Samuel's Baby Blessing!

On Friday the 13th of June, we blessed Samuel in Phoenix, AZ. We were already together with Ben's family, except for his parents who are on a mission in Alaska, for our Family Reunion and figured that would be the best opportunity. We also figured that Phoenix would be a lot easier to get to than Midland from Orange County, so I asked my family to fly in for the weekend. It worked out perfectly except for the fact that Mary could not make it because she was still in Hawaii, and David's wife Stacey had her brother's high school graduation. We missed them both very much but were very grateful that my parents, Debbie, and David made the special trip for us. This was the first time David & Debbie met Samuel. We went shopping Friday morning, then met everyone at In-N-Out for Lunch, then did some more shopping before we went back to Heidi's house for the blessing. After we took some pictures, we went out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, on Stan. It was yummy! Then Katelyn, Samuel, and I spent the night with my parents and Debbie at the hotel. Overall it was a great day. Thank you to both of our wonderful families for celebrating with us and making it such a special day. We are very lucky!

He slept through the whole thing, just like his big sister!

My immediate family(minus Mary & Stacey)

Ben's immediate family(minus his parents & without the 5 of us)
Castletons are slacking!


Britt, Dave, Ben, Samuel, Mike, Glenn, David, Stan

Poppy & his Princess!

Uncle David. I love this picture!

Proud Parents

Deb made him smile all night long.



Aunt Debbie

Poppy

Ashton Family Renuion!

We got back Sunday from a week long Ashton Family Reunion in Phoenix and we are exhausted! We had so-o much fun we didn't want to leave and come home to reality. All 27 of us stayed at my sister-in-law Heidi's house, which amazingly enough fit us all perfectly. Everyday was full of different activities. I apologies for the super long post but it was hard to narrow down the pictures from the 2,ooo plus that we all took.

The boys got to play 18 holes of golf while...

The mom's got pedicures (my first time in 3 years, yikes!)

We played in the pool



We went to Sedona State Park

Down the freezing cold rock slide

We went to Waterworld

"B" for Ben, clever!

We had a talent show where Ben's talent was to challenge his 10 and 12 year old nephews to stuffing large marshmellows in his mouth.

He made it to 24. I am so proud.

Living in Midland, we are deprived of many restaurants that I have grown to love so I was very excited when we got to eat at.....

P.F. Changs

In-N-Out

and The Cheesecake Factory!

The kids played dress up all week long

Apparently I have ginormous kids. Katelyn is only two months older than her cousin Tyler, and Samuel is 8 months younger than his cousin Kayla. Wow!



Can you resist this?

Samuel loves his cousin Claire

On the drive home we stopped at the Texas Canyon rest stop and took some pictures of the cool boulders. These pictures don't do it justice.