 in Cedar City, Utah. We spent a lot of time at the new Park Discovery, the aquatic center, hanging out and swimming at the hotel pool.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and checked in and then headed off to Cafe Rio for dinner. Next we raced back to the hotel and spent the evening swimming in the pool. Trisha, Sam and I shared a room with CJ, Tania and Clara and they didn't arrive until later in the evening. And once Clara got there she was not ready to sleep. It was hilarious. She kept saying things like "Mama," "Dada," "Sammy," "Trisha," "Mommy singing, Mommy singing" until 2 in the morning. She is so cute, it was hard not to laugh at.

Friday morning we set out to hike to Kannaraville Falls, just south of Cedar City. There must have been at least 50 of us Sorensons making the hike. My immediate family got there late so we lagged behind most of the time. We brought Sam and CJ brought Clara in carriers and hiked about half of it. Lisel (extremely pregnant) and Matt came with all of their kids. We decided that the kids had had enough about half way so all the kids headed back with Mom and Lisel and Matt. CJ, Tania, Me, Trisha, Dad, Landon and Zach made the trek all the way to the falls.

It was well worth it, the falls were really fun. To get to them you have to hike through these slot canyons that wind along with the river. The water was absolutely freezing cold, but once your feet became numb it was bearable. The hike was beautiful. We passed all the rest of our family as they were hiking back down and all of them kept talking about riding down the slide and how we had to do it! We finally got to the top of the hike where the slide is and I was the first one to ride down it. I sat down in the cold water and went for it, screaming as I hit the freezing cold wall of water at the bottom and jumped out as fast as I could.

Next we tried to convince CJ to ride down it but the only way we could get him to do it was to wear my shorts cause he only had jeans on and didn't want to get them wet. So, I wrapped my shirt around my waist and donated my shorts. My dad took pictures of my butt and giggled like a school girl, but I'll spare you those pictures. 

CJ rode down and screamed the same as he went into the small pool at the bottom and jumped out as fast as he could.

Next was my Dads turn. I never thought that my dad would go down but he really wanted to. He proceeded down the slide screaming like the rest of us.

Zach and Landon refused to go down. We had a great time though, giggled ourselves silly and just enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of shooting the tube and made up for the fact that I didn't get to do that this year.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Aquatic Center. It was fun with all of the kids. They had a lot of cool toys to play on/with and they had this awesome blacked-out water slide .

Saturday afternoon was spent at the swimming pool before we headed off to dutch oven dinner at a park that evening. We had dinner and dancing and singing and talking and fun! I love Sorenson Family Reunions!

Grandma Sorenson and all of her kids

All of the Sorenson grandkids that were present when this picture was taken (many, many people are missing from this picture)