Browne family reunion 2018

this year's reunion took a relaxed approach of doing whatever we felt like whenever we felt like doing it.... and it was awesome!

we had a beach day filled with boat rides, swimming,  floating along the current, sand castles, creature finding, sandy snacks, and shell finding.

rik and I relived our childhood and worked on a drip castle together that was eventually washed away when the tide came in.

another fun activity was when we went to an escape room! grandma and grandpa stayed home with little ones and watched Peter Rabbit while the three oldest grandkids and adults split up and did two escape rooms. it was SO FUN!

of course we went out for a sweet treat afterwards

Chris had the chocolate dipped key lime pie and thought of his dad with every bite :)

the reunion happened to fall on both grandma and Chris' birthdays, so we celebrated with strawberry shortcakes made by Larissa on the 27th and chocolate cake made by me on the 29th.

we went to Sun-N-Fun Lagoon for a morning and went on all the awesome slides, floated the lazy river, dove off the high dive, and swam until we were pruny. afterwards, Chris and Jacob picked up some Fernandez The Bull and we had a picnic outside the park before the rain started. nothing better than a Cuban sandwich after a long morning of swimming!

another reunion event that took place was our first ever sand sculpting competition!

grandpa split us into 4 teams, each with 2 adults and 1-2 kids. we were given an hour or so, some money to run to the store and buy whatever we wanted to help decorate our sculptures, and then we got building!

Alli, Jacob, and Everett's team went with a Disney's Castle theme, complete with sparkles and lit windows.

Chris and I had Louie and Charlie on our team. after a quick planning meeting, we decided on a Pokemon (Charlie's idea!) Under the Sea (Lou's idea!) theme. it had glow sticks that made the party last well into the night!

Bo and Larissa had Ashton and Ellie on their team and they made the coolest, fiery, car ramp that led up to a tank full of real goldfish!

and the last team was Rikki and Andrew with Sophie and Jack. they sculpted jack into a shell-clad mermaid complete with under water bubbles!

the talent was overwhelming so imagine our surprise when team Brower won!

I think the judges were so confused by the amazing sculptures that in the end they picked the team that might not handle losing too well... Chris can get very upset ;)

after our sand sculpting competition, we had a rib cook off and bo completed it with tooting lessons for the cousins.

one afternoon we went to the park for some kite flying with grandpa! he had a kite for each of the grandkids. when we first set out, it started to rain and was windy. it felt great and the kites were flying high! but pretty soon, the rain passed and it was super muggy with no wind. but we had a great time flying kites followed by some refreshing watermelon.

one evening everyone swam at Rikki and Andrew's community pool, followed by bowling!

we had our usual dart game at the church followed by pizza, which is always a fun time! I think other families might look at us like we are crazy and intense when we do this activity, but its all done in good fun and everyone has a great time! except maybe for that one time when I shot Larissa just below her eye. I was aiming for someone behind her and she bent over just as the dart was flying and it got her so hard. I still feel so bad about that! it was a solid smack!!!

the men took the little ones to the park and splash pad one evening while dinner was being made and the kids had a blast

little sam kept putting his eyes right on the fountain, poor guy

we were able to do so many fun things during our reunion! 

but one thing that everyone loves to do in between all of the activities is just hang out at grandma and grandpa's! we swim in the pool then ride bikes and the go-cart to dry off, we play board games and fish, we watch movies and snuggle with grandma and grandpa, we chase lizards and catch snails off the sea wall! 

this kid came a long way since our last visit when he wouldn't get his ears wet!

he is now holding his breath and swimming under the water.

you know you've been playing hard when everyone sleeps like this:

the only down side to this reunion was that Delayna, Tony, Quinn, and Lani couldn't be with us. we missed them so, so much!!!