Now what?

So does this blog like go away now or what? Does anyone have pictures to post? Does Ryan really have a candy addiction? Is Scotty's job really that confidential? Could I really blow up the world if I knew how many GPS satelites there are up there?
We had a great time will all of you. Hope to see you at the next reunion.

Important!!

Some of you are coming early to go sightseeing. Do NOT go with Scotty to Ft McHenry in Baltimore!! If you happen to fall off a wall and roll onto the grass, holding a camera, he will laugh at you! Yes, he will, With his evil laugh too.

Two weeks and counting>>>>

We just got back from the lake, taking up some stuff for the reunion and getting ready, We are so excited to have everyone come out here.!!

A couple of things....

We are going to be going in shifts to the airport and lake, so will everyone please send your cell numbers. We will pick you up at the curb at the airport and we want to be able to find you.

There is one small change in the dinner schedule I posted earlier. Tami/Katie will switch with Lindsay/Lisa. Lindsay/Lisa will now cook for the group on Tuesday and Tami/Katie will now have Thursday. And when I name the women, I of course mean husbands too!! Everyone else's day stays the same. Just so you can plan, I am BBQ ing hamburgers and hotdogs Sunday night. We will have some food in your house so you wont have to shop until Monday.

Any questions?? Anything I haven't thought of ??

About the food...........

In planning the meal you are going to make for the family, keep in mind, my boys EAT A LOT! This is them at a pasta eating contest followed by an ice cream eating contest. Matt won them both! But Brady and Brian are no slackers.

website for lakehouse

Lindsay wanted a website to look at our development. You can go to www.waterfrontgreens.net and see where our house is. If you click on "properties" there is actually a picture of our house--the one on the right.

Troy thinks he's funny!

Yes, The green wallpaper is amazing isn't it Troy?? In answer to your questions: We have a canoe at the lake so you can use it AND we have caught fish, but nothing you would want to eat!! Actually there are fishermen that supposedly catch bass on the lake. There is also a catch and realease pond in our development. We only have 1 fishing pole though.

The latest scoop on the reunion!!!

Dave and I are getting excited planning for our reunion that is just a couple months from now.

Here's some of the plans and details...............

• Dave and I will rent 2 mini-vans for the folks from Colorado Springs and you can go up in shifts on Saturday if you want to. There are 14 of you total, not counting Grandma/Grandpa or Troys family. It is a 2 1/2 hour drive to the lake from our house.

• The Hollister clan and Troy and Lisa will be together in the house across the street.

• There is a Walmart up there where everyone can shop, so we figured each family will be in charge of their own breakfast and lunch and then we will take turns cooking dinner for all 38 of us. Here is a suggested schedule:

Saturday everyone can just grab something to eat on the way to the Lake

Sunday: Terri/Dave and Brooke

Monday: Shandra/Jason and Christy/Brady

Tuesday: Tami/Scott and Katie/Kyle

Wednesday: Andrea/Bill and Samantha/Ryan

Thursday: Lindsay/Scotty and Lisa/Troy

Friday: We'll order Pizza for everyone

• Since it will be later on Saturday when we arrive, we will stock your house with food to get you through the weekend.
• There is a Branch up there for anyone who wants to go to church on Sunday.
• We will have the boat with skis, knee board, wake board and tubes. Other things to do:

Close and free:

3-par golf course, tennis, mini-golf, nature center, State Park with sandy beach and hiking trails, Trail to waterfall, indoor pool

Close but cost $:

Mountain coaster, theater, restarants, gift shops, white water rafting, frisbee golf, jet skis

• There are a total of 11 kids ages 3-9 years and we thought it would be fun to have some type of activity for them each day. Each mom can take one day and plan an activity or craft. The schedule could be this:

Monday: Lindsay; Tuesday: Christy; Wednesday: Shandra; Thursday: Samantha; Friday: Andrea

Thats it for now. Let us know if you have any brilliant ideas.

spring Break?????

Troy, you must REALLY like to ski. I am a fair weather skiier. I like to ski when its 70 degrees outside! Dave and I went to Germany to visit friends and then took the train to Paris for a couple of days for Spring Break. We had a good time

Spring Break

We went skiing/riding over spring break. It was cold and windy, but they had 12” of new powder. I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

Anybody else do anything fun over spring break?

Dean took a couple of friends.


















Lisa and Camille get ready to head back out.


















Self portrait.

Time to dish out your info!

Would everyone, who feels comfortable doing so, please write their name, address, phone number, email and if applicable their blog address. I'm trying to organize my life on paper. Who knows. . .maybe you'll get mail letting your family know your info. Thanks!

I'll start:
Shandra and Jason Harris
18520 Grackle Way
Gaithersburg, Md 20879
301-527-2372 harrshan2@aol.com
wwwshanandjaharris.blogspot.com

P.S. Just because you have our email address doesn't mean you get to push "forward" with EVERYTHING you recieve like some friends do and clog our mailboxes. We love you anyway.

