All about Paige (take 2)

This is just because a lot of family members don't read my blog...but they read this one.

You could retaliate Paige if you had a blog but you don't.

Alright Paige, I promised you a blog so a blog is what your going to get. Muhahaha...

I have a younger sister named Paige. gone are the days I can call her my "little sister". Some children go from crayons to perfumes, Page went from pompoms to standard issued militarily boots. (but she still smells good). She has the Midas gift when it comes to trying new things and always seems to have beginners luck when playing games, even if it's the millionth time she's played it. Paige's favorite thing in the whole world is to travel the whole world. She likes to cook but doest have a clue of how to do it. She also likes Zack. Zack joined the church a while ago and Paige was surprised when people starting asking her when they are going to get married. I guess it has been obvious to everyone but her. I have never even seen Zack except on Skype one time. He lives in Alaska. I don't. Paige wants to.

I love Paige.

Family Reunion

Hey all! We finally nailed down our location and dates for the family reunion. We are headed to Westmoreland State Park in Virgina. They have paddle boat rentals, swimming pool, hiking trails and one of the days we will be headed to DC (only 2 hours away!) It will be a lot of fun.

The dates are June 19th-24 that is checking in on Sunday and checking out on Friday morning. If you want to stay longer feel free but after talking with a lot of you it sounds like these dates will work fine.

As it stands now:
Mom and Dad cabin
Del and Christine cabin
Eryn and Stan camping
Kristen and Mike cabin
Tanya camping
Rachelle and Hyrum cabin
DeNae and Stan camping
Riann cabin (share with mom and dad)
Paige cabin (share with mom and dad)

The cabins are all 2 bedroom, one queen bed and two twin beds
The camping site is called a "buddy" site and so all the campers will be together at one site and there is space for family meal gathering and campfires.

I can't wait to see you all next summer:)
Love you,
Rachelle

Tanya

No, really, read this from the bottom (of the bottom post) I will eventually get the hang of this.
This is at the Ryman auditorium where we saw the Grand Ole Opry. It was beautiful!
Some super flamboyant singer named Martin Stuart, apparently he was really popular at the same time as tight leather pants and teal sequins. It was AWESOME!
Vince Gill rocking out with the 'steel' player to the right. I didnt' know this, but the steel guitar is a table with legs, strings across the top and knee levers for different sounds. Why they call this thing a guitar is beyond me but it sounds really great with a bass, banjo and twangy crooner!
Little Jimmy Dickens hosted the show the night we went. He was old when I was watching Hee-Haw in 3rd grade. He's even older now but his jokes are just about the same. It was hilarious!
The venue was a lot more laid back than I expected, considering all of the prestige singing on this stage is supposed to bring. It was a live radio show and honestly my favorite part was the old-timey commercials "That yodeling was really good, wasn't that really good folks? You know what else is really good? Being able to pick up everything you or your family needs at the Dollar General store!"
It was fine until I looked up, this was the ceiling, creepy, eh?
It looks like Ri-Ri is about to be swallowed by some slimy sea creature
Tentacles and fangs
A Dr. Suess Birthday cake found some Nashville fringe and got banished underground
Liz, Riann and Tia in the caves.

Can we only post 5 pics at a time? You other ladies seemed to be able to do more than that. I think I need a tutorial.

Tanya

Well, I guess that I did this backwards, just imagine that you are reading this from the bottom up. This is inside Mammoth cave. Riann and I visited the Mammoth Cave National State Park and Nashville last weekend with our friend Liz. It was really cool and rather creepy in here.
This formation totally looked like organ pipes, it was really weird, didn't look natural at all. The guide said that these stalagtites grow at the rate of one inch every hundred years, that formation represents a very long time...
Liz and I climbing down into the bowels of the earth. The good news is that even though it was hovering around 100 degrees on the surface, it was in the high 50's down there, it felt NICE!
Riann and I were up at first light and we finally had to wake Liz up after all of our stuff was packed and we were cleaned up and had eaten breakfast. That lazy bones would never had passed muster in a Johnson camping trip. When we got to the state park it was 10:45 and too dark and quiet to set up the tent so we just slept out. It was good.
Riann enjoying cheerios and yoplait that she packed for us. I'm glad she was there!

One more time, boys!

So I'm re-doing this post in the cliff-notes version. But now I'm jaded so it's not going to be witty and clever, just warning you.

So I went to the festival of San Fermin, more commonly known as the running of the bulls. It was awesome.

