The Pollard Family: Ainsworth Family Reunion

A little over a week ago we flew to Reno so that we could attend the Ainsworth Family Reunion. We had a blast! The trip started out rough when we got to the airport Wednesday night only to discover that our flight was delayed by 2 hours.....which wouldn't be such a big deal if our flight wasn't originally scheduled to leave at 9pm. We didn't get to the hotel until about 1am and didn't get to bed until 3. You'd think Hannah would be sleeping throughout those late hours of travel....but no. She was very awake most of the time. The flight delay was the only bad part about our trip. We had a lot of fun with our Ainsworth relatives.

The reunion started on Friday so we had all day Thursday to play around at Lake Tahoe with my parent's and little (well, he used to be) brother David. We went on a cruise across the Lake to Emerald Bay and had amazing prime rib sandwiches on board. Hannah did really well on the cruise and liked looking overboard at the water. There were actors dressed up on the boat who represented different people from the time period when Tahoe was originally settled. We learned a lot of trivial information. For instance: Lake Tahoe has enough water to fulfill the water needs of the United States for 5 years. Pretty impressive if you ask me. We ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants ever: Fire and Ice. It is a Mongolian barbecue, but quite upscale in comparison to most. We finished the night with Cold Stone. Have I mentioned that (to my great satisfaction) vacations in my family are mostly about food? Nobody goes hungry, and everyone is stuffed as happy as a clam.

Friday we ate breakfast (I had the best french toast ever) and then headed to Virginia City (I'm having too much fun with posting links :-) to meet up with more family. Before doing much you wouldn't be surprised to know that we found this awesome barbecue restaurant and helped our selves to some tasty pulled pork sandwiches. We met up with extended family at the park and had fun introducing everyone to Jake and Hannah. That night we headed back to my Uncle John's farm and helped ourselves to a yummy spaghetti feast. Did we have enough food yet? The answer would be "No", we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home that night. I love how we love food.

Saturday we went back to Virginia City to meet up with my older brother Paul. He introduced us to one of my new favorite Mexican restaurants. After lunch we headed back to the farm where the reunion was taking place. They roasted a pig Hawaiian style in a pit. It turned out very tasty. We spent the majority of the evening just talking with family, taking pictures, eating dessert, and eating smores before we all went our separate directions. The reunion was quite a success with about 120 family members making it out for the events. It was the first family reunion in 7 years but hopefully we can make it a more frequent tradition in the years to come.

Sunday we flew back home. It's always hard to say goodbye to family, especially since I know how much they miss "baby Hannah" when she's not there to melt their hearts with her smiles, giggles, and slobbery kisses. Speaking of slobbery kisses, both grandma Geri and David got kisses from Hannah, which is a rare commodity if you are not mommy. Grandma Geri got her kiss while we were eating lunch at the Mexican restaurant with Paul. Grandma picked her up off the table and stood her up on her lap facing away from her. Hannah turned around planted her open lips right on Grandma's cheek. Grandma said she wanted to cry because she had been wanting a kiss from her all weekend. Uncle David also wanted a kiss and she surprised him with one when he picked her up first thing in the morning. It was so sweet to watch both David and my mom's reactions when she kissed them. They turned to Putty in her cute chubby little hands :-)

Hannah did extremely well with all the traveling and flying. Our hotel was an hour away from the farm where the reunion was, so we were in the car or plane quite a bit. She was either sleeping or playing and only cried once (I couldn't blame her for it though because it was a windy road and I wasn't feeling too great myself). On the plane ride back to SLC we got several comments about what an amazing, happy, and beautiful baby we have because she did so well on the flight. I would have to agree with them, Hannah is such a doll, inside and out.

Kodak moment before getting on the boat.