To Scotty and Lindsay

I have been just cutting and pasting your comments to the main page, now you can sign in yourself to post

From Scotty and Lindsay comment

Scott and Lindsay said...
I'm not sure how you guys are able to make posts, because all I can do are comments. Someone will have to tell me how that's done.I just found out that I get an outstanding discount on rentals from Hertz. I get about 40% off the rental itself, and since we're renting multiple vehicles, the additional drivers will only cost $12 per vehicle - UNLESS they have a AAA membership, then the additional driver fee is waived. (I know at least myself and Scott Sr. have memberships) So Terri, I'm not sure what you had in mind, but if you'd like to look at the Hertz website and pick out what you want, then I can make the reservations using the discount. Also, I assume that we will be picking up these rentals outside of the airport after everyone has congregated, which is actually better because then we can avoid airport fees. So you can use the website to find the Hertz Local office closest to your house, and we'll rent from there.

How to Post

I cannot believe that I am teaching someone how to do something on the computer. lol If you want to post you must first click on "sign in" at the top right corner (in blue) with your email and password. Then your posts are published on the main page of the reunion blog and you then have access to other blogs from the family also.

Scotty and Lindsay, that is great about the discounts on rentals. Let get a final head count on who is coming and then we will figure out what we need for transportaion. Its basically the Hollister side that we will need vehicles for. So far....Andrea/Bill/Noah and Scotty/Lindsay/Trey and Ryan/Samantha/Madelyn and Scott/Tami/Olivia are confirmed coming so thats 12 people. Still need to hear from Amanda and Katie. I am thinking a large van and one smaller car so people could do day trips if they want.

Scott and Lindsay,

The car seat doesn't even count as one of you official "carry on" items which is cool. Just bring it to the gate and then decide if you want to put in on the plane to strap him in it or you can store it under the plane (handing it to them just before you board). Just wanted to make sure you knew that since we didn't the first time we really traveled with our little guy.

More Details

Tickets to the White House sounds fun, you just need to remember that from the lake to DC is 3 hrs away so we wont be able to just be going back and forth. You guys are coming earlier so maybe you could request the tickets for before we leave for the lake.

As far as helping with the reunion, I am going to ask that all the families with little kids organize one activity (craft, game, storytime, etc) for all the kids to do together. If each family takes a day, the little ones will have something fun each day just for them. Anyway, you can be thinking of what you want to do for that. I think we will have everyone take care of their own family for breakfast and lunch (or join forces with another family if you want) because there are grocery stores at the lake, and then we can all eat dinner together. As the time gets closer we will combine a couple families to be in charge of making dinner one night. You can be thinking of what you want to make when its your turn :)

Scott and Lindsay said...
I hadn't thought about bringing the car seat as a carry on for him to sit in. That's a good idea, we might do that. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help prepare for the reunion. I submitted a request to our congressman for 35 tickets to a White House/Library of Congress tour. I'm not sure if it will go through or not, but I thought it was worth a try. Also, I'm looking into some car rental discounts. I should be able to get some as a AAA employee. I'll let you know.
February 18, 2009 8:11 AM

Scott and Lindsay said... That's hilarious. I thought it was strange that Grandma was grey and you were losing hair- and that those 3 kids were so close in age! I'm glad to find out I'm not the crazy one =)February 18, 2009 11:58 AM

Coming to Maryland

Yes, Scotty and Lindsay we can pick you up at the airport, it sounds like you are on the same flight as Grandma and Grandpa. We do have an extra car seat if you want to use it, but you may want to bring yours on the plane. The kids are usually more comfortable (and you too) in their car seats. You decide, but we have one if you want to use it. And Grandpa........I know the mind is the first to go......Those kids are not yours...they are your grandkids, Andrea, Shandra and Ryan!!

Hey Gramps

We're interested in leaving on Thursday. We'll be buying our plane tickets this week. I'll take a look at some Continental flights and let you know which one is most appealing to us. It'd be nice if we could catch the same one!
Scotty and Lindsay

Ticket Info

I bought our tickets yesterday through Delta's website. Round trip, including tax was $170 per person, flying into DC on the 18th at 4:45pm. Just putting this out there for those in CO that haven't gotten their tickets yet; I don't think they'll go much lower than this.

We're excited and can't wait to see you all!!

-Samantha

From Scotty and Lindsay

Scott and Lindsay said...
We are looking at a Northwest flight, which is the most inexpensive one we can find. It arrives at DCA at 4:45 on the 18th and leaves Sunday at 1:50. I believe Grandpa and Samantha are both looking at that same flight. We'd like to hear back what everyone thinks about that, because we'll be buying tickets next week! Yay or nay?

