Our First Annual Contratto/Lambourne Family Reunion

reading a friends blog, which talked about having an annual family trip to St. George, I was inspired to start our own annual family trip/reunion. So this year, I planned the first one, which I called the pre-annual family reunion because it was just going to be dinner. I figured we could use the time to discuss options for the ones to follow. I think Jackson Hole is going to win :)

We had dinner and a campfire at storm mountain picnic area in Big Cottonwood Canyon and then roasted marshmallows. Joe and I took all the kids rock climbing and they did awesome!

It was great to see everyone. I hope that we get an even better response at next years and get some of the out of towners there. We really missed Raquel's family, Illi would havew loved the rock climbing!

Thanks everyone for participating!

See you for a long weekend next August! Invites to come out soon!

PS I updated my whole summer today so look further for more pics and stories!

Rock Climbing Pics From The Family Reunion

Jasmine climbing

Aspen climbing

Jaden rockin it!

Little Sage isn't scared!

Our day at Snowbird

One of our good friends, Bill, works at Snowbird and invited us up for his work party!

I brought Jaden, Zane, Alexis, and Illiana up for a day of fun and a bbq dinner!

We started on the bungee trampolines where Jaden did a ton of flips and Illiana spent her time trying. She almost made it! This is a cute pic of zane giving Jaden a kiss.

Lexi and Zane hung out while Jaden and Illi jumped. Then Illi and I rock climbed on the climbing wall they have and Alexis, Jaden, and Zane mined rocks. After that Bill got off work and we all headed up to the Alpine slide. Jaden and bill went and then Alexis, I, and Illi went. I am chicken, I went slow!

This is a pic of Illi and I on the Alpine slide.
We then went down and had dinner.

Jaden, after two years of being too small, was finally able to go on the zipline, he did have the help of two large rocks in his pockets when he weighed in! You have to be at least 75 lbs, and he only weighs about 70, he yelled down to me after he weighed in, "Guess what mom, I weigh 80 lbs!" I just gave him a thumbs up and hoped the rocks wouldn't fall out of his pockets and hit someone on the head as he was going down!

I then went on the zipline and Jaden rode the mechanical bull.

Thanks Bill for a fun day!

More Pics From Snowbird

Jaden doing tricks on the trampoline.

Jaden and Bill coming down the alpine slide!

Illiana rock climbing!

Cute Zaners in the bouncer.

Zane and Alexis.

Zane is ONE!!

Zane had his first birthday on July 7. I can't believe he is already one!

We moved into our new house in Lehi on July4 and have been very busy ever since, so I put together a very last minute party at my mom's house. We had a bbq, went swimming, and the kids played on the playground. It was a small turn out but everyone had fun.

Zane got lots of toys! Thanks everyone! His favorite is the "Cozy Car" he can scoot around in from my mom and Emily.

About a week after his first birthday, Zane started to walk and has been cruisin around ever since. A week after he learned to walk he climbed up his first ladder. I was standing on top of the ladder doing touch up paint work in our new house, when I felt something move the ladder. I looked down and saw Zane standing right below me.

Maybe Joe will have someone to get him up those big walls in Yosemite after all, looks like climbing is in Zane's blood. Lol.

joes second injury for the month

My poor husband crashed his bike trying to do a jump at the skate park.

He tore three ligaments completely off the bone that hold his shoulder joint together.

I made him go to work.

j/k, well sort of......

To Move or Not to Move.............................

I randomly look at houses for sale on the internet. I like my house, but in the back of my mind I always want to move. Since it is the house that I grew up in, I have never quite felt like it is my own. Well I found a house that I absolutely love!! So I showed it to Joe and he liked it too. We took the next step and called one of our friends who is a real estate agent so that he could look farther into it. Well he called us back and said that it was a short sale and that it was a half million dollar home for 289000. However, if we want to buy this home we couldn't have any contigencies. We would have to be approved for the loan and have sold our house prior to making any offers on short sales, Basically this house will be gone before we could put an offer in on it. He did say however, that there are tons of short sales and forclosures, many that have never even been lived in. Mostly in Lehi, Saratoga Springs, Draper, and Herriman. So being the impulsive people that we are we got pre-approved for our loan and have started getting our house ready to sale. Hopefully, it will be up by the end of the month. We will then live with my mom or get an apartment for a short while while we bid on homes. Scary to get rid of our house without a house picked out, but hopefully a good investment in the end. The only thing that I am worried about is finding a house that doesn't have an HOA, we do not want to pay someone so they can tell us what we can and can't do to our home. Who ever even came up with something so stupid and why are people willing to let someone dictate what they can and cannot do with something they OWN!!!