4th of July Celebration

We continued the Cottrell Tradition of celebrating our country by blowing up tiny bits of it at a time! We headed to Wyoming where all the family members made it except for Stephanie, Mike and Family, and Danielle's husband. Pretty good for an impromptu reunion.




















Last year I thought we went a little over the top with fireworks, uh, this year, they doubled it!!!!Between us all it was a ton of fireworks!!!! But it was a great show! We went up in the hills behind Kevin's house to the natural corrals so we had a beautiful rock backdrop for the show to take place. Shawn even built a 8x8 foot platform as our staging area, complete with adjustable legs!




















It was the perfect place to let the kids run and climb around and then settle in for the show! Spectacular. We did have a visitor: a helicopter did a fly over with a spot light on us twice, but I guess he figured we weren't a threat because he didn't come back. It gave us all a bit of a fright though!


We visited Kevin's Uncle Wayne's ranch and spent the afternoon petting his goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and seeing what his latest projects were. This man is pretty amazing: he builds massive BBQs large enough to roast a whole pig, creates amazing leather saddles, cures and smokes his own meat, and who know what else, all while working full time!!
















Wayne also showed us his sweet gun collection and I even got to shoot his M-15 which I quickly fell in love with!!! (yes, I know that in the picture I am holding it wrong, but it was kinda hard to concentrate while balancing on one foot!).


We also got to spend some time with Grandma Pete which is always a special time.

Easter Time

We were lucky enough to have family visit for Eastertime! Easter morning just isn't the samewithout the crazy rush of kids running down the stairs and diving for candy. Okay, they didn't "dive," but the cousins sure had fun. Three little pajama'd bodies wiggling on the stairs until they get the go-ahead...everyone searching for the eggs first, leaving the candy for the second round...completely walking past the same candy over and over as the adults tried to direct them...dumping all the candy out and sorting through the loot...fun times!!! Then we ended it all up with a chilly but memorable walk through Golden Ponds feeding the ducks and geese!

Cousins! Cousins!

Kevin's mom came to visit for some time this month and as a result, we got to spend some time with Shawn and Stephanie and family!! Jadeyn was so excited to see his cousins and to help celebrate Austin's birthday!

Cottrell Family Reunion 2010

Telluride, CO

So we all finally gathered in one location and had a wonderful family reunion. 32 people in all, 18 kids, and 14 adults. The reunion took place at Matterhorn Campground outside of beautiful Telluride, CO.
Here is the backdrop behind our campsites. We filled up four campsites and were still pretty squished in with pretty much two tents per site! It was wonderful chaos! Our campground was surrounded by quaking aspens! The were so peaceful and almost musical as the breeze rushed through them.

We took everyone into Telluride and took the gondola ride to the top! This is almost all the grandkids: 5 hadn't arrived yet. And yes, we did get asked if we were a day care or a class! Nope, just family!


Fishing at a few of the many surrounding lakes was hilarious! All these kids trying to navigate a few fishing poles, worms, lines, hooks, rocks, etc. It was quite entertaining when all of us arrived at the peaceful lake for the group picture. We interrupted a quite campsite and asked a few fellow campers to take our picture promising that the sooner the picture is done, the sooner they will have their peaceful lake back!! A lot of the kids did catch some sweet little brook trout which everyone enjoyed eating back at the campground.

Just the grandkids!
Just the Cottrells!

Jadeyn enjoyed being surrounded by the constant companionship of cousins. It was a wonder that he ever slept. There was one mighty boulder that was the gathering place for all the kids and quite often the source for a modified game of King of the Hill!

Jadeyn loved Nay-Nay! Nathan!

4th of July festivities

This picture pretty well sums up the fabulously fun weekend we had. As my sister said, its the "Quintessential summertime for a preschooler!!"

Trying to hold on in the fierce wind in Evanston, WY. Waiting for dad to check out from the firework store.
Shopping for Fireworks in Wyoming is always an adventure! Off to Evanston to load up! This year we went all out. Shawn had missed the festivities last year and this year he was determined to make up for it. Between Kevin, Shawn and his dad, we ended up with two shopping carts full, $347 worth of fireworks and three free Black Cat hats to top it off! Stepping out into the Wyoming wind with the shopping carts was an adventure all on its own too!

Here is the pyro clan: happy as can be with lots of fire power!
Shawn, dad, and Kevin

A few cousins in the family tree!! Kierra, Alexus, Kaylee, Austin, Chloe and Jadeyn
Jadeyn loved spending time with his cousins. When I went off with the men for some target practice, we left Jadeyn home with cousins. I guess the girls really outnumbered the boys because we came home to find him with beautifully painted pink toenails!

Jadeyn and Austin out for some summer fun in the Radio Flyer! They got a kick out of how many rocks they could pick up along the way by hanging over the side!

Our little buy takes after his dad: he likes to blow stuff up already! Here he is stacking 4 of his tanks with a small pile of fire crackers underneath!

Ahhh...every boy needs a dog. (nope, she's not ours, but we like to borrow her whenever we visit Grandma and Grandpa in WY.


Finally one last cute video. Entertained for hours with a hose, a bucket, and an ever patient and thirsty dog. Jadeyn was in heaven!

Memorial Day Festivities

Fishing Heaven! We headed out to Doudy Lake to camp Thursday night and arrived to find a beautiful, peaceful lake, practically all to ourselves! Our campsite was the closest to the lake as we could get: a peaceful alcove about 100 feet from the shore. Jadeyn was so excited to be camping again, his little feet ran as fast as they could to the lake, stopping only a few times to make sure we were coming too! The whole lake heard him coming and continued to hear him throughout the day!


The fishing was spectacular. We had fished at a nearby lake a few weekends ago and had fun, but these fish were a very nice size!! We caught rainbow trout, lake trout, brook trout, sucker-fish (which Kevin hates so much he refused to touch them as we got the hooks out) a pine cone, a tennis ball! and quite a few crawdads!! It was so fun to watch Jadeyn's delight with each fish and to watch him imitate us while he was fishing. He'd get all excited, yell "got fish!" start reeling in, then suddenly go "aww. dang!" as if his fish got away!
Camp good was excellent as usual: T-bone steak, potatoes, soda, hotdogs and s'mores!


Jadeyn was very proud of his catch of the day. Little did he realize that his prize could splash back!

We decided to cut our trip a little short since Kevin's parents had decided not to come after all, so we headed out to Wyoming for a little target practice. We drove to Kevin's parents home for a visit and let Jadeyn terrorize their house. I felt bad because we had to move so many breakable decorations up a few feet, but once those were clear he was free to tear around with Grandpa Cottrell and squeal to his hearts content.




We spend Saturday with Grandma Pete (Kevin's grandma) and went to the Evanston cemetary to put flowers on several family members graves and to hear stories about them. Lunch and some gardening with Grandma Pete as well. We even rescued a snake from her yard that had been plaguing her since last year. Jadeyn was a little unsure of the snake at first and then it was all he could talk about when we were outside.








I finally got to shoot my gun! Kevin brought his 40 and I took my 9 out to the green hills so see how good we were. Kevin, of course, was dead on with the 40 and still loves it the best. I didn't do so well at the beginning with mine while I was getting used to it. Once I figured out/remembered to only squeeze the trigger, I was much better. We left the shotgun and rifle that my dad gave me at home and are very excited to try it out over the 4th of July!


All in all, it was a very full weekend when we look back over it. Lots of fun to see family, play on the swingset and trampoline, cook up a few beautiful steaks, spend time with Grandma Pete, catch a few fish and just generally enjoy ourselves!