From Bill

That itinerary sounds good to me. We can pick you up at the airport, we will rent a big van to get everyone out to the lake, its about 2 1/2 hours from here. I am going to post this on the blog at www.mdreunion.blogspot.com so more people can see what everyone is doing. If some of you get flights together it would simplify things. Can't wait to see you and the family.


Terri
We have found a couple of flights for the reunion and I just wanted to run them by you to make sure they fit into the schedule. The flight out there is into Baltimore and arrives on July 18 at 1:55 PM. The return flight leaves on July 25 at 6:10 PM. I was just wondering what most people are doing. I was also wondering if we need to rent a car or if there will be Peterson airport shuttles : ) Thanks for putting this all together we are getting pretty excited.

Bill

You're just mean!!

Troy, As much as I think it is great you had a great ride on a beautiful day, I think you are just rubbing it in that we in MD are having our coldest winter on record and Brian is living in Rexburg with a windchill of -30 and Matt is in Minnesota with a real temperature of -30. Meanwhile, my skin is wtill pasty white!

Lunch Ride

This has nothing to do with the reunion, but I thought I’d share.

It’s February 4th and I went for a lunch ride today in an open space near the office. I wore shorts and a short sleeve jersey. On February 4th. Except for some snow in a few shady spots – and my lack of fitness – it felt like early summer. Here’s a crappy cell phone picture.

I have tan lines.

I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

Family............

As we have been discusing and excited that Scotty and Lindsay are going to have a new baby in the Fall, here is a pic I took during our family gathering last week. The little one is due in late Sept or early fall, according to Lindsay.

Dad/Gramps

The story of us... said...
It's definitely a good way to get the word out! By our calculations the due date is September 30th, but I'll be shooting for October 4th. Scotty's birthday is July 4th, Trey's is August 4th, and mine is September 4th... wouldn't that be cool? We'll keep updates and pictures on our personal blog: lindsayhollister.blogspot.com
February 1, 2009 11:34 AM

Oppps...

For those of you who havent' seen us in a while from left to right there is Emma (7), Eliza(9) who are Shandras two beautiful girls. Than my boys Carter (almost 5) and Bryce(2) and then Shandras two boys Ben (almost 3) and Isacc (5).
Can't wait to play with CO cousins!!

Birthday Cake!

Dad/Uncle Dave/Grandpa turning 53 on Jan. 25th with all his grandkiddos. Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Congratulations!

Scotty/ Lindsay,

That is the most creative way ever to make such a great announcement! When are you due?

Exciting news!

Scotty and Lindsay said... Can we add one more to the RSVP list? We just found out we have another one on the way!

Scotty and Lindsey in DC

YEah for Taylor

Congratulations Taylor! Just think..when you are famous I will be able to say "I knew you when.."

Can I come?

I'm a Slocum. Can I come to the reunion?

We're planning on being there for at least part of the week.

Too many warm weather pictures on the blog, so...

Its Done!

Well, I have it done!! Whola! Now to find the time to post something interesting. Tami, I found flights on Continenal flying into National for about $220 per person. We will fly rather than drive. More info later.

This is our new dog, Abbie!

Dad

July 18th works for us! Luckily we didn't buy our tickets yet! We'll be there for sure, we wouldn't miss a chance to visit the east coast! We're looking forward to seeing some more of D.C. and spending some time on the lake. ...and we plan on spending most of the time in our pj's.

Scotty

Instructions

Now that I am the "master blogger" let me give you all some hints :) If you want your post to go to the main page , you must sign in first. (upper right hand corner) instead of just pushing "comment". Otherwise, your post won't be on pretty green wallpaper and we may miss it. Start looking at airplane tickets and post the best prices you can find.

Hi! I'm so excited for this reunion. . . aren't you? -Shan

This was our "mini-reunion" at the lake. Hopefully we can get more of us in the picture in July

Family Fun!!!

Now we can all join in the fun of blogging!

Bear Lake was Fun

Wasn't it fun last time we all got together??? Lets do it again, this time in the East.

Fun times

That last post was so fun, I think I will do another one. We are talking about changing the date to July 18th-25. How does that work? Post your response so everyone can see it.

Here are some of the family that will be there--in swimming suits, not P.J's

Update

Blogs are cool. Why you ask? Because you can have pretty green wallpaper and we can check it for updates on our family. Here is my update: Dave just had a birthday, Matt turns 21 on Jan 27 and comes home from his mission in July , Brian is loving school at BYU-I and snowboarding, Brooke just started her new job as an adoption counselor and is looking for wedding dresses, and me? I have 20+ clients a week and trying to keep up with everyone else . Now, wasn't that fun? Let's get a report from every family. I have heard that Tami, Scott, Oliva, Grandma and Grandpa Slocum are coming to the reunion. Is that all? Thats going to be a sad reunion. Who else is coming? Write it on the blog. Its fun.Terri