Monday: Our connection from Madrid to Pamplona was canceled after waiting for 6 hrs in the airport, so they redirected us to San Sabastian which is a gorgeous coastal city in the north. Then they put us in taxis and we drove to Pamplona. It was a crazy day of travel, but at least I had a good view!


Tuesday: We had a traditional European breakfast of juice and stale bread for $15 and headed to the opening ceremony of the festival. Thousands of people cram into the medieval town square. People hanging from the balconies, everyone dousing other people with booze, mostly Sangria, but there was champagne and beer being sprayed around, too. (insert: I went with friends from work and there was a lot of alcohol consumption occurring, I don't judge, neither should you) Anyway, I don't know if you can get drunk by wine seeping into your pores, but if you can, I would have been. We were all covered. At noon a rocket goes off announcing the start of San Fermin. Confetti is bombed out on the crowd with cannons, people go nuts, it's just an all-around good time. Here are before and after pics:




Also of note- the streets were literally running with wine. Can honestly say I've never seen that before.


There were also child-assassins running around with super-soakers spraying unsuspecting passers-by.

When in Pamplona, you must pay tribute to Ernest Hemingway.


Wednesday: We woke up before dawn to get a good spot to watch the first bull-run of the week. I couldn't help taking this picture of the aftermath of the first day/night of partying. It looks like Armageddon has come and gone. It was actually kind of eery wandering around here.


We found a nice view of Pamplona from the city wall. It's a beautiful area.


We didn't make it to the spot we wanted to watch the run from in time to get a great view so we headed to the stadium where the run ends instead. After the initial 6 full-grown bulls run in and through and right back out they release younger bulls with cork caps on their horns into the crowd of people that actually ran the run. This lasts for about an hour and there are usually a couple of injuries resulting. Crazy.


After the run and the fun in the ring we wandered around the city and stumbled upon the San Fermin procession. It was a fun parade with big-heads and man-horses. Kind of fun!


After a nap, we headed to the bull fight. The 6 bulls who run in the morning are the ones that face of with the matador in the evening. I didn't know that bull fights were to the death, and it was actually a little disturbing towards the end, but watching the matador dance with the bull was really really cool. I only stayed for two fights and then I went back to the hotel and watched Spain trounce Germany in the World Cup quarter finals. I was sad that Germany lost, but the Spaniards definitely know how to celebrate: with fireworks well into the night. Well well well into the night. :)


Thursday: We got up early again (4am) to get a good seat to watch the beginning of the run. This is the very start of the run where the statue of San Fermin is. These guys are chanting a prayer for safety. GOOD LUCK!

Here's the actual run, I don't have pics because I was taping it. Enjoy!

EH, TORO, EH!!!!!!

Well, family, this is my very first blogging experience. I've posted comments on YOUR blogs before, but when it comes to original postings I am a blirgin, if you will. So we'll see how this goes.

And that's what I did last week.


I love you all, miss you, and i'm with rachelle, UPDATE US, PEOPLE! what's new?

Love, Paige


****ok, i just spent literally the last 2 hours of my day typing a huge long post telling you all about my trip to pamplona for the running of the bulls. with every detail i remember. i went to upload a video in the post and the screen flashed and what you see above is all that is left of my post. is this some kind of sick joke? what are the odds that it would only keep those phrases? i think i might cry, but i dont know how that would help anyone so i'm just going to say, I OFFICIALLY HATE BLOGS and leave it at that.****

Rachelle

Hey family! Did you know you can post photos on this "blog" thing too? Here are just a few from my camera and a few I stole from DeNae's camera of our family get together in Arizona...enjoy:)

I would love to see some photos from Tia's new house and hear what Del and Christine are up to since we didn't get to see them last month. Come on guys, what else do you have to do at night after the kids go to bed? Post on the blog!

Julian loves the water

Eryn and little Rachel

Auntie Ri Ri saves the day

Mom and Kristen

Poolside fun

Grandma Johnson cooling off with Ethan and Sam

Grandma and Grandpa with the grand kids (we missed you Johnson cousins!!)

Dad being adored by his daughters on Father's Day

Cute cousin pic

3 generations of hotties:)

Me and Mam

A formal sister picture (where was Christine?)

Dad getting a laugh out of his Father's Day card

Mattie, Ethan and Emerson

While in Utah Paige got engaged and Zach went ALL OUT on that engagement ring! (Actually Paige is wearing about 7 different rings collected from ladies around the table at PF Changs)

I finally got my little GIRL!! (Thanks DeNae for letting me borrow Leah's pj's)