BILLY & CAITLIN: Sutherland Family Reunion-- Newport Beach June 14-20

Wow what a summer it has been!! We have seriously had the BEST summer. I was just looking through all the pictures and really missing everyone and all the fun we had. I just got home from San Diego this morning (Friday, July 17), and I have to teach YW on Sunday and I'm back to work on Monday. So life is back in full force which sucks. Oh well, time to document the summer so future me can continue to be jealous of past me.

After the 4th year hike, Billy and I stuck around town until the following Wednesday when we decided to head down to San Diego a little early before the reunion to spend some time with the fam. Unfortunately I have no idea what we did Wednesday through Saturday. I do remember we went to see Jurassic World with Jayce and Cody (Derek was supposed to come but chose baseball over siblings...jk Derek no hard feelings ;) ) on the day it opened which I think was Friday that week. We went at like 7:30 PM so I was super stressed about it being way crowded. We got there at like 6 and were the first ones in line and got awesome seats right in the middle. Yay!

Sorry, blurry pic. Not even sure if this pic is from Jurassic world because we went to see another movie too which I can't remember what it was now. Oh wait! This is from seeing San Andreas on Wednesday after we got there.

I honestly can't remember what else we did those few days. The only other pictures I have are of Penny haha.

She sure is cute! I have so many pictures of her it's crazy.

That week was the last week of school for Jayce and Jayce's lizard had just passed away (very sad) so we had to cheer him up the whole time, just don't remember how we did that. Oh well.

Oh on Saturday morning we went to breakfast at this place called Snooze with Greg and Lisa, Blake and Stacey who were in town early which was really fun. Oh and Friday night Billy's cousin Carson stayed at my parent's house which was funny.

Anyways, Sunday we headed up to Orange County to go to church at my grandparent's ward. They wanted to show off their family to their ward so they asked us all to come to church with them. After church we headed to the resort. We all got ready in our matchy matchy t-shirts for family pictures, then had dinner.

Cody sleeping during church and Derek on his phone...slackers

Here's most of the Sutherland fam. We are missing a few key players but the majority was there. Dallin even made it!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for an awesome reunion!

Monday was Disneyland day! My grandparents are so awesome and pay for us all to have these extravagant adventures. I think like 25 people went to Disneyland and Grandpa paid for it all. It is so awesome. Too bad none of the cousins really stuck together. It's hard to stay in a big group at Disneyland. I have a ton of pics from the day. It was awesome, as Disneyland days usually are! We lived it up to the very last minute!!

Not sure why it says Derek's score is 0. He killed Cody in this round I think.

Scary

I crack up every time I see this one

Outside the park in the morning. Insanity!!

Waiting forever to get in

Walking in!

Big Thunder Mountain!

Splash mountain! Gotta protect my hair...

Derek's face....bahahaha

Space mountain! We rode it 3 times!

Matterhorn

Star Tours

Walking with Greg and Lisa through the castle to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. We hung out with them for a bit during the day.

We rode space mountain 3 times. Derek left at like 5 to get ready for the Angel's game later that night, hence why he is not in some of the pics

The new crazy light parade at 11:30 at night

Hahaha I love this picture. I'm just looking at my phone and smiling while Billy is super intense and my score is 0. Bahaha classic.

One magical story I will share about the day is that we were waiting in line for Space Mountain once for like an hour (we did that twice) and a huge Chinese green beetle came floating along. It was terrorizing everyone and people kept ducking to get out of the way. I was hiding behind Billy. Then Billy just put up his finger like a perch and the beetle landed right on his finger!!!! Everyone around us was like WHAT THE HECK! It was so magical. I tried to get a picture but Billy released it to the wild before I could. It was so hilarious, I still can't believe it.

We got home super late from Disneyland but I woke up early with my Mom the next morning to run...yay! I have not slept much at all this whole summer. Lots of go go go and not a lot of sleep, but I like it that way.

