St. George in July...

Only one thing could induce us to pack up our baby and leave the land of 80-degree loveliness for the fiery inferno that is Southern Utah in the summer.

That one thing?  The chance to wear a family reunion T-shirt.

Or in Lola's case, a family reunion onesie.

Despite the heat, we had a smokin' time [he, he] with the Ivins clan.  Lola fell in love with several of her cousins, including cousin Zack.  We may have to sit her down and have a talk.  Either that, or send her to Arkansas.

Aside from eating ridiculous amounts of food, playing ridiculous amounts of tennis and doing ridiculous amounts of shopping, we also partook in the traditional family reunion activities required at such shindigs, including pulling tissues from a tissue box at lightning speed and balancing ding dongs on top of our heads.

Wait, your family doesn't do that?  Huh.

The girls ditched the boys and the babies one afternoon for a few hours of pampering, complete with massages, chocolate, gourmet sandwiches, Diet Coke, chick magazines and pedicures.

It. Was. Awesome.

The whole event was in celebration of two of our favorite people on this earth, Grandma Nani and Granddad.

Because really, who couldn't adore them?

Though the weekend was wonderful for many reasons, perhaps the best one was the opportunity we had to get in some quality time with Reece's immediate family.  We live within 15 minutes of most of them, but life gets crazy and we don't get to see them nearly as much as we would like.  So we made the most of the time we had and sent them home praying they wouldn't have to see us again for another couple of months.

To sum it up, even though stepping outside felt like instant suffocation, we would do it all over again in exchange for another weekend with this crazy bunch.  But as a word of warning, I might not bring clothes next time.