Catching up in Pictures

There are a ton of pictures in this post, brace yourself.

Last week we went to Estes Park, Colorado with the Mattern Crew. There were 9 of us. It was like traveling with the Duggars. Well, half of them at least. I always wanted a large family so this was great! Never a dull moment. Unfortunately we didn't have a picture of the whole group on our camera, but here are the "kids".

Here are Greg's sweet parents who planned this awesome trip.

I love this picture of the Bryants!

The weather was beautiful - cool at night and warm during the day. You can still see the snow on the mountain peaks.

The Rocky Mountain National park was minutes away from where we were staying, so we went just about every day to go on a hike or check out the scenery.

The brothers.

Family picnic.

This is a typical picture of Jameson and Michelle. 50% funny, 50% awkward.

Just kidding :) I think those were Greg's words.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing the animals. Chipmunks are everywhere! And they are so much cuter than squirrels.

And you didn't think we could leave without taking a jumping picture did you?

We went rafting one day, and I was completely terrified. But it actually was not as scary as I thought, and turned out to be really fun! We don't have any photographic proof because Greg said he would rather put our kids through college than spend all our money on a ridiculously overpriced picture CD souvenir. I agree.

At night we had game nights - including Quelf! Thanks to Abby I discovered that awesome game and Greg and I brought it. It was pretty hilarious to play with his family. Greg's dad had to ask his foot for permission to speak every time he wanted to say something, and could only speak in 3 word phrases. Greg couldn't bend his arms or legs for half the game. I won't give too many of the rule cards away, but it was really fun. I highly suggest this game if you really enjoy weirdness.

Also, I have a few pictures to post from the weekend before our vacation, which we declared to be the first annual "Man Weekend". Greg and Cody's birthday's are 2 days apart, and the same week as Father's Day. So we celebrated all 3 occasions in one weekend. It was a blast. Lauren and Cody came in town for the weekend, and Greg and I spend 2 nights at the "Grosse Compound" - as my dad likes to call it. We all went down to Galveston for the day to take part in a Grosse family favorite - crabbing.

We came back home and that night had a crab boil, and celebrated the men. My dad is the greatest dad ever. And him taking us crabbing all together just reminded me of all the cool things he took us to do growing up. We have so many great family experiences like that.

Here are the birthday boys.

Alright, that is quite enough pics for now. More posts to come later!