Tuesday was paddle board day! Some people went paddle boarding, some went kayaking. It was super fun! We paddle boarded over to Balboa island and back. We became pro paddle boarders by the end of the hour.

Dad snapped a few pics once we were back.

Poor Andrew, after he fell in once he just kept falling in again and again. PS it was really cold.

After paddle boarding we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up, ate, then headed off to do an escape room! That was SUPER fun! It was such a great idea, I wish we could go do it again with some friends but it's like $30 a person or something crazy like that. You are locked into this room and have to find a bunch of clues and piece them together to find the key to get you out. It was a super fun idea. We weren't successful, unfortunately.

Our group! Our room was "Sherlock Holmes" themed.

The coat doesn't quite fit. Or the hat. He actually put that pipe in his mouth just FYI...ewwww

Tuesday evening we had a celebration for my Grandparents for their 60th wedding anniversary!! WOW!! We had them cut a cake, we all ate cupcakes and watched a video presentation my Dad put together for them. I admire my grandparents so much!

Me creepily watching from behind...

Since I'm tagged in this pic on FB, my friend Allie (on of my Laurels) sent me this pic with the caption "When ur laughing at other peoples joke and they don't realize you're listening" Hahahahaha too funny:

Wednesday was Skydiving day!!! Billy was too scared to go skydiving so he got a massage instead :) I was pretty jealous of him though as we were rising higher and higher in that dinky little plane. Skydiving is quite the ordeal. You have to basically sign your life away. Then you have to wait like a bazillion hours even if you have a reservation. Then they get you geared up real quick, give you barely any instruction or encouragement, then take you up in a rickety old plane and push you out. All in all it was a terrifying experience for me that I will be fine never having again. Cody feels the same way, mostly because he got super motion sick while parachuting down.

Jumping out of the plane was the weirdest and scariest feeling ever. Then falling I was not relaxed at all, I felt totally out of control. When the guy finally pulled the parachute and asked "how was it?!" I was like "that was TERRIBLE!" and he was pretty bummed about that but it was really scary. It was fun parachuting down though. I was most nervous for the landing but we just slid on our bums and it was no big deal. I asked Rob to take pictures with my phone and he took that as "photo shoot with my phone" so I have a TON of pictures of me getting dressed. It's really awesome. Thanks, Rob.

"You don't have to take pictures of EVERYTHING" He didn't listen. But it's fine.

Meeting my instructor and he looks pained to be in my presence

Blake admiring Cody

Magical eye contact...jk jk

Teaching me what to do kind of

The first group of sky divers

floating down

Landing

Afterwards Cody and I watched our videos and we both laughed so hard and then decided we definitely did NOT want to buy them. They were both embarrassing and not flattering. At least mine wasn't. I was grimacing the whole time and my goggles were up in my eyeballs so I couldn't see anything. They were like $70 to buy them anyway...barf. Next we had to wait for Blake, Rob, and Dan to skydive. Then we had to hurry and leave to get to go-karting in time for the go-kart group. I went home though and got ready for family pictures which we took that evening since we had our whole family together for the first time in forever! We still haven't gotten the pics back from the photographer though so hopefully they turned out.

Thursday was temple day. Everyone who can go to the temple went and did a session together, then we went and did family sealings together. Grandpa is a sealer in the Newport temple so we all got to just sit in a sealing room together and talk forever, while also doing sealings intermittently. It was really great.

After the temple we went back to the hotel and not sure what we did then that made us late to the service project that night, but we were late and then got lost on the way to the service project. It was still fun though. We went and sorted food at a food bank that Grandpa works at regularly.

Lots of people put their "volunteer" tags on Barbara without her noticing. It was hilarious. She was a good sport.

Friday was a free day. My mom and I did a tabata workout in the morning. Then we hung out by the pool for most of the day. It was awesome! Friday night we roasted marshmallows around one of the big fire pits. Super fun night chatting with cousins and having a good time.

Saturday morning it was time to say goodbye :( Each morning and evening we had devotionals which were given by different grandchildren. I have a few pics from those different assorted gatherings.