Count your many blessings...

My little family has much to count. Especially with a fourth of July family celebration that we had. Our family celebrated in style. O.k. in camp out style, but still it was all festivities and more. We celebrated our(my dad's side) family reunion during the fourth. My dad's oldest sister, Sue's family was hosting this years event and it was wonderful. It began on the second and ended on the fifth. During that time we sang and danced, some played a uke or guitar, most swam in the bay, played games and of course caught up on what was going on in each others lives. You'll have to excuse me, because when I say reunion, I mean party all day and all night, until it's time to go home. And party we can, my dad is the youngest of eleven and each of them have a few kids, and they too have theirs and so on and so on. All in all, we have a number that rounds about to three hundred in my dad's family alone. I know, as your eyes almost pop out of their sockets, we always have a great time with each other. Here are a few photos of what went on.

Thank goodness for portable DVD players, my kids would not stay put in the tent, so we had to distract them with the Disney movie, Cars. Trust me, it was either that or suffer with a ton of mosquito bites, take your pick. We hung out, laughing, teasing and just plain old relaxing and really being grateful for a time like this, to reminisce and thanking Heavenly Father for such a great family to belong to.


We had tug of war, relay racing and a balloon popping contest in the lake. Yes, yes, everyone was grinning from ear to ear.

I am so sorry, I didn't mention that this years theme was "Count your many blessings," and because it was held during the birthday of our country, the host family had each family pick out of a bowl a state of the U.S. that they would be representing. We had from oldest to the youngest, Uncle Ti's family, they were Hawaii, Uncle Kime's family was the state of Texas, Uncle Teni's family, the state of Maine, Uncle Tolo's family, the state of Alabama, Auntie Sue's family, the state of New York, Uncle Tuli's family was the state of Louisiana, Auntie Fehi's family was the state of Alaska, Uncle Pita's family, the state of New Mexico, Auntie Tofi's family was the state of Idaho and our family, we were the state of South Dakota. Each family was encourage to find out more about their state and present a dish from their state. I googled South Dakota everything and the most common known thing about that state, is you guessed it Mount Rushmore. Thursday night was our big cook off, we began at four in the afternoon and had about three to four hours to complete our dishes to be judged by the cook off committee. My hubby and I were given a great tip on a great dutch oven recipe from a friend and while googling South Dakota favorite camping dishes, we found one that was almost exactly like the one our friend gave us. If you are a dutch oven enthusiast or want to be here is a recipe for it.

This is what ours looked like. Please forgive us, if it doesn't look like yours, it was our first time cooking with one. We'll for sure cook with it again.

Hearty Potatoes(for one eight quart dutch oven)

• One package of peppered bacon, sliced into one inch squares
• Yellow, green and red bell pepper each, chopped to your liking
• Four mushrooms(if desired), chopped fine
• One whole yellow onion, diced fine
• Twelve large potatoes, chopped into cubes(the bigger the cubes are, the longer it would need to cook)
• Cheese(whatever you prefer), sprinkle on top and let melt, before serving

Once your dutch oven is hot and ready, pour peppered bacon into pot. Once the bacon is well cooked mix in the bell peppers, mushrooms, onions and cook until onions are transparent and bell peppers have softened. Pour in potato cubes and mix well, do not pour out bacon grease, let it coat the whole mix. Then once the potatoes have softened, or turned into mashed potatoes(it takes about an hour to an hour and a half to cook completely), sprinkle cheese on top, let melt and serve hot. You'll love it. Serves about ten to twelve.

• Tip: If you are cooking with charcoals, you'll want to cook with the minus four, plus four method. Measure the diameter of the dutch oven lid. IE. an eight quart dutch oven usually measures out twelve inches in diameter, so you'll want twelve coals for the top and twelve for the bottom, but before you start cooking, you'll want to minus four of the coals from the top and add them to the bottom. So there should be eight at the top and sixteen at the bottom. That is three hundred and fifty degrees cooking your food.

It's really whatever you want in it.

And the whole smorgasbord was delish, we had kalua pig, lobster, shrimp boil, watermelon smoothies, clam chowder, churros, fried chicken, and a potato bar. We ate like royalty.

Our daughter, making her point of how hungry she was getting.

Here is what our kids looked like after camping, totally beat. They were even that way the next day.

Oh yeah! Here's a few the my family on the last day of the reunion. We couldn't have asked for anything more.